Devas, demons, special effects
Over the past decade, Olivier Lafont, 41, has gone from actor based in India (for 30 years; you might remember him as Kareena Kapoor Khan’s fiancé in 3 Idiots) to YA fantasy fiction writer. Books like Warrior (Penguin Random House India, 2014) and The Rise of the Midnight King (Speaking Tiger, 2019) feature demigods, zombie clowns, flying deities and magical animals.
Warrior was shortlisted for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize in 2013 and The Rise of the Midnight King was on the Neev Book Award 2020 shortlist in the Junior Readers category. “I became conscious of reading and loving fantasy around the age of nine,” says Lafont, now based in Paris. “I assume there’s a point in time when some children ‘grow up’. I just continued being entranced.”
Warrior is a mythological fantasy about Saam, Shiva’s earthly demigod child, who must save Mumbai from the end of days. Lafont’s latest, …Midnight King, follows the adventures of a group of teens from a mountain village after they stumble upon Yakshagarh, the Himalayan retreat of rakshasas, warrior statues, yakshas, devas.
On how the genre has changed
Streaming and special effects are shaping the evolution of YA fantasy fiction, Lafont says. “The success of the first Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings films heralded the end of any significant practical (ie, special effects) barrier to adapting fantasy books for film and TV.”
This genre was once considered the domain of “nerds” and “geeks”, he adds. “All of a sudden, it has become something that everyone openly claims to like. Film and OTT adaptations made this possible — the beginnings of the Netflixstyle model in the 2000s, and the blurring of geographic and cultural boundaries due to social media.”
On his favourite recent works
“I have read and loved Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (2001),” Lafont says. “It features a hero, Shadow, whose mother is African-american and whose father is the Norse god Odin. It’s a relatively early example of inclusivity in mainstream fantasy. I also loved Who Fears Death (2010) by Nigeriana merican author Nnedi Okorafor, a comingof-age story set in a post-apocalyptic Africa, focused on racism, violence against women.”