viranram asks:
William, I really enjoyed the idea behind Ordinary Thunderstorms, of going completely off grid. Have ever been tempted to take part in Channel 4’s Hunted? What tips would you give for any budding contestants?
Guardian contributor No, I'm not intrepid enough. And you have to live like a medieval peasant, sleeping rough, scavenging, ignoring every aspect of modern life and nobody will ever find you.
JohnNewport1 asks:
Loved the series Armadillo years ago. Is there any chance you’d write more TV and do you agree that too much current TV writing suffers from trying too hard to be clever?
Guardian contributor I am constantly writing TV. I am writing a big spy series set in Berlin in 1961 right now. It is just incredibly hard getting these things made. But I do have a substantial parallel writing life in film/TV and now the theatre (which I absolutely love and in a way, for a novelist, is the most satisfying collaboration you can have - if that is what you a re looking for!)
I've no disappointments in the literary world, but in the world of film and television I suffer professional setbacks on a weekly basis
ClamClamClam asks:
Biggest disappointment?
Guardian contributor I've no disappointments in the literary world, but in the world of film and television I suffer professional setbacks on a weekly basis. It is the most frustrating of mediums. But it keeps you humble.
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Jessica019 asks:
Love your books William, which was the most difficult to write and which is your favourite?
Guardian contributor My favourite novel is always my last novel. But basically, I love them all.
I think Any Human Heart was the hardest to write, because it was written as a journal and you had to replicate all the random, mundane details of a journal and yet make the narrative still compelling.
Xan Atkins asks:
Love your books, can’t decide which is my favourite between A Good Man in Africa, An Ice-Cream War, The Blue Afternoon, Waiting for Sunrise and Ordinary Thunderstorms! How long do you typically take to plan a book before you begin writing? Also, you know the triangle of undergrowth that Adam Kindred hides in, in Ordinary Thunderstorms, does that actually exist? I want to find it!
Guardian contributor It takes me about three years to plan, research and write a novel. And Adam's triangle does exist - you can find it at the junction of Chelsea Bridge and the Embankment. We're waiting for the blue plaque to go up.
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weaselbeef asks:
What did you think to the TV adaptation of Any Human Heart?
Guardian contributor As I wrote the scripts, I thought it was magnificent!
Seriously, I always thought that it was a novel that could never be adapted for the screen. But i was wrong. Curiously, the screen version, even though it is entirely different (necessarily), has the same effect as the novel. It is almost a classic example of how you have to reinvent a book for the different medium. Novels and films are chalk and cheese, but people seem to forget that.
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C1aireA asks:
There’s been a lot of talk about post-colonial reading in the last couple of weeks and your perspective has always been broad, partly on account of your childhood in West Africa. How has that affected your literary taste, and which writers would you add to the syllabus, either at school or university?
Guardian contributor I think obviously China Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Ken Saro Wiwa - his novel Sozaboy is one of the greatest anti war novels ever written. See my earlier replies about African writers and novels for more - it is a rich field and it is even worth adding in the classics of "colonial" literature (Waugh, Greene, Cary, Gordimer, Lessing).
DWFan1 asks:
What’s your favourite Pixar film?
Guardian contributor Toy Story 1. Boring!
I actually flew on a plane to Los Angeles and was sitting two seats from Steve Jobs back in the 90s, when he'd left Apple and had gone to Pixar. His team were loudly celebrating the release of Toy Story so I thought I should check it out.
tiojo asks:
What do you think about the new stream of novels coming from West Africa from Cassava Republic Press? How can they get a wider readership in the UK?
Guardian contributor I always keep an eye on African novels - particularly from west Africa where I was born and grew up. I have read a great many over the years - my favourites being novels by Ken Saro Wiwa (who I got to know quite well) and Nkem Nwankwo. The writing from Nigeria is particularly impressive and it has had a remarkable literary tradition since world war two.
The last novel I read was Welcome to Lagos by Chibundo Inuzo. Lagos is a city I knew in the 1970s - she nails the contemporary Lagos brilliantly.
