David Almond

The Colour of the Sun
David Almond

About Author

David Almond was born in Newcastle and spent his childhood playing football, camping with his friends and singing as an altar boy. He initially trained as a teacher before writing his award-winning novel Skellig. David's books sell all over the world, and in 2011 he was the recipient of the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award. In 2021, David was awarded the OBE for Services to Literature. www.davidalmond.com

 

Interview

THE COLOUR OF THE SUN

HODDER CHILDREN'S BOOKS

MAY 2018


THE COLOUR OF THE SUN, DAVID ALMOND's latest novel, is probably his most autobiographical to date. Following a young adolescent boy, Davie, through the course of day, it is imbued with reminiscences of his home town of Felling and with observations on community, creativity and beliefs.

Its publication also marks the 20th anniversary of David Almond's debut children's book and contemporary classic, SKELLIG.

The Colour of the Sun follows 12-year-old Davie after the discovery of a body of a teenaged boy. Davie, who is already grieving over the loss of his father, sees the body of the young man before heading off on his own to the hills outside his town, meeting people from his community, hearing their stories and visiting places he has known throughout his childhood. As Davie leaves the town behind, what is real and what is not real become more confused, leading to an important revelation for Davie and a way to confront and resolve his grief.

We asked author DAVID ALMOND to tell us more about THE COLOUR OF THE SUN:


Q: Does The Colour of the Sun draw on your own memories of early adolescence?

A: In some ways it is my most autobiographical novel to date, it takes me back to my home ground in the physical landscape of Felling-on-Tyne where I grew up. It describes how it was and all the places I remember. The boy in the story is also called Davie and, like me, he has lost his father.

I just found myself writing about this boy growing up here in my home town and reminiscing on some old things and recreating them and filling them with light and colour. It felt like a journey into light and colour; all his encounters are infused with light and colour.


Q: Is it also a book about discovering yourself as a writer?

A: I felt that it was a book about writing and the act of creating, and creating fiction. Davie is aware that he is creating something as he walks through the town, he is creating himself and he even reflects on that at one point and asks if he is 'made of words'. It was interesting for me, for Davie, to reflect on those things. He reflects on himself and being a writer and whether God had made him a writer.

I enjoyed drawing on those things, on the nature of the mind; where do thoughts and memories come from, what does it mean to create something and are we just imaginary figments of someone's imagination? Where are the borders between what really happens to us and what we think happens to us?

When I was Davie's age, although I wasn't consciously aware of it, I did a lot of wandering when I would think about things. Looking back as an adult to how I was as a boy, I can see that I was creating myself as a writer, taking in the sights and sounds and textures that were all around me and when I write now about that childhood, I am suffused by those things. So when I was Davie's age I knew I wanted to write and I didn't know how to do that but now I realise I was doing that by doing that kind of looking and walking around and being amazed by the world.

When people ask me what I'm inspired by, I answer that it's just by the world. I remember as a boy being staggered by how amazing it was, miraculous even.


Q: Why have you focused on a young adolescent in this novel?

A: Davie is 12 years old and it's an important time. The story moves from Davie's grieving - you see the blacks and monochrome colours of the town - but as he moves on, the world becomes full of light and colour and it's a perfect age to write about, that move from childhood to being a teenager and becoming an adult. That stage is wonderful to write about.

Davie has had something terrible happen in his life; but while terrible things can happen to us, we can still be filled with optimism and hope. In some ways I get more romantic the older I get, there are so many terrible things that happen in this world but I am still so optimistic about humanity because of our young people. It seems to me that they will create a better world.

It seems a natural thing to do, that if I am writing about young people it brings optimism, I can't be cynical.


Q: During Davie's day, you also explore what religion means to those in Davie's community. Why did you want to explore and also to reject religion in this story?

A: Because I was writing about Davie at that age and at that time, religion had to be part of it. At that time there were lots of priests around and there was a sense of the Catholic church and the sacraments being very important. People talk about the darkness of Catholicism and how you move beyond it if you have been brought up with those beliefs; it can become a struggle. But another way to is to accept how things were and that there was a very benign aspect to it. The priests I knew were decent men.

In some ways, in the story, the priest becomes a metaphor of this struggle. His own childhood was filled with life and then he takes on the black clothes of religion. His renouncement of religion is an optimistic thing for me, a celebration of his humanity. He is enjoying being in this world and in this body; he doesn't need to hearken to another world.

