Issue No.26

Photo: Sebastien Carles, Carcsassonne Tourisme
How does your love of France and some of
the experiences you have translate into
your books? I remember reading that the
great writer Victor Hugo visited to a town
called Montreuil-sur-Merin northern France,
he saw a tearful woman leave a church -
and she became Fantine in Les Misérables!
Well, that's a lovely question and it's also a
really lovely example because my son is
playing Marius in the current UK &
International tour of Les Mis! All my stories
come from “place”, the landscape itself is a
key character. It's exactly like that Victor
Hugo example of my being somewhere
particular and seeing something startling...
It could be the way the shadow falls on the
side of a church or a solitary tree set on its
own in the middle of a field, so I'd start
wondering where the rest of the wood
went! Or an old stone shaped like a chair…
The landscape of Languedoc in the south
west of France - Carcassonne in particular -
is the landscape of my imagination. I first
visited Carcassonne more than 30 years ago
and fell head over heels in love. Now, as
then, it feels like a magical place, a stage set.
Everywhere, there are vibrant stories of the
past being whispered in the landscape and
just waiting to be told.
Carcassonne and Toulouse feature prominently
in my Languedoc Trilogy, as well as my
new series, The Burning Chambers. I suppose
my Fantine moment was seeing all the roads
in the heart of the Bastide (the 14th century
town of Carcassonne, across the river from
the City of Carcassonne) had been renamed
for members of the Carcassonne Resistance
who were executed on the same day in
August 1944. Out of that, came the
inspiration for Citadel, the third novel in my
Languedoc Trilogy.