‘Stop telling people it’s weird’: Andrew Upton on his strange new novel, and having Cate Blanchett read it first

An allegory in the spirit of Animal Farm, the Australian playwright’s debut novel about a disfigured chicken is a fantastical fable that’s both funny and ‘a bit bleak’ Andrew Upton is full of half-finished stories and plays. Usually they just sort of evaporate, he says. “I look back now and think, ‘What on earth did I find interesting about that?’” An idea has to be really quite seductive to compete with “my other life, my main life” with his wife, Cate Blanchett, their four children and their film company, Dirty Films. Continue reading...

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