So it's a celebration of human life and love. He describes how he came to his vocation through his love of life, while David is in a way discovering his own vocation as a writer through his own love of the world.


Q: One of the turning points in the novel takes place at Cooper's Hole, why did you introduce that particular place to the story?

A: It's a place that existed, up in the top of the town, behind fields and paddocks in an abandoned area. As I was writing I realised that that was the place where Davie would head for.

It is an aspect of humanity; we all have a Cooper's Hole somewhere. It's the darkness in us. The place also seems very benign and beautiful with the frogs and the light shining through the water, but it's also tinged with darkness which could be Hell; it's like a mythical place. Davie has to go there - to this place in his own psyche - and that's where he sees his father.


Q: This is also a novel where not a great deal happens. How did you decide on the structure for The Colour of the Sun?

A: The journey itself is the event in this story; Davie goes to the top of town and encounters various people on the way. He travels up to the sky and back down to earth again and on his way he meets people and hears about things that happened to them, so their stories also become his story.

It's about place and language and people united in a kind of community and it couldn't be told in any other way. The locality of the place and the language is important. Any place, no matter how unimportant, can contain things that are miraculous.

When I was writing as a young man, I remember wondering if there was a language out there that I could attach myself to, but I realised you are attached to the language you have had from the place where you were born. So I had to write about that place, using the language I grew up with.

Writing this was like a return and using the physicality of place and language suggests that there was also something beautiful about physical language and the people who use it.


Q: Why have you written Davie's journey in the first person and in the present tense?

A: I have moved it around a lot. When I first wrote it, it was in the past tense and the first person, then I tried it in the third person but I realised that for it to be an actual journey the reader goes on, then it needs to be in the present tense, and in the first person.

The reader sets out on a journey with Davie, it's not something that is reflected by him but a forward-moving journey that the reader shares with Davie.


Q: There is a lot to think about in the novel, but what would you like your younger readers to take away from it?

A: I would like them to know that it's going to be okay, which is one of the things that Davie's dad tells him. What I realised when I started to write for young people is that I was writing a book to myself, telling myself that it was going to be okay, and in the process of doing so, I'm telling all young people this. Some people's lives are terrible and what I am doing in this novel is saying exactly that; you might go through tough times but remember, it will be okay.


Q: It is 20 years since your first book for children, Skellig, was published. In writing The Colour of the Sun, were you reflecting on that anniversary at all?

A: Yes it somehow feels connected with Skellig. When I wrote Skellig, I thought I knew nothing about writing children's books and it was an amazing liberation writing a book for younger readers. But you always have doubts as a writer. Then there was this huge fuss around it which astonished me as a writer. Skellig has now been published in 42 languages, it's also a film and a play and an opera, and it's still used massively in schools.

I still hear people talking about Skellig and the effect it had on them but even when I was writing it, I didn't know what it was about; Skellig is still a mystery to me. All you can do as a writer is to write the best book you can, and I am proud of the impact it has had.

 


A SONG FOR ELLA GREY

HODDER CHILDREN'S BOOKS

PUBLISHED: JUNE 2014


A SONG FOR ELLA GREY by Skellig author David Almond draws on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to spin a poignant story of music and joy, of hope and tragic love.

The story is recited by teenaged Claire, who has lost her best friend Ella Grey to the mysterious Orpheus, an enigmatic wanderer and musician. From the moment she meets Orpheus, Ella Grey knows she has always been destined to love him but, as their all-consuming love plays out, tragedy strikes.

We spoke to David Almond about A Song for Ella Grey which is set, like many of his previous novels, in the landscape of the North East. We asked him the following questions:

Q: Why did you want to write a book that draws on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice?

A: It's a story that's haunted me and so many people, it's such a powerful story. It's one that I've touched on for years and it's in many of my books.

When I finished writing The Tightrope Walkers, which was published in July, the myth just came back to me and grabbed me and it seemed time to do it. I started reading around it and making notes.

Once I started writing it, everything seemed to fall into place, that it needed be set in Tyneside in Newcastle which is my home town, and to be about contemporary teenagers. It all seemed to be a perfect fit.

The myth also talks about writing. There is something visionary about writing, you're almost wanting to create something that is beyond words but there's no way to do that. So, as a writer you're doomed to fail - just like Orpheus fails. We all want to defeat death and we know we won't manage to but we'll keep trying again and again.

