Kaliane Bradley: A Rising Star in the Literary World

Kaliane Bradley is a name to watch in the literary world. She 😆 has just published her first novel, "The Ministry of Time," a time-travel romance cum sci-fi comedy set in near-future London. 😆 The novel has received praise from writers such as Eleanor Catton and David Nicholls and has a TV adaptation 😆 in the works.

From Walthamstow to the World

Bradley was born and raised in Walthamstow, east London, where she still lives with 😆 her partner and cat. She grew up in a multicultural household, with a British father and a Khmer mother who 😆 moved to the UK during the Cambodian civil war. She spent her childhood sharing a bedroom with her twin sisters 😆 and her half-brother while her parents rented out the house.

"The Lucky Jumper" and The Ministry of Time

Bradley wrote "The Ministry 😆 of Time" by accident, as she puts it. She had been working on a "thankless, loveless" project for years but 😆 found herself drawn to time-travel stories during the pandemic. She immersed herself in the TV series "The Terror" and became 😆 fascinated by Lt. Graham Gore, a man of "great stability of character and sweetest of tempers." This fascination led her 😆 to create a "nerdy literary parlour game" online, which eventually turned into the novel.

In "The Ministry of Time," Bradley explores the experience of immigrants 😆 in modern Britain by placing "expatriates from history" in modern London. She uses time-travel as a metaphor for the assimilation 😆 of immigrants into British society, as they are told they must assimilate, have certain values, and be productive for society. 😆 The hilarious and sparky one-liners afforded by the time-travel conceit make the novel a fun and thought-provoking read.

"Maybe this is 😆 the British-Cambodian novel I was supposed to be writing."

Through Gore, Bradley found a way to express her mother's past and 😆 the inherited trauma of Cambodia's history. Gore's realization that "they are all dead" and the world he knew is gone 😆 is a poignant reflection of the trauma experienced by refugees and immigrants. While Bradley has no plans to give up 😆 her day job, she is already deep into her second novel, an extension of her prize-winning short story.