John Boyne – “Simplicity can be really wonderful”
At the Kolkata Literary Meet 2024, the Irish author spoke about the strides made by his country in terms of gay rights, why novelists should imagine others lives, and about mentoring writers
During one of your sessions, you said that being “a gay writer” is different from being “a gay person who writes”. How would you explain the difference? Why is it important for you to make this distinction?
Well, my reason for making this distinction is quite simple. I don’t think that my being gay has anything to do with my relationship to the craft of writing. I am a writer regardless of my sexuality. Not every book that I write is about being gay. In fact, very few of the books that I have written are about sexuality. There are many writers who are gay and write exclusively about that, which is fine too I guess because you choose your subjects. My point is that being gay isn’t relevant to my job in any way, so I prefer to be called a writer.
You have written a lot of books for children and teenagers. Those early years can be particularly challenging for a gay person. When they get to know about your sexuality, do you think it gives them strength to deal with their own struggles?
My Brother’s Name is Jessica (2019) and The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket (2012) are two of my books that deal with gender and sexuality. I am very happy to talk to kids about the experience of being gay if it’s in this context. My experience of growing up as a gay person was difficult, and certainly different from what it is today. Kids seem to be much more open and accepting of each other today. They are also willing to experiment in a way that my generation wasn’t quite willing to. If my younger readers get a sense of being seen or heard from any of my books, that would make me very happy.
What advice would you give gay people who find it challenging to accept themselves?
Don’t deny what you are going through. You have to accept it first, then find somebody you trust. There’s got to be somebody. This person could be a friend of yours, or maybe an uncle or aunt whom you are close to. Or somebody in your life whom you can talk to. You see, parents love their children. There is nothing that a parent would not do for a child. They just want you to be happy. But you have to accept yourself. You can’t live a lie.
But there are so many real-life stories of parents who abandon their gay children, shame and threaten them, harm them, throw them out of home, or even kill them...
I suppose that, if you are under threat of violence, it is not a good environment to be in, in the first place. What is more important – living an honest and truthful life or living in an environment where you could be killed? After all, everybody just wants to be happy. You are not going to be happy if you pretend to be something or someone that you are definitely not.
What kind of efforts are being made in Ireland — especially by the church, which is known to oppose homosexuality — to be more hospitable to queer people?
I think that we have solved all those problems in Ireland. Sexuality isn’t an issue. We had a referendum to vote on marriage equality. We even had a gay prime minister (taoiseach) — Leo Varadkar. I don’t think there’s anything for anyone to complain about any longer. Once marriage equality was legalized, the people who voted against it have not made any attempts to repeal the law. We are in a great position but many other countries are not. I am not sure how things are for gay people in India. I know that the situation is really bad in Russia. Speaking of Ireland in terms of the Catholic church, I believe that the environment has become far more accepting. I think that Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air. To my mind, the most important line that he said was this: “Who am I to judge?” He has also been talking about blessings for gay couples. I just wish that he was 20 years younger.
When you were writing The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006), possibly your most popular novel, did you imagine the characters Bruno and Shmuel as friends or lovers?
I would say friends, to be honest. They just want to play football together.
What gave you the courage to approach the genre of Holocaust fiction when so much has already been written? Were you afraid that you might have nothing new to say?
If I had thought too much before I started, I would have never written it. I began writing it pretty quickly after I got the idea. The first draft was ready even before I knew what I had on my hands. As a writer, if you feel passionately, you’ve just got to go ahead and write.
During another session at KLM, you spoke about how you prioritize emotional truth over historical accuracy. What kind of challenges arise for you when readers and critics expect you to be more of a historian and less of a novelist?
All I can do is remind them that I am a novelist, and not a historian. It is not the job of a fiction writer to stick absolutely to the facts. If they are expecting me to do the work of a historian, they are reading the wrong person. I don’t even call myself a historical novelist. I am just a novelist, and really happy being one. If we want history, we must go to non-fiction.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas ends on this note: “Of course, all of this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age”. How do you look back at those words in the context of what’s happening in Gaza right now?
My intention was clear. It was meant to be an ironic statement. I felt that the readers would obviously know that these things that have happened will always continue to happen. I wanted to leave them on that note of recognizing the irony in that naïve line at the end.
You often describe this book as a fable. Why does this literary form appeal to you?
I like the idea of having a moral at the centre of the story. Even if you have six or seven characters to work with, there is so much going on. Simplicity can be really wonderful.
Parents and teachers often decide what children get to read because they buy the books. Does this make you feel the need to present moral instruction through your stories? How about writing stories that would just delight and entertain your readers?
Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that moral instruction is my goal but I do want them to learn something. I would like to make them think, and leave them with something. But I also want to entertain them because reading as an activity should be pleasurable.
When you wrote a transgender character in the book My Brother’s Name is Jessica, there was a lot of discussion around representation and misgendering. Has that made you wary of approaching a subject that is not related to your own life, or do you feel novelists should constantly move into spaces that are new and unchartered for them?
I think that novelists should imagine other people’s lives, otherwise all fiction would be autobiography. Jessica, the transgender character, is not the central character in the book. Jessica’s brother — the person looking at the struggle of transition — is the protagonist. He is trying to understand what’s happening and arrive at a place of compassion and empathy.
That’s what I wanted to get across. Trans children do have siblings who are confused by the transition process. And their first instinct might not be kindness. Through the book, I was hoping to convey that the person is still the same person regardless of what they are calling themselves or how they are identifying. The reaction to that book wouldn’t frighten me from going back to anything like that. Novelists should be encouraged to explore such themes.
Tell us about your new picture book for children – The Dog Who Danced on the Moon.
(Laughs) That book is coming out in July. It’s about a little dancing doggie called Maxwell. His master, Jeremy, is a little boy who wants to be an astronaut. The whole thing is in rhyme. It was challenging but so much fun to write. I have never written anything this like this before. It is full of humour, and the illustrations by Ashling Lindsay are fantastic.
In 2023, four Irish writers were longlisted for the Booker Prize. That’s huge. Paul Lynch, who won the prize, spoke about how bursaries from the state made it possible for him to spend four years working on his novel, Prophet Song. What kind of state support is available in Ireland to people who write for children and young adults?
We have a pretty good Arts Council. It does not discriminate between literature written for adults and literature written for children. Bursaries are given out twice a year. Anybody can apply. They get a lot of great applications, and they usually have people like me come and read the applications and decide who gets what. There is pretty good funding.
How involved are you in teaching and mentoring the next generation of Irish writers?
I am willing to read debut novels, and to provide a quote if I like them. I have taught creative writing classes at the university level but I am not teaching at the moment because I am very busy. Writing does not leave me with much time to mentor but I am available to read if it’s not a lot, and to sit down for coffee and answer questions that I might have answers to.
Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, journalist and book reviewer.