Each time the myth is retold and each time we go into that other world, it's like going back to it the first time. It's a new shot at the greatest story; we'll keep sending Orpheus down and bringing him back to try again. It's like the end of Monteverde's opera of Orpheus and Euridice where the music lifts again at the end as if to say, let's have a dance, we know we'll fail and then we'll try again.

Q: What was it like to write a story where you already know the ending?

A: When I began writing, it felt right that my story would be the sum of the many different versions of the Orpheus myth and that gave me a structure.

Most of my books grow organically but with this one I had a set pattern; Euridice will die, Orpheus will try to bring her back, and then Orpheus will die. Once I accepted that, the things that happened seemed to make it happen like that.

It does sometimes feel that some stories are destined to follow a pattern from the start, while with others the challenge is to find the pattern that is already there.

Destiny is interesting to work with as a writer. In a couple of short stories I have written where I have explored destiny, the writer is there to allow the pre-destiny of the story to take place; you allow someone to do something and let them move in that direction. In other stories, you're aware of creating a structure for the story to happen within. And sometimes you're there with the story and it's telling itself through you.

Q: So did you almost have to let this story write itself?

A: Once I started it seemed to have its own strength, not that it wrote itself but there seemed to be a natural rhythm to it. You hear authors say that there is a flow to writing, a kind of letting go, and I've also read that about performance how in the best moments, there's something Orphic about music and also art, there is something that can come through us, something meta-human.

Q: The book is probably your most lyrical to date. Did you feel you were writing a song, rather than a novel?

A: I wanted that sense of finding a voice that is the song of life; in the best moments in the book, it will sound like music. I'm very aware of the relationship between words and music, novels and opera. This book was an opportunity to explore that relationship and I let that move the book into existence.

Q: Why do you feel the myth worked so well with teenaged characters?

A: The story is told by Claire, Ella Grey's best friend. It had to be someone close to Ella, who loved Ella as much as Orpheus did, so her loss is the same as his. Teenagers are so intense in their relationships and their friendships, so I felt it was relevant. The story is so intense; it is perfect for teenagers who are passionate, creative and aware of having nothing but opportunity and love and loss in their lives.

Q: Why did you return to your North East roots for the setting for the story?

A: It had to be the setting. The Northumberland beaches where the group goes for a holiday, and where they meet Orpheus and most of the action plays out, are so beautiful. The book is a song to some of the beauties of Northumberland and like the kids say, let's turn Northumberland into Greece where the sun doesn't shine.

I also set part of the story, where Orpheus goes underground, in the Ouseburn Valley, where you find the Seven Stories children's centre and the Cluny, a very distinctive and artistic area by the river Ouseburn.

I did a lot of walking around the area and to these places as the book developed. You're walking and exploring as a way to explore the story. That area around the Cluny is very distinctive and there's even a tunnel there that goes under the city, just as it does in my story, while in the street above is the Seven Stories, a place where children act out stories.

Q: As in the myths, your Orpheus plays a lute, but what does that sound like?

A: I listened to a lot of lute music I had collected from a few years ago, then I had to find out a bit more about Ancient Greek music and what it might have sounded like. There are some short pieces that you can listen to, that try to recreate what the sound might have been like. I felt it sounded a bit like Japanese music that I have listened to, which is to do with calling ghosts into the upper world. So there's a very strong Japanese influence in the book.

Q: How absorbed did you become with the myth of Orpheus while you were writing about it?

A: There were moments when I really believed in Orpheus, when he seemed to have an actual presence, and I felt there was something genuinely true about the myth. There's something very powerful about the Orpheus myth because in many ways it is true; there's a kind of Orpheus in us all. There have been some concerts that I've been to where you could almost sense Orpheus on the stage, like a presence.

Q: Are there other myths that are drawing you to write about them?

A: The myths that speak to me are Persephone, which is always close, I've touched on it in a couple of books, and the Minotaur myths are very appealing to me. Maybe I will do something on those one day.

Q: Where do you write?

A: I like to go to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne (or the Lit & Phil as it is popularly known), an historical library in Newcastle upon Tyne. When I'm in the middle of a book I write there. The building is 200 years old but once you're through the doors it's very modern. A lot of writers go there, it feels like a democratic place to be.

 


MY NAME IS MINA BY DAVID ALMOND

Published by Hodder Children's Books

September 2010

This month, September, author David Almond will be presented with the Hans Christian Andersen Award in recognition of his contribution to children's literature. It is well timed this is also the tenth anniversary of Skellig, the debut novel that brought Almond so much critical attention.

