Antigona and Me

By Kate Clanchy

2008

First Published

3.87

Average Rating

273

Number of Pages

8H20M

Audio Length

‘Antigona,’ I said. ‘How would you feel if I wrote your life down in a book?’ ‘Good,’ she said at once. ‘Good. And then a feature film, actually. Mini-series.’ One morning in London, two neighbours start to chat over the heads of their children. Kate Clanchy is a writer, privileged and sheltered, Antigona is a refugee from Kosovo. On instinct, Kate offers Antigona a job as a nanny, and Antigona, equally shrewdly, accepts. Over the next five years and a thousand cups of coffee Antigona’s extraordinary story slowly emerges. She has escaped from a war, she has divorced a violent husband, but can she escape the harsh code she was brought up with, the Kanun of Lek? At the kitchen table where anything can be said, the women discover they have everything, as well as nothing, in common. ‘Clanchy’s portrait of Antigona is wonderfully vivid, as are her reflections on her own complex feelings. A powerfully written, refreshingly honest work.’ Observer

Avg Rating

3.87

Number of Ratings

238

5 STARS

27%

4 STARS

43%

3 STARS

23%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Kate Clanchy

Author · 12 books

Kate Clanchy was educated in Edinburgh and Oxford University. She lived in London's East End for several years, before moving to Buckinghamshire where she now works as a teacher, journalist and freelance writer. Her poetry and seven radio plays have been broadcast by BBC Radio. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper; her work appeared in The Scotsman, the New Statesman and Poetry Review. She also writes for radio and broadcasts on the World Service and BBC Radio 3 and 4. She is a Creative Writing Fellow of Oxford Brookes University and teaches Creative Writing at the Arvon Foundation. She is currently one of the writers-in-residence at the charity First Story. Her poetry has been included in A Book of Scottish Verse (2002) and The Edinburgh book of twentieth-century Scottish poetry (2006)