FACT TO FANTASY: THE SLIPPERY TASK OF WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION

FACT TO FANTASY: THE SLIPPERY TASK OF WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION

History is fact and fiction fantasy, and it is easy to think the two might go well together. History gives a good story, and fiction requires writing it up through action and characters. Unfortunately, the reality is very different. Drawing on her two novels of Singapore, A Different Sky and Sacred Waters, Meira Chand illuminates the difficulties inherent in the genre.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Born in London to a Swiss mother and Indian father, Meira grew up and was educated in the UK. She studied art at Central St Martin’s. In 1962 she went with her Indian husband to Japan, where she taught art at an international school. Leaving Japan for Mumbai in 1971, she lived for five years in India, where she began writing. India, she says, was a life changing experience. ‘For the first time in my life, I met a half of myself I had never known. There was simply no way I could understand that experience, but through writing.’ Two novels, House of the Sun (1989), and A Far Horizon (2001), and a soon to be published collection of short stories, The Pink White and Blue Universe, are a reflection of her time in India, and the indelible effect of the country upon her.

After returning to Japan in 1976, she wrote her first novel, The Gossamer Fly (1979), followed by four further novels about Japan, Last Quadrant (1981), The Bonsai Tree (1983), The Painted Cage (1986), and A Choice of Evils (1996).

Two more novels, A Different Sky (2010) and Sacred Waters (2018), were written after she left Japan to live in Singapore in 1997. The hugely successful Singapore stage production, LKY The Musical, about the life of the country’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, was based on a story she wrote. Meira is now a Singaporean citizen and regards the country as home.

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