To mark the anniversary, Almond was asked to write some new text for an anniversary edition of Skellig. Almond thought long and hard and, eventually, decided to write some pages from Mina's notebook. However, once he started on the notebook he found it hard to stop and that is how My Name is Mina began.

Almond says, "Ever since Skellig was published, people have been asking me for a sequel but there was no way to do that because I would have tried to answer questions that don't need to be answered, or to invent answers.

"Mina came into Skellig out of the blue and gave the book energy and direction, but I'd not thought of doing anything with her. As soon as I tried to write Mina's notebook, though, she was there again with her energy and light and a whole book. She seemed very powerful. Mina is very imaginative, intelligent and grounded in the real world and her love of the world, but she can also speculate about things we can't see.

"When I set out to write another Skellig book, people said it would be an alternative view of Skellig by Mina but when I looked at it, I had nothing to add to Skellig. There are things in Skellig that are still a mystery to me and when I saw it staged at the Young Vic and saw people acting it out I thought, 'Oh yes, that's how it works'. It was like it had nothing to do with me and I was surprised by how the different parts came together.

"I didn't need to go back to Skellig to write the prequel, I just re-read a few sections. I was aware I was using some of the material that would come into Skelling but didn't want it to be too deliberate. I didn't want to do this book as 'preparation' for Skellig's appearance, but it glances at the possibility that there is something important about Skellig. There are no pat answers for Skellig.

"Schools have used Skellig in such fantastic ways, especially as the opportunity to introduce art and dance and music. When I was writing Skellig, I was a teacher and Mina came in with her ideas about William Blake and freedom and creativity, and I think it's important to have an alternative, speculative approach to education.

"At that time there was a monolithic approach to education and the sense that schools were the only answer. Mina is an extremist and more so than I am, and teachers have responded positively to that. Perhaps we are too mechanistic to the way that children learn and write stories; our approach is too structural and that is not the way it happens.

"When I was teaching, you needed to say what you were going to teach, what children will learn from that, then you'd need to say what you had taught and what children had learned from it, and then the children would be expected to anticipate what they were going to learn, and how. It seems a simple formula but it's inhuman.

"If a schools inspector had come and seen me teaching, they would have said 'not on task, wasting time', but there is a need for time for creativity. It needs to be playful - let people make mistakes and play with the language. When I was writing Mina, there were so many things that came up like that like taking words for a walk across the page that were really valuable for me. When I show children my notebooks, their jaws drop. A finished story looks perfect but it's a very playful thing, hard work but playful, and it can go anywhere.

"When I wrote Skellig I didn't expect to write a book for young people. I was surprised to be writing a book that could be described as a children's book but it felt like a great liberation. The great thing about writing for children is that there are so many different forms within that short stories, picture books, novels and plays. Over the last couple of years I have looked at words and pictures and illustrated text. I love the range you can work in and all the different ways that stories can be investigated and created.

"Children accept stories in all sorts of forms of storytelling. My writing is now more playful than it was but I'm aiming high and want to do the best work I can. Because Skellig did so well it gave me great opportunities and a lot of confidence to strike out and challenge myself to do different things. I never expected to be a playwright, for example, but something about the audience for Skellig allowed me to be that.

"Looking back, among the highlights of the last decade were doing the opera Skellig, that was wonderful, and writing Fire Eaters which was one of my most important books. It brought together lots of different kinds of writing and linked a small community in Northumberland with a global event.

"The book I'm writing at the moment is coming in young adult and adult editions with Penguin Viking and Puffin next year. It's called The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean. I have an illustrated book coming with Walker Books, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, and another graphic novel coming with Dave McKean.

"The more I write, the more I see these as different forms of storytelling; the distinction between what children read and what adults read is hard to see. People talk about cross-over, which seems very solemn; if a book was to be cross-over it seemed to have to deal with heavy adult themes, whereas I'm just interested in different forms of storytelling.

"Walker Books, a children's publisher, published a story I wrote called Slug's Dad but the story was a runner-up in a national short story competition in 2007, so it's hard to draw the line between what is for adults and what is meant for children.

"I really want to write for children again, it's such a great field, and I now have a contract for two picture books. I think that area of publishing, books for the very young, has seen some of the best work for children in the last ten years and I'm looking forward to doing some of my own work here."

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