Striking a right chord

> Scottish author Claire McFall is astonished by the Ferrymania that has gripped readers in far-off China for her books

was just fields, sheep, and the occasional tractor.

“It is an absolutely beautiful, gorgeous landscape, but it’s also very rugged, it’s quite dangerous and the Scottish weather can change at any moment, so for me it was actually quite a threatening environment.”

Ferryman has been translated into simplified Chinese for the China market, and complex Chinese for Taiwan, as well as Turkish, and Vietnamese.

McFall has also recently signed a publishing deal in France.

She said she believed the book’s theme of the afterlife found particular resonance with Chinese readers.

“In China, they have a belief called The Black and White Impermanence, two ghosts that take the spirits of the dead to the afterlife, and that has parallels with the themes in the books.”

In China, the book was marketed for adults – unlike in Britain where it was targeted at teenagers – and a large part of the Chinese readership are women aged under 25, she added.

“The people I spoke to at signings also had a real love for British culture, the books and the landscapes, and they were really attracted to the male lead.

“He’s handsome, he’s charismatic, he’s brave, what more do you want?”

The afterlife also has echoes of the Christian belief in purgatory, where souls undergo a gruelling purification before they are admitted into heaven, but the ebullient author stresses that she is no theological scholar or historian.

“I’m not an expert in Greek mythology – I literally know as much as I needed to write the book,” she said.

“I’m not a religious person, and I’m agnostic in that I’m not quite sure what I believe.

“My idea for the book was that the afterlife would be like coming home – somewhere that you feel safe, but that you should also have to earn it.

“I’m not much of an outdoorsy person. I don’t like climbing. It’s wet, it’s cold, it’s hard work.

“So being forced to hill march, first of all by the school and then by my husband, just gives me bad memories, so when I was thinking of something tough and gruelling to go through, that was in my head.”

Her second novel, Bombmaker, set in a dystopian independent Scotland, raised a few eyebrows when it was released at the height of the independence referendum campaign in 2014.

“A lot of people asked me if that is what I thought would happen if we got independence,” she said.

“My answer was no: I was just taking it to an exaggerated degree. I just fancied the idea of writing something in a dystopian Britain that was still recognisable.”

The third and final novel in the Ferryman trilogy is due to be published in 2019.

Her success has inevitably invited comparisons with J.K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter series began in a tiny Scottish flat and grew into an international phenomenon.

McFall said: “I wouldn’t even hope to pin myself to her but I think she is someone who is really inspiring to show what you can achieve.” – AFP-Relaxnews