‘“I thought it would be interesting to take a look at people who use words – people who are very good at using words – for profit, to change people’s minds, to create narratives”

Now selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, Natasha Brown returns with a dazzling second novel. 

Natasha Brown’s first novel, Assembly, was one of the most-fêted literary debuts of recent years. Shortlisted for, among others, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, it also saw her named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023. Her second novel, Universality, more than delivers on the promise of her first. It is terrific; a pin-sharp, savagely funny tale of class, wealth and manipulation. “I’ve always been really interested in this question of language,” says Brown, who is a warm and softly spoken interviewee, when we meet in a cosy bar in south-east London. Whereas Assembly was concerned with how the unnamed narrator, a Black British woman, “interacts with the words around her, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at people who use words – people who are very good at using words – for profit, to change people’s minds, to create narratives.”’

Read the full interview in the Bookseller here.