Sally Rooney: I don’t want to be the centre of attention like that ever again

Sally Rooney on romance, writing about sex, the Normal People phenomenon and her new novel, Intermezzo

Author Sally Rooney: I didn’t actually want to be ‘the young novelist’; I just wanted to be good. Picture: Jonny Davies

“I feel like the older I get the more freedom I have to write about a greater range of life experiences,” Sally Rooney says when we meet to discuss her new novel Intermezzo, which centres on two love stories with significant age gaps. “Because I’ve lived slightly more, not a whole lot more, but a few more years.” 

Those few more years make her 33, no longer the twentysomething voice of millennial angst. Rooney can’t wait to shake off the “Salinger for the Snapchat generation” tag that has followed her since the publication of her first novel Conversations With Friends in 2017 (she didn’t even know at the time what Snapchat was).