SHE’S GOT THE POWER
The magic touch of Naomi Alderman strikes again
Writing novels, films or episodes for a gaming app – the creativity of Naomi Alderman knows no bounds
The last time Naomi Alderman and I met up for a chat two years ago, The Power was just about to be published. She was, certainly, a wellestablished author (Alderman won the Orange Award for New Writers in 2006 and the year after was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year) but this was before, as she says, ‘The Power went completely nuts’. The dystopian novel, in which women discover they can electrocute men simply by touching them, won the 2017 Bailey’s Prize, but there was more to come. ‘It was one of Barack Obama’s favourite novels last year – I mean !’ The former President shared the choice on his Facebook page. ‘I thought “Oh my god, I put a huge chunk in there about American politics, and Barack Obama thought it was good! OK then…”’ She grins widely. That’s not all, of course. We’re meeting now in the tiny glass-walled office she rents in a co-working space in London. She comes to fetch me in the lobby; we stride past people wearing T-shirts that say things like ‘Make today your BEST day!’, and we both laugh. In her serene little room, she’s writing the pilot for the forthcoming television series of The Power. The show will be produced by Jane Featherstone of Sister Pictures (the company behind Abi Morgan’s terrific divorce-lawyer drama The Split). ‘My gosh, it’s great working with her,’ Alderman says. ‘I’ve been learning a lot. Hopefully it’ll be several seasons.’
As with the television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood was Alderman’s mentor during the writing of The Power, thanks to the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative – the series will range beyond the confines of the book itself. ‘I have a lot of the world in my head, and one of the things that I would hope to be able to do is some one-off episodes: how does this affect this group of people who maybe we never see again in the book?’
Meanwhile, the film of Alderman’s first novel, Disobedience, is about to get its UK release when we meet. It’s the story of two young women in an Orthodox Jewish community in north London – like the one in which Alderman was raised – who fall in love, but are separated by faith and circumstance. Ronit (Rachel Weisz) leaves for a secular life in New York; Esti (Rachel McAdams) remains in the fold, and the two are reunited when Ronit’s father dies and she returns home. Alderman is thrilled with the film, which is directed by Sebastián Lelio (Gloria, A Fantastic Woman). Her relationship with the material is not uncomplicated. ‘I was Esti when I wrote it,’ she says, ‘and I’m Ronit now. On the other hand, Ronit is in Esti and Esti is in Ronit.’ But she thinks the result is absolutely spot on as far as she is concerned. ‘It felt like a movie set within my own internal organs,’ she says, laughing.
It was Weisz who acquired the rights for production; Alderman was impressed by her seriousness about it. ‘I think she’s very interested in projects that have good female roles in them. Also, she is Jewish, and she wanted something that would talk to her roots and be able to do it in a different sort of way.’
Alderman is fearless, her imagination boundless. The world of film holds no terrors for her, not least because she’s used to collaborating with other imaginations. She is seriously involved in the world of computer games – download the app for Zombies, Run! if you want to know more. Every season requires her to write 40 new 12-minute episodes, ‘which is like a season of Game of Thrones’, she says. And her passion for science fiction has seen her write two Doctor Who novels, including one about the first female Timelord. As for whether she’ll be involved in the show itself: if she were, she says to me, deadpan, ‘I’m sure it would be under a terrible NDA, which would mean that I would not be allowed to talk about it at all.’
So what’s next? Her reply is immediate. ‘I want to write some movies, man,’ she says urgently. ‘I want to go and write a Black Widow movie.’ Black Widow is the plucky Marvel superheroine played by Scarlett Johansson; earlier this year, it was announced that she will finally have her own stand-alone film. Alderman is ready to produce a screenplay. ‘Somebody was saying to me, “You wouldn’t want to go and do those superhero movies?”, and I’m like, “Yes I bloody well would!”’
Here’s a good rule: never assume you know what Naomi Alderman is going to do. The only guarantee? That whatever she does, she’ll do it with her whole heart and mind – and that it will be fabulous.
‘Disobedience’ is released nationwide on 30 November.