Where did you get the inspiration for your new book ´Island beneath the Sea´?
It started with a trip to New Orleans in 2003 to research for my novel Zorro.  I fell in love with the city and decided to write a story set there.  In the research I found out that between 1800-1804 ten thousand refugees came to New Orleans, they were white French colonists escaping from the slave revolt in what is today Haiti. The French flavor of the city, its cuisine, culture, music, voodoo, etc. comes from that time. I read about the slave revolt and became fascinated with Haiti’s story. Then the theme of slavery was inevitable.   
 


Can you tell me something about the character Zarité?
Zarité is born into slavery and from early childhood is obsessed with freedom.  She runs away several times until she ends up stranded in a sugar plantation.  She has courage, dignity, common sense, intelligence, and patience; she is loving and passionate. I think that she really existed and appeared to me in a dream or during meditation.  She is so real to me that I can describe her completely, even her voice and smell. 
 


Is this how you see yourself? Or how you wish to be?
I don’t see myself as Zarité at all. Zarité was a tall, striking, young African woman, with high cheekbones, long legs, elegant hands, slanted dreamy eyes, a deep and slow voice. She was brave in ways I have never been.  Would I like to be like her?  Yes, but not as a slave.
 


Even though the woman are strong, at some point a man comes along and somehow the woman needs to be saved, is this something you feel a lot of woman need in life or is it just a part of the historic perspective of your books?
No man saves Zarité.  She saves herself.  At a certain point in the novel she has to choose between following her lover into freedom and leaving her children behind, or staying with the master and the children.  She negotiates her freedom and eventually gets it. The female characters in my books rarely depend on a man to save them.  I don’t believe in the Cinderella myth (and I don’t like it either).


Do you have a favorite heroin from one of your books?
I like Clara in The House of the Spirits because she is a spiritual being like my grandmother, but I would not like to be like her.  I like Eliza in Daughter of Fortune and Zarité in The Island Beneath the Sea because they fend for themselves and find freedom.  I like Eva Luna because she is a storyteller with a generous heart. And I like Paulina in Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia because she is tough, smart and a visionary, (like my agent, Carmen Balcells).


Often you write about something that’s odd or socially unaccepted but make it normal, why is this?
I don’t know why that is…I am always tempted to defy the norm. It’s hard for me to conform to most of what is culturally accepted, I tend to question everything.  Why should Hollywood establish the standards of beauty?  Why would love between a man and his half sister or between people of different races be bad?
 


Another theme that comes back is how horrible, violent and unfair life and people can be, but the strength people find to carry on. Does this come from your own experiences in life?
I have had an easy life compared to the lives of most people in the world.  There is a lot of suffering, injustice and brutality going around, yet people survive and sometimes they thrive. I am particularly interested in characters that have to overcome hardship.
 


 

Are you writing anything at the moment, and can you tell us anything about it?
I just finished another novel that may be published next year.  It is the story of a young American woman (19 years old) who gets in serious trouble and ends up finding refuge in a remote island in the south of Chile.  It is a story of coming of age and redemption.
 


Is there a book you can recommend?
This week I am reading: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, The Ventriloquists Tale by Pauline Melville, Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith, poems collected by Roger Housden. 
 


Do you have a favorite movie?
Just one movie?  That’s an impossible choice! I love many movies for different reasons but when I am feeling down I watch again Shakespeare in Love.  Somehow it resonates with my storyteller obsession: everything can be used to create a story, especially personal experiences.
 

Wendy Groenweg is redacteur bij Strix Television voor onder andere Family Matters en Expeditie Robinson. Voor cultureinmotion interviewt zij interessante Nederlandse schrijvers. Haar eigen favoriete schrijvers zijn Isabel Allende en Arthur Japin.