Interview with Anvar Khan about Pretty Willd

Anvar Khan



Read More About the Book

1. Pretty Wild is your first book although you have been writing journalism for many years. How did the book originate? Is the process very different from writing articles or your weekly column in the Scottish News of the World?

My Scottish News of the World columns seem to take an hour and the book an eternity. It's an issue I want to take up with Stephen Hawking. My publisher and I thrashed out the premise in fifteen minutes over double gins. I decided I wanted to write material that had no place in family newspapers. I wanted the freedom to let go and write more provocatively and in a different voice.

2. You now live and work in London but were brought up in Glasgow. How does your upbringing in Scotland compare to your life now?

There is an absolute comparison. I'm still gallus. There is something supernatural about being Scottish that gathers power when you leave. Being able to strike fear in the hearts of the English is a privilege. I'm a scary Glaswegian and always will be.

3. Pretty Wild has been described as a UK Sex and the City and an X-rated Bridget Jones - how do you feel about these comparisons?

It's probably a fair if not cynical response. In terms of sexual content and the darkness of the emotional journey I take in Pretty Wild I would say it is an original book. Bridget Jones was an apology of a female character, and the women in Sex and the City the series, camp and neurotic. I swapped love for sex and found love. That's my reality. And it didn't take any hang-ups to get me there.

4. Pretty Wild is published on 21 October and you will be discussing the book at events throughout the UK - are you looking forward to meeting your readers? How do you think readers will react to your frank and explicit descriptions of sex?

I felt there was a need to redefine the female voice in the 21st century; that there needed to be a book on what we really get up to and what kind of freaks, geeks and psychos we meet on our sexual journeys. Women no longer have to pretend we are uninterested in sex. The public are inured to sensationalism and if I have pushed any boundaries it's due to my honesty.

5. In the book you candidly chart your many sexual exploits over a period of one year. Have you changed the names of the other people in the book? If so, will they recognise themselves? How do you think they will react?

All names have been changed of course. No-one I ever slept with volunteered to be written about. However, I truly hope that some former lovers do see themselves in my book, and decide that they have been portrayed accurately, however bad this may make them feel.