Arthur Phillips

Fiction

Interviewed by: Angela Elam

Catalog Number(s): 20160603, 20120615, 20110826

Interview Year(s): 2011

From his first novel, Prague, which became an acclaimed best-seller in 2002, to his fifth novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, Arthur Phillips has been writing widely varied novels about subjects that naturally pique his interest. He discusses the challenges of writing in the voice of William Shakespeare and weaving metafictional elements into his newest novel, a faux memoir about the discovery of a lost Shakespeare play. We’ll also hear a bit about his previous novel Angelica, released as a film in 2015, and how it started him on his Shakespearean adventure. This interview was recorded as part of the 2011 Writers at Work series at the Kansas City Public Library, which is the Missouri home for the 2016 nationwide Folger’s tour of the Bard’s First Folio.