A voice to the voiceless: the challenges and rewards of writing fiction set in a distant place and time
[…] I wanted to write a novel set in 19th-century Japan, a time of enormous upheaval when the ruling shogun was toppled and a new westernising government installed in power. I wanted to know how this revolution had looked to the losers, the shogun and his people, but could find almost nothing in the history books about them. Historians had recorded the exploits of the winners, turned them into icons whose names resound through Japanese history. But the losers and their stories were consigned to silence. […]
Published on Tuesday, 25 July 2017. Read full article online at BookBrunch.co.uk