Jenni Fagan – The Delusions: Souls, complicity, and instinct (Interview)

Once described by the New York Times as ‘the patron saint of literary street urchins’, Jenni Fagan is now firmly established as one of Scotland’s literary greats. Early in her career she was picked as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists for her debut novel, The Panopticon, and went on to be shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize for the extraordinary Luckenbooth (an award she won in 2025 for Ootlin).

Feted as a poet as well as a writer of prose, Fagan induces awe with every publication. Blending big, philosophical questions with the down-to-earth, witty narrator of Edi, her latest novel, The Delusions, is a story of loss, love, and humanity, all on a cosmic scale. We caught up with her to discuss her latest book; set far away, yet based on inherent human connection.

What inspired you to write The Delusions?

I’ve lost people over the years and I was thinking about how we miss those on the other side, but also what would it mean if they were missing us. Another inspiration was watching delusional people, specifically world leaders, causing horrific instability and harm. I was intrigued by this idea of delusion and how some people are never held accountable for the things they do, whether that’s on a grand or small scale. 

Certain individuals live delusionally, thinking they’re perfect, and so The Delusions was me asking, ‘What if everyone had to face who they really are?’, even if it doesn’t happen in this life but in the next. The only real value you have is your soul. 

We meet the character of Edi after she has passed, working in an afterlife and  processing humans for data. What made you choose to explore this alternative depiction of life after death, not centred around religion?

Many justify their actions by saying, ‘It’ll be fine once I get to my fancy condo in heaven, because I’ve confessed.’ People assume we’ll get all the answers once we die, but what if we end up in an administrative nightmare of epic proportions? Edi says, ‘We are godless, but we’re not unholy’. I created an afterlife process not defined by religion, patriarchy, or capitalism. I created something I’d like to see, in a lot of ways. 

Astronauts experience the ‘overview effect’  when looking at Earth, awed by the realisation of what our planet truly is. From the Processing floor, the characters see the Earth – I wanted it to be spectacularly beautiful, pulling people out to look at what we have.

In the book, you place the everyday concepts of admin and HR into Edi’s cosmic workplace. Why did you pick this setting?

I’ve always been interested in bureaucracy. I’m a structuralist, and my doctorate was in how the structures of society impact the individual. The nightmarish idea that human bodies could be processed for data collection made sense to me. We live in a silent universe; we don’t have direct conversation with the universe, and nothing in the universe has direct conversation with us, so there’s a sinister element to what existence truly is. What if we still don’t get the answers, disposable to this wider fate and journey? How does each person still maintain their own way of being, despite standing in the Processing line with nine billion other people?

It’s interesting that you chose delusion as the thing people have to extract from themselves in the story in order to move through the afterlife. Why delusion rather than, say, fear or guilt?

I believe society is actively being asked to be complicit in delusion. It’s delusional to think you’re superior, or to live your life hoarding wealth at the expense of others. I wanted to question when the delusional elite will face who they really are, because we aren’t seeing it happen in real life. 

Like everybody else, I’m frustrated by this moment we’re living through, and I wanted to respond to that. The idea that small amounts of humans could create a sixth mass extinction event, to me, is mind-blowing. What do these billionaires think they’re going to get away with? It goes back to the idea that autocracy is a delusion. Life is very short, and eternity is very long, so what are we doing? There’s an extraordinary generation coming after me, and these conversations need to be extended either way.

In one chapter, you mention rituals of art to honour personhood. Do you consider the act of writing as ritual, and do you have any rituals that you practise whilst writing?

I touch-type, only looking at the page as the words appear, and I’ve learned to block things out. I might be writing in an airport, or my kid might be playing with Lego nearby, or the builders might be in the background. I view the words; feel the motion; hear the sound of typing. It’s like the sound of rain. Some of my books will only be written at night, as they don’t want to deal with daylight and need the world to be quieter. 

When I wrote The Sunlight Pilgrims, I only knew I wanted to write about light and snow. If you write into the unknown and without safety guards, you surprise yourself. The process of putting down that first word is alchemic. I’m willing to be imperfect and not have the stability of a plan when writing, being guided by instinct and emotion. That, to me, is what writing is.

The Delusions was published 19th March by Penguin Books

Image credit: Mihaela Bodlovic