I was amazed at the ambition of your book Kerry: to set a novel in a
closed country like North Korea strikes me as a major challenge. What inspired
you to do that?
My first published novel, A Brighter
Fear, was set in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion and when I first started
writing that it did feel like a massive challenge and I did wonder (and worry!)
about whether or not I could adequately portray not only a different country
but a massively different culture too. The step from that to North Korea
didn't feel like a huge one, although I'm absolutely certain that I couldn't
have written A Dream of Lights without first writing A Brighter Fear, mostly
because I wouldn't have had the confidence to do so. I'm a strong
believer in everything being a process - from one thing you learn and build and
it leads you to another - but you need those steps along the way. Why I
chose to write a novel set in North Korea was because I found it a fascinating
place and wanted to know more.
Yoora is a compelling character and I was rooting for her throughout.
She is only sixteen. Was it difficult to capture the voice of a sixteen year
old?
I'm often asked how someone of my age
(although I'm not THAT old!) can write from a teenage perspective but I view it
much the same as writing any character - you create them, get into their shoes
and walk around with them. In some ways I wonder if it is easier than
writing from the point of view of pensioner perhaps, or of someone of the
opposite sex. At least I was a teenager once, I can remember it - I've
not been a pensioner yet and I'm doubtful I'll ever be male! I
suppose also that I still feel inside a bit like I did when I was a
teenager and remembering back to that time, and all the concerns it brings,
doesn't feel that long ago.
You create a strong sense of place from Yoora's village to the prison
camp to the towns she passes through. How did you research these locations?
Firstly - I love the research, I
think if I didn't it would be very, very difficult. I often tell people
that I think most writers are incredibly nosy people - you look at peoples'
lives, different countries, times in history, and you find yourself thinking
'Hmmm, I wonder what that would be like', and for me that's often the absolute
beginning of the story - the germ of it. That's how it was with A Dream
of Lights - there's this weird country that people know so little about, that
has this odd leader, and these citizens who SEEM happy but some try to leave,
yet others don't...Why does it work like that? What do the people really
think? Why do some escape but others don't? What really is
happening there? Anyway...sorry, I'm getting distracted!
Before I really knew where the story
was going I did a lot of reading around, watching documents, every single news
item I could find, searching through YouTube, reading stories from escapees,
prison guards, a man who lives in China and helps North Koreans through the
country. When researching A Brighter Fear there was so much it was like
syphoning through everything to find relevant details, with North Korea every
kernel of information was gold.
In amongst all that research I did
find descriptions and accounts of towns, cities and village life. I found
the villages the most interesting; they reminded me of our medieval times with
the way they worked the land and the lack of running water and electricity.
I also found a fantastic clip on YouTube where someone was walking
through the markets with a camera hidden in a bag - they must've snuck the
camera in and out of the country.
I suppose it's collecting all these
tiny bits of information and descriptions and bringing them together.
 |
| Kerry Drewery loves doing the research for her novels. |
You show Yoora moving from devotion to Our Dear Leader to an
understanding of the true miseries of the system in North Korea. Was any of
this based on real life accounts of dissidents or purely the work of your
imagination?
Kind of both. There are real
accounts out there of people who've come to realise the truth of their situation
and eventually managed to escape. One thing that really shocked me when
researching was that I discovered that parents had to maintain the 'party line'
with their children in order to protect the whole family. If, for
instance, they had said 'oh that Kim Jong-il, he could do a better job' or
something as simple as that, and the child repeated it at school, the whole
family would be taken away for 're-education', and that was something I wanted
to include as it felt so powerful - that you have to lie to you children and
pretend life is good, even though you, and they, are probably starving.
For the sake of the novel too, it
felt true to her character that she would have this kind of arc and
progression. I think it's vital to remember that the research is there to
serve the story - that is the key thing.
For me a major achievement is that in spite of the darkness of the story
and the suffering portrayed it is ultimately uplifting. Did you think it
important to end on that note?
Yes, absolutely. As you say the
novel has real darkness and some terrible suffering and I think for a reader to
follow Yoora and her family through all that but not to have some sense of hope
at the end would be too bleak. Having said that, I'm not a 'happy ever
after' kind of person and that would have been false to the story, to those
who've actually experienced the kind of things within A Dream of Lights and I
think the reader wouldn't have found it realistic. It's difficult to say
much without giving the end away!
It is described as Young Adult but I think all ages would enjoy it. Do
you feel happy with it being described as YA?
I'm very happy that it has been read
by all ages and that they've enjoyed it and took something from it.
Unfortunately, in this business, things need labels (crime, fantasy, etc,
etc), the great thing about YA is that it's so wide and so varied. There
is some incredible UKYA talent out there and I think it's a shame that
sometimes people can be snobby about reading and somehow think something isn't
as good as an adult novel because it's for children, or tell people that they
should or shouldn't read something. This is utter nonsense. I'm a strong
supporter of read what you enjoy, whatever that is.
I've had some comments as to whether
the content is suitable for YA but I'm pretty open-minded with this. I
think it depends how you, as a writer, do it. I don't think you should
ever dumb-down for a younger readership, but neither do I think you should
write for shock value or gratuitously. There's one scene in A Dream of
Lights, to do with what happens to babies born in prison camps and I ummed and
erred a long time about whether it was too much to include, but finally I
decided that it's how you do it - I don't think I can go into
that anymore without plot spoilers!
But yes, I'm very proud to have it
described as YA.
I
loved A Dream of Lights and highly recommend it to readers of all ages.
Kerry’s
first book is A Brighter Fear
My
two novels are published by Head of Zeus.
Kerry
and I are both members of The Prime Writers. You can follow Kerry on Twitter @KerryDrewery
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