What’s it like to crush on a Victorian man transported to modern London? Kaliane Bradley had to find out

polygon.com:

I have never crushed on a Victorian polar explorer before. The thought simply never occurred to me, mostly due to a lack of exposure: Outside of the (very good) TV series The Terror, I’ve frankly never had much time to consider them, or the many ways they might be charming. Kaliane Bradley, however, has — and she’s written a whole book that might convince you to crush on one too.

The Ministry of Time, Bradley’s debut novel, follows an unnamed protagonist working for the British government on a top-secret time travel project. In an experiment to test the limits of their technology, the eponymous Ministry has plucked a number of “expats” throughout history and paired them with handlers dubbed “bridges,” to effectively be their roommates, reporting on how well the expats adjust to modernity. The protagonist’s assigned expat is Lieutenant Graham Gore, a polar explorer formerly assigned to the HMS Erebus (a sister ship of The Terror), and, eventually, a man she will crush on extremely hard.

However, Bradley’s got much more up her sleeve than a fish-out-of-water comedy or a star-crossed romance. The Ministry of Time is a twisty, compelling read that takes its (very funny) premise and blends it with a bit of a spy novel, a paranoid thriller, a commentary on identity, and a rumination on the inherited trauma that can come with mixed-race heritage.

The book is an early critical hit for the summer season, and it’s already slated for a BBC adaptation by Alice Birch (Prime Video’s Dead Ringersand Hulu’s adaptation of Normal People), produced by A24, no less. Recently, Polygon spoke to Bradley about what inspired her to write The Ministry of Time (the pandemic) and the many, many things on her mind while writing it.

Polygon: As I understand it, The Ministry of Time started as a joke during pandemic lockdown, yeah?

Kaliane Bradley: Yes. So it started as just kind of joke, a gift to these friends that I’ve made online, because I got very interested in historical polar