On Writing and the Authorial Self: Memory, Literary Landscapes, and Identity – An interview with Sally Bayley by Eleonora Maio

In this interview, Sally Bayley (1972) – writer and Oxford academic whose work is marked by creative richness and formal originality – discusses the intricate relationship between writing, memory, imagination and the shaping of the authorial self. Bayley is best known for her recent trilogy of autobiographical works, in which she reshapes lived experience through inventive narrative strategies, weaving together personal accounts, cultural echoes, and imaginative reconstruction in a style marked by intertextual resonance and layered complexity. Spanning life-writing, criticism, multimodal practices, experimental narrative, the author’s broader work consistently challenges conventional forms of storytelling, inviting readers to inhabit a space where voice, identity, and performance intertwine. In our conversation, she speaks with striking originality about the ways in which personal and collective memory inform her literary landscapes, and how autobiographical writing itself becomes an act of self-invention: what emerges is a portrait of an author deeply attentive to the textures of language and the transformative power of narrative, offering insights that resonate well beyond the page. Bayley’s reflections are grounded in a profound awareness of the interplay between lived experience and the written word: she approaches memory not as a static archive but as a dynamic process, a shifting ground that both anchors and destabilises the narratives we construct about ourselves. Furthermore, in her view, writing is inseparable from performance: the authorial self is always, in part, a role to be inhabited, a voice to be shaped and reshaped in dialogue with readers and with literary tradition. This interview also highlights Bayley’s ability to connect the intensely personal with the cultural and historical: her discussion of literary landscapes moves fluidly between the private spaces of memory and the wider terrains of collective history and imagination, demonstrating how the act of writing is always both rooted and richly articulated. By situating the self within broader contexts of history, place, and voice, this brilliant writer underscores the extent to which literature is an ongoing negotiation between individuality and community, invention and inheritance. What ultimately makes Bayley’s perspective so compelling is the sense of openness and experimentation she brings to the idea of authorship itself. Rather than presenting the authorial self as fixed, she reveals it as a living, evolving presence — a site of exploration where experience, identity, and creativity converge: to read her work, and to listen to her speak about it, is to be reminded of the restless vitality of literature and its capacity to transform both writer and readers.