An Interview with Anne Hamilton

I am an author, editor and creative writing tutor who lives between Edinburgh, Scotland and Co. Mayo in the West of Ireland, with my teenage son and our dog. After a first career in social work and community health, in my forties, I studied for my PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, and since then have read at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and for Pitch Perfect at the Bloody Scotland Festival. My travel memoir, A Blonde Bengali Wife (LL-Publications 2010) was the inspiration behind the Bangladesh-based charity Bhola’s Children, of which I remain an active trustee. I have several short pieces published in anthologies and online, notably in Edinburgh One City Trust’s anthology, The People’s City (Birlinn 2022). Also in that year, I was shortlisted for the Primadonna Prize and longlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Award. The Almost Truth (Legend Press 2024) is my first novel, unpublished, which also won the Irish Novel Fair.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

As a child I was very shy and at school was regularly blamed for other students’ mistakes or misdemeanours, because I was too quiet to stand up for myself. It also meant I was considered very slow by the teachers. One day, when I was six, the ‘clever ones’ were asked to write a story, retelling the tale of The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg; the rest (me, included) has to draw a picture. Even back then, I was terrible at drawing but I loved reading! So, I rebelled, and I wrote the story; I laboured over it for days. Grudgingly, the teacher read it – and I still remember the confused praise she gave me before reading it out to the class. That was the day I started to write – though it took another thirty or forty years for my writing career to gain any (modest) momentum.

What inspired you to start writing this book?

The Almost Truth is billed as ‘an extraordinary story based on real events’ and is set over three timelines in Dublin, Edinburgh, and Bhola, Bangladesh. I’ve spent years living in each of these countries, so the locations are authentic, but the story itself is not mine, and I’m not Alina or Sanna, the main characters. The inspiration comes from two friends of mine. Neither of them knew each other, but both were living interesting and unusual lives that arose from their personal identities and family circumstances, and both (going back several years now) independently felt wholly underrepresented in books and publishing. They were readers not writers, and I promised – somehow – to write their stories. The result is The Almost Truth, a highly fictionalised and combined account.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

The novel was originally titled ‘But,’ arising from the concept that all of life’s big decisions come with a But… However, as the publisher pointed out, it was very difficult to categorise or shelve it! So we put our heads together to re-title it. In the book, Alina, the protagonist, makes three far-reaching decisions that skew the truth slightly, and in doing so change several lives dramatically. Hence, The Almost Truth was born.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

There is no soundtrack to The Almost Truth, something that hadn’t occurred to me until now. And it’s interesting because my second novel, The Island in April (forthcoming May 2025) has both an intrinsic musical component and several songs at its heart.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I’m something of a jack-of-all-trades. Originally, I started out as a social worker, concentrating on children’s health. This led me to study community health and epidemiology, with optometry as a side-line. This combination is what ultimately sent me to Bangladesh – where I’ve now worked on and off for twenty-two years – and to Tanzania. Until I had my son in 2010, and simultaneously took the plunge to follow a writing/editing career, I’d always worked in the welfare or charity sector.

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

My biggest hope is that readers fall in love with the characters; I’d like Alina, Sanna, Elizabeth and Khalya (amongst others!) to linger in readers’ memories long after the novel is finished.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.