Author name: Odalisque

Times Like These Written by  Janae McIntosh In her debut novel, The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley blends history, science fiction, and an inti-mate exploration of migration and belonging. The novel follows time-travellers displaced from their respective eras, thrust into modern Britain, and forced to navigate their new reality under the watchful eye of a mysterious government ministry. In thisconversation with Ulrika Lindqvist, Bradley discusses the emotional heart of her novel, the complexities of language, and the personal inspirations that shaped her storytelling. From British polar exploration to generational trauma, and even her admiration for Terry Pratchett, Bradley offers insight into her writ- ing process, the themes that drive her work, and what we can expect from her next book. Ulrika Lindqvist: The Ministry of Time covers time- travelling and early on in the book, the narrator states that we don’t need to know how thisworks, is that a way for you to not go into the sci-fi elements or physics too much?Kaliane Bradley: Exactly, so even though I was very interested in the sci-fi tropes it was important to me that the book was understood as someone’s emotional journey. So I wanted to foreground the emotional journey of time travellers rather than the physics of time travel and the kind of hard sci-fi prospects of time travelling. And that’s not because I don’t enjoy reading about that but I think it wasn’t what I wanted to focus on for this book. And so, it’s a slightly cheeky way to signalto the reader early on “Sorry this isn’t straight science fiction, you’re getting a mixture of genres here”. UL: There are so many themes going through this novel but one that stood out to me was linguistics. A big discussion is what to call the migrants, which is the word used in the Swedish translation. KB: That’s so interesting! In the English version, they’re called expats, which is a very politically loaded word. It’s generally applied to people from very privileged backgrounds in the sense that they can move wherever they want and return anytime they want, often in the UK it’s applied to white British people. Whereas there’s a conversation very early on in the book where they start arguing about the word refugee, one of the characters describes the time travellers as refugees, not expats because they can’t go home again. They have to stay here, they’re being pulled out of their culture, out of the life they had, and they have to assimilate – they’re refugees. And the ministry is very keen to make these people feel like no matter the time period they’re in, they’re British. And so, they’re only ever expats. It’s propaganda to persuade them to assimilate and to persuade them to accept 21st-century Britain as their home. UL: That’s what is really unique with this novel, often you can tell how important language has been to the author but in this novel, the language is actually discussed within the story. Another thing I found interesting is when Commander Graham Gore realises that his private correspondence has been read by the ministry and feels uneasy about that, what inspired this storyline?KB: I started writing the original version of The Ministry of Time for some friends. During lockdown, I got very interested in British polar exploration. And because of the lockdown, I couldn’t go anywhere, I couldn’t research and so I found this online group of people who were also polar exploration enthusiasts and we all followed a TV show called The Terror about British polar exploration and they were so generous, they shared their research with me and really made me feel welcome, so I started writing the book as a sort of playful gift to them. So, the very first version of the novel was written for people reading the private correspondence of these polar explorers or their diaries. One of the first things I was given was a scan someone had taken of a polar explorer’s diary and it’s just so strange to have that level of access to people – to be able to see someone at so many points in their life, confessing to things so privately, different letters to different people. In life, when you meet someone you don’t have that level of access. But the level of access that the ministry is given when it comes to Graham is incredibly unusual and makes him feel like he’s being studied because it’s weird for someone to have read your private correspondence that’s being exhibited in a museum. I think we felt both romantically about that but also maybe guilty. It’s a strange feeling; historical and biographical research. Feeling so close to the person you’re studying but they will never know you. It’s one of the frictions in the ministry that I try to convey in the book, that it can be almost depersonalising, alienating to study someone who feels intimate but you don’t know them intimately if you’re just studying their old letters because you’re not trying to connect with them. UL: Graham is the only character in the book that’s based on a real person, and I found myself googling a lot. I think a lot is commonly known in the UK but as a Swede, I didn’t know of the Franklin Expedition, for example. Is it widely known internationally? KB: I think it’s not so widely known anymore. It is one of those Victorian embarrassments that may have recededinto the past. By contrast, I think it’s very well known in Canada because the wreck is there. Margret Atwood apparently is a huge Franklin Expedition fan. When I do book events in the UK, I get a real mix of people who are interested in the idea of a sci-fi book or romance book but don’t know about the expedition and then I had someone come to my event in Edinburgh wearing a badge that said “ask me about polar exploration”. UL: Did you consider basing the other expats on historical characters or did you want to create them based on historical research?KB: I just wanted to