With Not Untrue and Not Unkind, Ed O’Loughlin wrote what he knew - his story of foreign journalists in war-ravaged Africa was based on his 14 years’ experience as a newspaper correspondent.
O’Loughlin was born in Toronto but brought up in Ireland. As a journalist (he has written for the New York Times, the Independent, the Atlantic, and the Irish Times among others), he says, ‘You get all the facts and then try and make some kind of coherent story. With fiction you can make up anything you like, and that’s terrifying.’ His profession meant that he had to fend off accusations that the book was autobiographical: ‘It wasn’t,’ he says, before adding, ‘I’m not really sure what it was about, other than me trying to be a writer and grabbing easy material.’