Zadie Smith told a packed tent that she "channelled" her first historical novel rather than created it.
The award-winning writer closed the Queen's Park Book Festival on Sunday (September 3) talking about her latest book The Fraud.
The novel, set around Kilburn and Jamaica, tells the real life 'Tichborne Trial' of 1873 and covers big themes of class and race, hyprocrisy and deception.
The star witness in the case, Andrew Bogle, who grew up enslaved on a Jamaican plantation, vouched for a man, the defendant, who claimed to be Sir Roger Tichborne, the heir to a fortune and presumed lost at sea.
In a protacted trial that captivated all of England, Eliza Touchet, the cousin and companion of William Ainsworth, a well-known but now almost forgotten Victorian author, was sceptical and travelled down to London.
Many of the novel's main characters are buried in Kensal Green Cemetery and Paddington Old Cemetery, which Zadie, who lives in Kilburn, discovered on walks during Covid.
In a departure from how she wrote her previous novels, such as White Teeth and NW, Zadie sent completed chapters to two friends every fortnight, akin to the way Victorian novelists worked. "It was a good feeling," she said.
The former Hampstead School pupil told journalist Alex Clark what came from working this way was "subconscious...you're not thinking about it that much, you've got to keep going".
"Very little was made up in the novel and it was more like channelling something than creating something," she said.
"When the material means enough to you, a lot happens to you subconsciously."
She said it felt like someone was speaking to her when she was writing the Andrew Bogle segments, which she did edit a little afterwards.
She said: "You can get sentimental and think ancestors are speaking to you and I did have those moments of having that feeling but really it's 10 years of reading this stuff and having it in my body and mind so when it came to writing it was much more fluid."
Actor Bill Nighy, who bought a ticket to her interview, said afterwards: "I like Zadie, she's very good. It's a very good festival."
A free community tent featured photographer John Morrison and Notting Hill Carnival's first female DJ Linett Kamala talking about life and art in Kilburn, as well as poets, new authors and comedians.
Founder Tom du Plessis said: "Thank you to all the artists and authors who've been with us over the weekend without them there would be no point in having this in the last place.
"Thank you also to my team, they work really hard to put this on. This is a passion project of ours and we're going to be here year in and year out."
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