Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Gavin McCrea was born in Dublin in 1978 and has since travelled widely, living in Japan, Belgium and Italy, among other places. He holds a BA and an MA from University College Dublin, and an MA and a PhD from the University of East Anglia. He currently divides his time between the UK and Spain.
Gavin McCrea's website
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How did you stumble across the life of Lizzie Burns?
What compelled you to write Mrs. Engels from the perspective of a working-class, illiterate Irishwoman who left no historical record?
I came across Lizzie Burns by chance. I saw her name in a newspaper review of Tristram Hunt's biography of Frederick Engels, and I was intrigued. I had no idea that Engels had had a relationship with an poor Irishwoman. I began to search for information about Lizzie, but I couldn't find much. Because she was illiterate and left no diaries or letters of her own, Lizzie remains a ghost in the record. Lizzie is mentioned in the Marx-Engels correspondence but has no real historical "weight" of her own. When I discovered that Engels had also had a relationship with her older sister, Mary, I knew I had to write the story.
I also knew that I would have to write it in first-person, from Lizzie's perspective. As a writer, I am interested in the creation of the illusion of "mind," and I wanted to give Lizzie a "mind" that appears larger, more forceful, more fully realized than those of the now-famous personages who surrounded her. I liked the idea of turning a slight historical figure into a massive fictional character.
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