Jodie Picoult: ‘It’s not a badge of honour to have books banned’

Picoult also discussed her upcoming novel, By Any Other Name.

It isn’t her first foray into historical fiction but this time it’s a parallel tale about contemporary young playwright Melina Green, who is struggling to get her work recognised in New York, and her ancestor, Emilia Bassano, who may – or may not – have been the female writer behind the work of Shakespeare.

“I feel like this was the book that I’ve been meant to write my whole life,” Picoult said.

“It’s really a book about how things have changed for women in 400 years – and how they have not changed.”

While Picoult’s book is, of course, a work of fiction, Bassano was a real-life Elizabethan woman.

Picoult does a great job of convincing the Hay audience to at least consider the idea that Bassano did write some of Shakespeare’s work, citing various theories she came across during her research., external

What is definitely fact is that Bassano (later known as Emilia Lanier) was one of the first female published poets in England in the early 1600s.

There is also a theory that she was the Dark Lady who features in many of the Bard’s sonnets (although Picoult’s not persuaded).

“The truth is, I did a ton of research for this book. And I’m not going to tell you what to believe, I am just going to present the facts to you,” Picoult said, later adding that she thinks multiple people probably wrote Shakespeare’s plays.