As for Cassava, the only answer is to keep spreading the word. This is where the internet is your best friend.
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I do take photographs myself. I take photos of things that look like abstract paintings
Toomanywords asks:
Some of your work is inspired by and uses old photographs. How much does photogrpahy feature in your writing and are you a photographer yourself?
Guardian contributor I've used old anonymous photographs in two works: Nat Tate and Sweet Caress. But I started writing a lot about photography and have written introductions to photographic monographs and have become very interested in the medium. Lartigue is my favourite photographer.
I do take photographs myself and I am contemplating self-publishing a little book of them which I am going to call 'Abstraction is everywhere around you'. I take photos of things that look like abstract paintings.
Guardian contributor I have written an introduction for a book by Rankine and a great French photographer called Gerard Depardon.
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My good fortune was that after my Gordonstoun years, I went to the University of Nice in France, and that's where my re-education began
Mrdaydream asks:
You were educated at Gordonstoun school with Prince Charles, who has spoken of the experience as a damaging one. Did you yourself feel damaged by it?
Guardian contributor Being educated over a 10 year period at a single-sex, boarding school in the north of Scotland has a massive effect on your young personality and nature. What is then required is an equally massive process of re-education.
My good fortune was that after my Gordonston years, I went to the University of Nice in the south of France, and that's where my re-education began. It was absolutely vital I was away from home, my family, my friends, my culture and my language - everything changed in that year in Nice.
See my essays in Bamboo for a more detailed analysis of the boarding school experience!
Guardian contributor I've actually written two films about boarding school life: Good and Bad at Games, and Dutch Girls (starring a young Colin Firth), in an attempt to get it out of my system. Dutch Girls is out on DVD!
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amandajanewood asks:
I’m often reminded of Anthony Burgess when I read your novels. After Earthly Powers, Any Human Heart is one of my favourite novels. Was he an influence?
Guardian contributor I met and got to know Anthony Burgess when I was a young novelist. A great man. And very generous and open. I had been a fan long before I met him, attracted to his work by the Enderby trilogy, in particular. I have read Earthly Powers, but didn't read it when it came out deliberately, because I was writing The New Confessions at the time and I didn't want it to bleed into it.
He's definitely in my top 10 in terms of influence - number one is Anton Chekov. Muriel Spark is there, as is Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Evelyn Waugh and oddly perhaps, lots of 20th century poets - I think novelists read lots of poetry but keep quiet about it!
My poetry top 10 includes WH Auden, Elizabeth Bishop and Wallace Stevens.
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Pastavist asks:
Love Any Human Heart, Waiting for Sunrise and Sweet Caress. Who are the current or recent writers in English you most enjoy reading? And modern French novelists?
Guardian contributor Two young British writers who I really rate are Evie Wyld and David Szalay. And I read my contemporaries pretty avidly.
As for modern French novelists, I really like the novels of Michel Tournier, Patrick Modiano and Jean Echenoz. I think all these writers are all translated into English, but we have a shameful record when it comes to translating contemporary French novels into English. We're still reading Sartre and Camus over here!
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Scotland would be a bankrupt country if it had become independent. Brexit is a national disaster.
Gogoh asks:
How do you feel about Scottish independence now, post-Brexit vote?
Guardian contributor I think we dodged a bullet there. Scotland would be a bankrupt country if it had become independent. Brexit is a national disaster. Just as with the Scottish referendum, the Brexit referendum showed that complicated political questions can never be answered with a simple yes or no.
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TOOmanyWilsons asks:
The New Confessions is a gobsmackingly good novel, fertile, playful and irresponsible in oddly mature and centred way. It should have won everything there was to win. I just wondered about the moment when JJT is right on the edge of the west flank of the trenches that lead right up to the beach. Literally the last man in a line of men that stretches across a country. When did that come to you?
