Francis Spufford: ‘Christianity is for adults like me, who mess up and see no way out’

The critically acclaimed author talks about swearing, messing up his marriage and why Christian art is sometimes a little bit rubbish

Francis Spufford is a child of his times. He was raised on a university campus by “serious and convinced” churchgoing parents, in an era when Christianity was “taken for granted” as part of most people’s ordinary lives. Spufford’s childhood love of books – most notably CS Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia – was, in part a refuge from his younger sister’s illness (she would later die of cystinosis, a rare genetic condition, aged just 22). His childhood faith existed in tandem with these fictional worlds. “I would have been very happy if God just was Aslan,” he tells me, before admitting that this escapist faith had mixed results.