This year at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, international authors John Boyne and Chris Bradford discussed writing for young people in a panel discussion entitled “Wielding Words”, chaired by Darrel Bristow-Bovey.
Bristow-Bovey welcomed the audience to the very first event of the festival. He said he felt quite nervous as host of the session, as he had never shared the stage with an Englishman and an Irishman at the same time before, and he expected chaos and fighting. There was, of course, also the small matter of their intimidating writing success.
Bradford was introduced as the author of “two extraordinary series for young people”. His Young Samurai series recently came to a conclusion, and the third book of the Bodyguard series has just been launched. Bristow-Bovey said that the latter series is like a young Kevin Costner, with better hair. Bradford’s books have been translated into multiple languages, and have been met with great enthusiasm by young readers and “wannabe samurais” around the world.
“John Boyne needs no introduction,” said Bristow Bovey, “which is something people always say when they are introducing people.” In the case of this author, however, it was true. Boyne has written a vast number of books for children, for “older young readers,” and for adults. He is well known for his novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and is currently on tour promoting his new book A History of Loneliness.
Bristow-Bovey started the conversation by asking Boyne about his new book, and how he thought loneliness related to the act of reading and writing. Boyne said that reading is not really lonely but an “act of solitude”. Writers tend to be people who sit by themselves to do their work. He says that the characters in his novels tend to be lonely and a little bit miserable, but this is not because he is himself a lonely person.
Bradford agreed with the statement about loneliness, saying that “a writer’s life is quite bizarre”. He says he spends half the year completely alone, talking and fighting with himself like he’s mad, and then he is “immersed in people” while he is promoting the book. Bradford says that these days it is not possible for children’s authors just to write; they also have to be performers to engage with child readers.
Boyne’s experience of promoting books was a little different to the way Bradford, who dresses like a samurai for book events, does things. The first four books he wrote were for adult readers, and he only needed to reach children with his fifth. “It was terrifying,” he says, because he was expected to be entertaining. Bristow-Bovey said that adults are used to disappointment, but the thought of “being the first to break a child’s heart” is truly formidable. Boyne struggles with being a performer, as he would prefer to just talk about the “subject of the books, take questions and engage”.
On the subject of how to engage younger readers in the story, Bradford said that young readers are exactly like adult readers, they are just younger: “They don’t want to be written down to: they know when they’re being written down to, and they want to read up.” Both he and Boyne deal with “tricky situations”, such as war and terrorism, through the character of a young person. This, he says, allows writers to do “something quite fresh” because they look at the world in a iconoclastic, and unaffected way.
Boyne mentioned the relative newness of categories such as young adult, children’s and adult literature – now used by publishing companies, in bookshops and just about everywhere – saying he believes that good literature is good literature no matter what level it is written at, at he doesn’t hold his writing for young people at a lower literary standard than that for older readers. “The stories are just as interesting, I hope. The writing is just as polished, I hope. And the subject is just as evocative, I hope.”
Some books, like those by both Boyne and Bradford, defy boundaries between children and adults.
The event was live-tweeted by Erin Devenish:
Book details
- The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
EAN: 9780385751896
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- A History of Loneliness by John Boyne
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EAN: 9780552778435
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- Bodyguard: Ambush by Chris Bradford
EAN: 9780141971520
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- Bodyguard by Chris Bradford
EAN: 9780141340067
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