Guardian contributor I did a lot of research for The New Confessions in the Imperial War Museum, looking at old news reels and their massive photo collection. I came across a photograph of the northern most extremity of the front line, which ended on the beach of Dunkirk, funnily enough.
The idea came to me, how odd it must have been to be the person who began the 600 mile of trenches that went all the way from the English channel to the Swiss border. And a novel is the perfect place to explore such a phenomenon.
Originally I wanted to go to be a painter. And wanted to go to art school. But my father said, 'Absolutely no way' so I swerved to literature
ID892288 asks:
You have written on art and artists on a number of occasions – do you paint or draw?
Guardian contributor Originally, I wanted to be a painter. And wanted to go to art school. But my father said, "Absolutely no way", so I swerved to literature. However, I kept up my interest in art and artists and have written a great deal about them (many of my essays in my collected non-fiction book Bamboo). And I am still writing about art as often as I can.
My other great involvement in that world was when I created a fictional artist called Nat Tate, and, along with one David Bowie, initiated what turned out to be a fairly spectacular art hoax. I do paint and draw still. I am responsible for all of Nat Tate's artwork as well.
1998 was the year of the hoax - pre internet and pre google. I don't think you could pull it off today! It is the 20th anniversary of the hoax next year - 1 April 1998.
Guardian contributor As a note, I'll be talking a little bit more about Nat Tate and Bowie at the Southbank Centre - since he died, there have been some developments...
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ravint asks:
How is the adaptation of Waiting for Sunrise going?
Guardian contributor Fairly well. It was going to be a Hollywood movie (vain ambition). And the producer - Lorne Michaels from Saturday Night Live - now thinks it would be better as eight hours of television. In fact, long form television is the best way to adapt most novels so I am actually very happy that we're moving from one medium to another.
goodyorkshirelass asks:
I wish I could express my admiration of the sweep, depth and bloody good story telling of Sweet Caress. In the Vietnam chapter, Amory meets undercover British soldiers, posing as Australians. Was this factual information you had to dig deeply for, or an informed assumption based on your research?
Guardian contributor I had to dig very deeply for this information. I believe it is still denied categorically by the Ministry of Defence but I think that it is pretty much established now that British forces were fighting in Vietnam, disguised in the late 60s early 70s.
I met a soldier win the late 60s when I was at university. I thought he would say Northern Ireland but he said "Vietnam", much to my astonishment. But then he clammed up.
So I had an idea this was a big military secret and when I decided to write Sweet Caress, and I have uncovered evidence that British forces did fight in that war, clandestinely. I put it in the novel, expecting it to create some kind of fuss, but no one reacted. However, we are developing a long-form TV series of Sweet Caress and we will be dealing with this issue if it ever makes it to screen. Perhaps that will stir things up a bit more effectively!
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My new novel covers 10 years, 1895-1905. I'm handing it to my publishers this week, but I haven't thought of a good title yet …
Simbadiow asks:
The New Confessions, Any Human Heart and Sweet Caress all have similarities with the central character from each having an eventful life which is recounted mainly over the 20th century. The ‘faction’ technique that you use in each is something that I (and from readers reviews, many others) enjoy. Are you planning any more books like this?
Guardian contributor I call these three novels "whole life novels", from cradle to grave.
They are technically very hard to write in fact, the idea is to, unlike most novels, present characters' story throughout their entire lives. Therefore, they are necessarily quite long, in the interest of making them as real as possible. I often introduced real people and real historical events to give the fictional life an authentic context.
Because they're so complicated to write, and take so long, I'm not actually planning another one at the moment. My new novel, out next year, covers 10 years, 1895-1905. I'm handing it in to my publisher this week, but I haven't thought of a good title yet...
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I am very proud of The Vanishing Game. It is a homage to the novels of John Buchan, set today
tpnrty asks:
An Ice Cream War and Any Human Heart could stand alongside anyone else you care to name. Do you remember writing a ‘free to Kindle’ novella called The Vanishing Game? What were you thinking?
