The first ever Guernsey Literary Festival takes place during May 12-15, 2011 as a celebration of our enchanting tales and storytellers.

For such a small population, Guernsey possesses a surprisingly rich literary tradition. The role-call of home-grown talent and writers who have been inspired by Guernsey is littered with famous names. Authors Victor Hugo, Mervyn Peake, Elizabeth George (best known for the Inspector Lynley novels), GB Edwards, James Herbert and Tim Binding have all been influenced by Guernsey’s shores.

Victor Hugo

The German Occupation of Guernsey is a poignant and recurring theme. Stories such as that of fictitious archetypal Guernseyman, Ebenezer Le Page, printed posthumously in 1981, and the more recent international bestseller The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society have captivated readers for decades. This particular episode in the Guernsey’s history begs to be told and retold.  In the words of the Island’s newest literary star, Mary Horlock, everyone has their own version of the Occupation.

The Guernsey literary festival presents a wonderful opportunity to take in a packed programme of literary events, including the chance to meet writers such as Annie Barrows and Tim Binding, while experiencing the sights, sounds and community that inspired the writing.

To give you a sneak peek of the festival’s highlights, we tracked down a couple of the feted authors who will be attending the event:

Interview with author Mary Horlock

Mary has just published her first novel, The Book of Lies. She spent her childhood in Guernsey, moving to England at the age of eighteen to read History and History of Art at Cambridge before joining the Tate Gallery as a curator. She went on to curate the Turner Prize for several years as well as numerous contemporary exhibitions. Mary lives in London with her partner and their two children.

Mary Horlock

Watch Mary’s short video about the book, shot on Guernsey

Were you born on Guernsey?

MH: No, I was born in Australia and we moved to the island when I was four or five.  It was really exciting as I’d never heard of Guernsey.

My dad wanted to live on an island – he was born on the Isle of Wight – and in Australia we had lived right on the beach. He was obsessed with the sea and became a keen yachtsman, with his own boat, and he loved the sea views from our house in Fermain.  I remember always being out on the cliffs with our dogs as a child.  Dad was a strong swimmer and used to swim across the bay and back every day.

Mum still lives in the house at Fermain.

What inspired you to write the novel?

MH: I knew I wanted to write a book.  I had been experimenting with fiction but hadn’t written anything that I wanted to show anyone.  I knew as soon as I started writing about Guernsey that this was the novel to share.

I would be sitting in our flat in central London, imagining I was back in our house on Guernsey looking out over the cliffs.

Then I rediscovered my old diaries and it brought back to me all the good things about growing up on Guernsey but also how frustrating it can be as a teenager, not even able to get on a bus and escape to a different town, like you can in England.   There’s something particular, and particularly isolating about growing up on a small island.  It feels a lot like adolescence.

And what about the wartime Occupation strand to the book, where did you get your inspiration?

MH: Guernsey has this extraordinary history with the German Occupation which sets it apart.  When I was growing up I was surrounded by stories of the Occupation.  At school we’d do local history projects, and the grandparents of my school friends would share their experiences.  These were captivating tales for children. History is very evident in the Island’s landscape too, so it’s literally all around you.

My mother, who is an avid reader, was very interested in the local history when she first moved here, and my stepfather joined the Occupation Society when he first came to Guernsey as a way of making friends and getting to know his new home.

I’ve always been a member of the Priaulx Library and there are pamphlets and memoirs that aren’t available anywhere else.  When I was writing my novel I looked at as many books as possible, both recent and historic records of the Occupation.

Did any of the books written previously about the Occupation inspire you?

MH: I do think The Book of Ebenezer Le Page is a classic, I read it when I was 10 or 11 and was utterly captivated by the tale and the teller.

But I think the book that struck me the most was probably Small Army, a book by Michael Marshall which you can now only get hold of at the Priaulx, I believe…that’s where I found it.

Small Army tells the true story of the boys of Elizabeth College who were evacuated en masse from Guernsey before the Germans arrived. They went with their headmaster and form teachers to England and were relocated in an old country house.  Cut off from their island, these young boys formed their own militia, developed bombs and arms, and even built a hot air balloon!  It was all part of their plan to come back to Guernsey and rescue the islanders from the Germans.  Michael Marshall was one of the boys and captured exactly their teenage bravado and intense patriotism.

