Frances Hardinge: I was afraid to be laughed at by the publisher

British Frances Hardinge writes fantasy for children and young people. Fixed unusually realistic, preferably with historic elements. Or maybe she writes some sort of hyperrealism? Or is it the realism with the occasional fantastic elements?

"I have a healthy lack of respect for the genres, they are like watches: useful, but it may be more interesting to pick them apart and see how they work," says Frances Hardinge and smiles mildly under his black hat, as the drops of rain because the photographer drags her around the Building in the freezing cold pouring rain. It does not worry Frances Hardinge a damn, the hat is a good protection.

In her latest book in Swedish, ”wishing well”, the weather is considerably worse. The river overflows its banks, and children Ryan, Chelle and Josh is really dangerous out there because they have messed it up with brunnshäxan. Josh climbed down in the wishing well one night when they needed money for the bus, and after it loaded brunnshäxan of all the wishes on the children, who must now comply with them.

. Brunnshäxan becoming more and more agitated, for desires are more tortuous than what the wanting mind and it is not possible at all to meet them in the right way. So it turns out to be with the children's own desires also: behind the wishes hiding other desires. They know not even what they think they feel for their loved ones.

Frances Hardinge Photo: Adam Daver

– Families of interest to me. They are so complex, with intense loyalty and deep-buried conflicts. Add the parents 'good will, in close relationships we do not choose, and that is extremely difficult to drop," says Frances Hardinge.

the Three books of the Hardinge has so far been published in English: the first is the ”Lögnernas tree” (2017), her groundbreaking book that is about the end of the 1800s when Darwin's thoughts began to break through. In the ”Lögnernas trees ' move a family to a small island in the English channel, to the father, priest and scientist, will participate in an excavation.

and her daughter, Faith (!) forced to gradually re-evaluate their parents. On the island takes more and more distance from the family, for it is no longer credible with a scientist who is trying to prove that everything in the Bible is truth.

" It is such a fascinating time, when all the old cracks began to appear and the world is changing fundamentally. The new ideas begin in the outskirts and covered only by a few, then they grow and become more and more universal. I love such thing!

Frances Hardinge digging the content down into the research before she writes, and learn everything possible about the period when the books in the series or if the myths she uses.

" It's all about the clothes, superstitions, habits, customs, all of these things. For me is the research as a treasure hunt, I'm not so educated, but I always find strange little details that I want to tell others.

”Gökungen” (2018), Frances Hardinges book is about Tris who climbs up out of the pond Grimmen and have forgotten almost all of his life. The only thing she can think of is his insane, ravenous hunger. She eats and eats until her horrified parents put a stop to, and the little sister of the Pen, disgusted backs away: ”do you not See? It is not she!”

”Gökungen” is about a changeling, for Tris is very really not himself. But who is she then?

– of course, There is a nasty reality behind the myths about bortbytingar, notes Frances Hardinge quiet.

" It was probably, historically, a way to allow themselves to mistreat or even kill children with disabilities. I tell it when children ask me if verklighetsbakgrunden, but I myself was looking to explore a monsters identity. Who will be the one on all the treats a as a monster? We are all made of loose pieces that we inherited or which have inpräglats through our environment – but is there anything left if you take away the self all of the loans from the other? I think so.

Frances Hardinge Photo: Adam Daver

she is the basis of all the books that the parents read in front of the fireplace if the evenings: Tolkien's ”the Hobbit”, Susan cooper's åttiotalsserie ”The dark is rising” (five parts which is available in English and starts with ”A ring of iron”), Alan Garner, Leon Garfield, and others. The home was bokhylletätt, and had biblioteksstegar that Frances and her siblings climbed on the, on the lookout for fun books. Where she found the detective novel when she was ten years old, still a beloved genre, and there she continued then to read Charles Dickens, George Eliot and other artonhundratalsförfattare.

Frances Hardinge made her debut with ”Fly by night” 2005 (the”Mosca Mye and banned books”), a pure fantasy novel about an orphaned twelve, in a world where war and religious oppression have long ruled. It was an involuntary debut: it was not even Frances Hardinge himself, who sent out the first few chapters without bästisen Rhiannon Lassiter, who was also an author.

" No, I had never ventured. I was just too afraid to be laughed at, they would think it was too bad. ”Fly by night” was actually a part of a joint project that me and Rhiannon were doing, we had intended to write a book together. After a while we discovered that we probably wrote in their own book.

, where Frances Hardinge had first intended to study law, a ”sensible” choice; she managed to change their minds at the last second and read English literature instead. During the studies she started to write short stories, and was eventually in a skrivarprojekt online, where anyone who wanted to could contribute to a shared story.

" It should not have worked, but it did it to me and some to the wrote extremely. It was where Rhiannon discovered my writing. When we started our own project, " said Rhiannon suddenly: ”You see that it is a children's book, or how?” I had not even noticed! But when I changed focus and realized that the main character, Mosca, is a child, fell everything in site.

Children and ungdomslitteraturen suit her, she describes it as a necessary tygel, so that she keeps herself from getting too long-winded and tell you too much. Children are reading not polite, long descriptions that do not belong to the story.

”wishing well”.

with a skrivargrupp where they regularly meet and view each other. Despite the fact that it is painful when others judge her lyrics, she thinks that the benefits outweigh the: she are forced to write regularly, and can test out ideas on their friends.

" Then I see what does not work – but the most important thing is to see what actually works. There will always be periods when I read my script and think it is completely hopeless, I believe it does for all writers. Then I need to hear his friends in the printer group say against me.