Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend is one of the latest writers to offer fans a role in her new novel.
She is selling the name of one of the characters in her next book in a charity auction.
Philip Pullman, recently voted the third greatest author ever, and Will Self, are also taking part in the third Immortality Auction for victims of torture.
Winning bids secure their own name, or that of a relative or friend. in the forthcoming novels by 20 of Britain’s best-selling authors.
Bids start at £100 and the list also includes writers whose books have been made into films, such as Girl With a Pearl Earring author Tracy Chevalier and Maeve Binchy, who wrote Circle of Friends.
Writers Ian McEwan, Sebastian Faulks and Ken Follett have all taken part in previous auctions.
Kathy Lette, author of Foetal Attraction and Mad Cows, raised the highest bid in the past, when a marketing consultant paid £6,200 for the chance to appear in her next book.
But a successful bid does not automatically mean that the author will cast the bidder in a heroic mould.
Writer Jim Crace has said that the name Alicja Lesniak, in his latest work Genesis, came from an Immortality Auction.
“It was a blessing because it’s a great name ... She paid £1,600 to be this slightly compromised, overweight woman,” he said.
Other authors taking part in the auction include Joan Barfoot, Jonathan Coe, Martina Cole, Esther Freud, Michael Gerber, Robert Goddard, Joanne Harris, Alan Hollinghurst, Robert Jordan, Marian Keyes, Toby Litt, Adam Mars-Jones, William Trevor, Penny Vincenzi and Sarah Waters.
This year’s auction – in aid of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture – takes place at the Groucho Club in London’s Soho on March 30.
[© Scotsman.com, 23/03/04]
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