American writer and visual artist Audrey Niffenegger talks about her bestselling novel The Time Traveler’s Wife - a magical love story with a twist. Funny, quirky, and occasionally heartbreaking, this is the story of a relationship lived in the moment – even if those moments are all in the wrong order. Clare and Henry met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when she was twenty-two and he was thirty. Because Henry is a time traveller. He suffers from a rare genetic condition that means he can be pulled forwards or backwards through time at any moment, without his control. Against this backdrop, Clare and Henry build a deep and passionate relationship that spans Clare’s whole life and most of Henry’s – all while trying to live a normal life. But unlike most couples, they know how it will end from very early on. Audrey Niffenegger explores the depths of love and trust and inevitable grief and loss through her unusual and moving novel. (Picture: Audrey Niffenegger. Photo credit: Dennis Hearne, courtesy MacAdam/Cage.)
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Welcome to the World Book Club podcast.
I'm Harriet Gilbert and this month we've been reading a rather unusual love story, an internationally best selling novel called the Time Traveller's Wife.
And joining us to answer questions about it from BBC listeners around the world is its American author, Audrey Niffenegger.
Audrey, welcome to BBC World Book Club.
Thank you so much.
Am I right in saying that you began your working life actually not as a writer, but as an artist?
Yes, and I'm still a practicing artist.
I was making artists books and so I was writing and making images and at some point I had an idea that I thought, oh, this involves moving time around in a way that still images aren't really going to suffice for, and perhaps it should be a film.
And I thought, no, I don't have any money, I can't make a film.
And I thought, I'll write a novel.
Well, Indeed.
Of Audrey's 15 or so books, eight are either artists books or graphic novels.
But it was her first purely verbal novel, the Time Traveller's Wife, that earned her international fame.
Translated into 44 languages to date, it's sold more than 8 million copies and been adapted for the cinema, for TV, even for the stage.
I've described it as a love story, and it is.