Guardian contributor I am very proud of The Vanishing Game. It is the concluding story in my new collection, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth. It was available for years for free on the web, as an astonishing multimedia experience - sound effects, a score and some scenes acted. It is a homage to the novels of John Buchan, but set today about a young actor who gets into terrible trouble in a big pharma scam.
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_Friendo_ asks:
What’s the best advice you got as a writer when you were just starting out?Also, what are some of your favourite novels set in/about Africa?
Guardian contributor I didn't have any advice when I started out - because I didn't know any writers! So it was a process of self education. There was only on creative writing school and virtually no books on how to get started. But my advice to myself would now be: Don't start until you know how your novel is going to end. If you don't how it is going to end, chances are you will abandon it. And remember, stamina is vital.
Guardian contributor And my favourite novels set in Africa - The Heart of the Matter by Grahame Greene. Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary - I actually adapted that one for a movie starring Pierce Bronson and directed by Bruce Beresford, now available as a DVD on the Criterion collection. It is a great novel set in colonial Nigeria. The Grass in Singing by Doris Lessing. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. And Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
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ruby1967 asks:
On recommending your novels to my daughter I was thinking how this is yet another generation even further removed from their time period than me, will they hold her interest as much as mine? How does a novelist write about the past, especially war, for the modern reader?
Guardian contributor I think the less familiar a reader is with the setting or period of a novel, the better. It becomes a voyage of discovery. In my novel The Blue Afternoon, I wrote about a forgotten war - the USA versus Philippine rebels. The fact it was forgotten made it 100% more interesting. It was Gore Vidal in fact who told me about this war that I had never heard of. Once I started investigating, I realised I had struck gold, literary gold.
I advise young writers to stick to genres for their first novels. Everybody gets genre, be it thriller, romance or a spy novel
NicolasHodges asks:
I am an amateur writer on the point of completing a thriller. A couple of London literary agents rejected an earlier novel of mine last year, but asked me to keep them in mind for anything else I write. I am intending to submit the new novel to them early in the new year. Do you have any advice?
Guardian contributor A very good idea to write a thriller. I advise young writers to stick to genres for their first novels. Everybody gets genre, whether it is thriller, romance, a spy novel. Once they are successful, you can move on to other fields.
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William Boyd is with us now!
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William Boyd webchat – post your questions now
Since he was selected in 1983 as one of Granta’s 20 Best of Young British Novelists, Boyd has become one of the UK’s most beloved authors. The Scottish writer of more than 20 novels and short story collections, Boyd grew up in Ghana, Nigeria, France and Scotland. He was working as an English lecturer at Oxford and as the New Statesman’s TV critic when his first novel, A Good Man In Africa, was published in 1981.
Since then, he has produced a stream of novels – always handwritten – admired by both critics and readers: the Booker prize-shortlisted An Ice-Cream War, set during the first world war in colonial east Africa; Brazzaville Beach, about a scientist researching chimpanzee behaviour; and the Booker-longlisted Any Human Heart, a novel in the form of journals by a fictitious writer which was longlisted for the Booker and adapted for TV. After that came Restless (2006), Waiting for Sunrise: A Novel (2012), Solo, his James Bond novel (2013) and Sweet Caress (2015). His latest book is a collection of short stories, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, stories linked by impulsive decisions and life-changing chance encounters.
Boyd was also the mastermind – with the help of David Bowie and Gore Vidal – behind an art hoax: the story of Nat Tate, a tragically forgotten abstract expressionist painter, whose body of work was actually created by Boyd himself. Boyd also fought an 11-year lawsuit against his French publisher (for theft). Outside the books world, he opposed Scottish independence in 2014 and runs a vineyard in Bergerac, France.
So that’s more than enough to be going on with. Post your questions in the comments below and Boyd will respond to them on Tuesday 31 October at 12pm – join us then. If you can’t, he’ll also be speaking at the Southbank Centre on 6 November.
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Thanks so much for all the fascinating questions. Do come to my talk at the Southbank on the 6th of November, where there will be a lot more detail (and gossip!)