Which book has had the biggest impact on you?
When I was a child, “reading” was a chore imposed on me occasionally by my parents. One rainy summer holiday, I picked up a copy of A Hundred Years of Solitude in a bookshop because I thought “Gabriel Garcia Marquez” sounded like a footballer. In the absence of anything less boring to do I read it. I have thought reading the most exciting thing imaginable ever since.
Tell us about your research interests
I’m a bit of a magpie. At the moment, I’m writing an essay about Joy Williams and secularism in America, about Amit Chaudhuri and the idea of artistic immortality, and about Derek Walcott and the elegy. I’m probably interested in too many things. But one of the things I like about reading great books is the extraordinarily varied and various pictures of the world they give you.
Describe your ideal day.
I would get up quite early and lounge around reading magazines until, growing sleepy again, I would return to bed until noon. I would watch the last hour of the morning session of the test match and then go and play football. Everyone would be surprised by how good I had suddenly become. On the way home I would stop in a bookshop and in the evening I would sing in a beautiful high mass with all my friends. It would be heavy on polyphony and the sweetest smelling incense and – once again – everyone would be surprised by how good we had all become at singing. Afterwards we would all go to Mario’s, on Cowley Road. Oxford United would have played and won. England would have lost the test match, comfortably in the end, but with dignity.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be?
I lived in Rome for a few months when I was a teenager. When I think about it, I almost can’t believe how exciting it was. Another city I've always enjoyed spending time in is Kolkata, and I'd love to live there one day. I know Santanu [Das] always escapes there in the summertime, when Oxford gets 'too hot'.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I was always highly institutionalised. When I was at school, I wanted to be a teacher; when I was at mass, I wanted to be a priest; I didn’t have the imagination to want to be a footballer or tennis player but – when I was at training – I did want to be the coach.
What teacher had the greatest impact on you?
My Year 11 English teacher, Emma Frank. If Marquez taught me to love reading, Ms Frank taught me to love studying English. She made the books we read so vivid and encouraged us to write also – I think she read the draft of a terrible novel I wrote. We did To Kill a Mockingbird with her and – despite the condescension of posterity – it’s still one of my favourite books.
If you could have dinner with five famous people from history, who would they be?
I’ve always related to General McClellan, the ditherer. Ignatius of Loyola would be interesting, if monomaniacal, company. Delia Smith would be a raconteur, and could give me notes on my cooking. I would round out the company with Rudolf Nureyev and Natalie Wood.
Describe yourself in five words.
Bad at replying to messages.
What do you like most about your job? What do you like least?
The best thing is the students. They’re very funny, and they’re very good at drawing attention to my inconsistencies. The worst thing is how much of the time you have to act as a gatekeeper.
Why are we here?
There’s a scene in Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower when the tutor arrives for a lesson with a teenage girl who is dying of tuberculosis. Arriving to find her laughing with her siblings, failing to control a pet bird, he is at first disapproving, but then he puts his books away. “After all,” he thinks to himself, “these people were made for joy.”
William Ghosh read English at Robinson College, Cambridge. Since 2022, he has been Associate Professor of World Literatures in English at the University of Oxford and an Official Student of Christ Church.