It’s an absolute joy to read.

What do you enjoy about going back to Guernsey?

MH: I love going back and I absolutely hate leaving.  It’s still the place I call home.  It’s like a tonic.  The first thing I have to do is go and walk on the cliffs.

I have a real nostalgia for my childhood here.  And I love taking the kids, they love the freedom, the miles of beaches, the clean sea air.  It’s a form of escapism from London…we all need somewhere to escape to!

Interview with author Annie Barrows

Annie Barrows

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer was completed by her niece, Annie Barrows, following the untimely death of her aunt.  Annie is an established author in her own right having produced the popular series of children’s books, Ivy and Bean.  Annie has just completed her next book for adults (working title: Macedonia).

What do you think inspired Mary Ann to write the novel?

AB: It was easy for me to understand why she was so inspired by Guernsey.  In the US you don’t ever hear about the Occupation of the Channel Islands, it was very much a buried treasure for her.  I can imagine how excited she would have been when she visited Guernsey to discover this trove of stories she’d never heard.

I have some of the books she found on Guernsey with her scribbled notes in red ink and you can see what a cache of rich narrative these were to her.

It must have been difficult to finish someone else’s story?

AB: Before I started I thought it was impossible!

Two things made it achievable, and wonderful.  One was that I was in the company of my aunt’s voice, which was something very natural to me having grown up with her stories.  The second was that the more I found out about Guernsey and the Occupation, the more I wanted to work with the material.

The difficult thing was working out how to include all the stories; there was so much fodder!

But you hadn’t been to Guernsey?

AB: No, I’d never been!  I would stare at the Guernsey weather cam for inspiration, which gave me a real sense of the particular beauty of the sunrises.  I also had a very good 1936 surveyor map so I knew the lay of the land.

When I first visited in July 2008 (after I’d had to turn in the manuscript!) it all came together.  Guernsey is completely different to England, everything from the craggy cliffs to how the flowers bloom.  I could see what inspired Mary Ann.

So what’s next?

AB: Well I’m going to be speaking at the Guernsey Literary Festival, which I’m really excited about.  I’m truly honoured with the acceptance the book has found.  The theme is going to be how stories can transcend the separation, for instance how Mary Ann and I came to write Guernsey’s Occupation stories from afar (both in distance and in time).

I’ve just finished my new novel (for adults) which is set in southern USA in 1938.  The working title is Macedonia – did you know there are a large number of towns in the southern States with Greek place names?

Tim Binding

A former Editor at Penguin Books, Tim Binding, has written several novels including Island Madness, set in occupied Guernsey during World War Two.

Tim Binding

What motivated you to write Island Madness?

TB: The very first inspiration for the book was finding the photo used on the front cover of a local Jersey woman with some German officers.  They’re all smiling and it doesn’t paint the archetypal picture of an invasion.

I write about British history and so was naturally drawn to the story of the Occupation.  The more I read, the more I became fascinated with the subject.

It was a good place for the Germans to be posted, not at the front line.  It was very different for the people of Jersey and Guernsey, the capabilities for resistance extremely limited – they were virtually outnumbered.

Then I found a diary in the Imperial War Museum written by a housekeeper of one of the large houses on Jersey.  It was apparent that he didn’t like the Germans, but equally he didn’t dislike them.  Scorn was reserved for residents who actively collaborated rather than doing the bare minimum.

I wanted to make my lead German character as good as possible to demonstrate that not everything was black and white.

Had you read any other material on the Occupation?

TB: I’d read Ebenezer Le Page’s account.  It’s one of the great, great books, a marvellous book.  I also read non-fiction and newspapers from the time and was lucky enough to come across a history of the police station which had just been published when I visited to do my research.

But what made you set the story on Guernsey specifically?

TB: I knew and liked Guernsey best.  The people are more down to earth.  When I first had the idea for the book I visited Guernsey again, which cemented the story for me.  Guernsey became very much located in the story, a microcosm.

The people of Guernsey did amazingly well, they were somewhat mistreated and ignored by the rest of the UK during the Occupation I felt.  It also felt like a decent story about their wartime experience hadn’t yet been told.