Candice Carty-Williams: ‘People feel very attached to Queenie’

The breakout success of her debut created a publishing scramble for Black writers, but has that appetite for diversity endured? Carty-Williams talks about wanting to quit the TV adaptation, why now is the perfect time for her sequel

One of the questions Candice Carty-Williams has spent the past few years batting away is whether she is Queenie. It is perhaps inevitable: her best­selling debut novel followed Queenie Jenkins, a twenty­something south London journalist navigating heartbreak, racism, terrible men and an escalating sense that her life was slipping beyond her control. Like Carty-Williams, Queenie is south London-born, Black and works in media.

It is a slightly predictable question, and one I avoid asking when we meet at her bright pink office in Peckham. But sitting opposite the 36-year-old, I can’t help but understand why it persists. Much like her most famous creation, she is instantly likable: warm, quick-witted and completely devoid of the self-seriousness that can sometimes come with literary success. She is disarmingly casual – her hair is wrapped up and under-eye patches are busy depuffing her face.
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