7 things we learnt about Lauren Beukes

1. Right now, Lauren is reading NK Jemisin’s The City We Became, which is about ‘New York physically manifesting into ordinary people who have to become the living embodiment of their borough to fight off an interdimensional evil’.

2. She’s just finished Harlots, a show about duelling brothel owners in 18th-century London, which Lauren says is ‘seriously sexy and super-feminist’.

3. She’s loving authors Carmen Maria Machado, Noelle Stevenson, Patrick Ness, William Gibson, Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan, Karen Russell and early Alan Moore at the moment.

4. When she was a child, she loved the Narnia series. ‘I spent too much time checking the back of my cupboard to see if it opened onto another world.’

5. If she weren’t an author, she’d love to be a detective. ‘But honestly, I think I’m too sensitive to be able to deal with the worst of what we do to each other every day.’

6. The best piece of advice she’s ever received was when her shrink said she needed to tap into her inner ‘f*ck you’ more.

7. Another thing she learnt in therapy is that every project is different and has its own challenges. ‘Just because you’re an experienced mountain climber with all the right gear… – this mountain is new to you, and of course it’s going to be a struggle to figure out how to get to the top.’