Interview with writer Deborah Ellis
by Marjorie Coughlan*

Canadian writer, Deborah Ellis' first novel for children won the 2000 Governor General's Literary Award in Canada and since then she has gone on to write many highly acclaimed and best-selling books, most notably those comprising The Breadwinner Trilogy (The Breadwinner, Parvana's Journey and Mud City), set in Afghanistan against a backdrop of the Taliban regime. Well known for her activism for peace and social justice, she has brought to prominence the plight of children caught up in war and the AIDS epidemic in Africa through her writing both for adults and children.

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Your first book for young people was the prize-winning Looking for X. Was that the first time you had thought about writing a book for children? Did you find it a different writing process? Since then you have had seven more books published, all of them aimed at young adult readers, though equally powerful for adult readers.

Looking for X was the first book for kids I published. I'd written several horrible YA novels and adult novels before that that have never been published, thank goodness. The process is the same, but the perspective is different. Everything that happens has to be through the eyes of a young person and with the information and understanding a person of that age would have of the situation.

What is the background to your writing The Breadwinner Trilogy? Were there any particular challenges in writing it?

I've been an anti-war activist since before the election of Ronald Reagan [to the US Presidency in 1981], and a feminist as well; and the Taliban take-over of Kabul in l996 blended those issues together, so it was a natural thing to do, to work with Afghan women in Toronto and with others to do some solidarity work, raising money, etc. One of my heroes is the American journalist StudsTerkel, so I wanted to collect stories of women who had survived the decades of war leading up to and including the Taliban, which is why I went over to the Afghan border with Pakistan to interview women and kids. Those interviews are published in an adult book called Women of the Afghan War. Some of the things I heard from kids formed the basis for the Breadwinner novels.

The royalties from The Breadwinner and Parvana's Journey have gone to the Canadian not-for-profit organisation Women for Women in Afghanistan, which seeks human rights and promotes education for Afghan women and girls; and you have been an active voice within the organization. How did you first become involved with this project? What benefits have you seen from these education programmes and what still needs to be done?

Women for Women was formed just after the Taliban take-over of Kabul. It does public education in Canada but its main job is to send money to women's groups working on small projects in Afghanistan and in the refugee camps. Teachers getting a salary not only feeds the teacher's children and pays for their rent but also gives her independence, and gives a chance at a future for her students. There are other projects as well, health and so on, which change lives in a small way in terms of numbers, but in a big way in terms of individuals. What needs to be done is huge. Twenty-five years of war destroys the very fabric of trust that holds a society together.

Your historical novel A Company of Fools deals with similar hard-hitting themes to your other books as you transport your readers back to the time of the Black Death in medieval Paris - how did you immerse yourself in the past in order to convey it so convincingly?

I love research, and I love connecting with people who lived so very long ago and far away. I use every way I can think of to research, both before and after I visit the place I'm writing about. The more information, the better, especially since we never know where our research will lead us - it could take the story in a whole new direction we hadn't imagined. I just published a second historical novel, Jackal in the Garden, which takes place in Persia in the late 1400s, and is about a deformed child who strikes up a relationship with the great Persian painter of miniatures, Bihzad. I loved writing both it and A Company of Fools.

Your books are often controversial - not least in your native Canada. In particular, Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak has been both promoted and removed from reading lists in Ontario. What are your views on book censorship, particularly of children's and young adults' books?

I think all topics should be available in children's and YA novels, but not all writers have the talent to write about all topics in a way that is accessible to children. We put children in all sorts of situations around the world - prostitution, drug abuse, slavery, incest, etc - and it takes special talent to write about those things in a way that is respectful. There are topics that I won't touch because I know I don't have the talent to do them properly.

What inspired you to write I Am A Taxi and can you tell us a bit about the research you did for the book? Have you become involved in any projects in Bolivia, in the same way you did in Afghanistan?

To research I Am A Taxi I spent time in Bolivia, visiting the prisons and meeting with kids whose lives had been affected by the war on drugs, and by the trade in illegal drugs. I got on to the topic through Street Kids International, who told me about kids being used in the former Soviet republics as mules for heroin smugglers from Afghanistan. I can't remember why I decided on Bolivia. There are some great groups down there who are working to provide education and support to the children who live in the prisons, and I try to assist that work.

The sequel to I Am A Taxi, entitled Sacred Leaf, is due out next year, and I for one am already on tenterhooks to know what will become of the protagonist, Diego. Without giving the story away, can you give us an indication of what it will be about?

Sacred Leaf is almost finished - the first draft, anyway. My editor is sure to make me tear it all up and start again! The first version of Taxi had too much in it, and the ending was rushed, so I had a starting place for Sacred Leaf but not a lot of clues about where it was going to go. I've enjoyed writing it, so far, and that's usually a good sign. Sorry, I can't give you any clues!

You have a real gift for bringing your characters to life - do you find when you're writing that they take on a life of their own?

Yes, you have to listen to your characters, respect who they are, and keep them out of clichés. Sometimes that's difficult, particularly when you just want the work to be done, but characters have their own integrity, and you don't want to mess with it. I had a lot of fun with Smith, the villain in Taxi, and perhaps went a little over the top with him, but I think it was justified. He had been living outside of restraints for so long, that he would have been over the top.

From your Young Adult books, who are your favourite characters and why?

Brother Bart from A Company of Fools is one of my favourite characters because he is such an individual: an outsider who deliberately put himself in an enclosed world where he knew he would be a bit of an outcast, but still had to adhere to the rules and customs of that world, the 14th century monastery. I like him because he did a complete turn around in his life, leaving a battlefield in the middle of a battle in order to become a monk. Then Mrs. Weera from The Breadwinner and Mud City; and I like Anubis from Jackal in the Garden because she doesn't take nonsense from anybody. She creates her own world, and lives with the consequences.

Do you receive a lot of correspondence from young people who have enjoyed your books; can you share some of their reactions with us?

I do receive a lot of letters from kids, from all over the place. Some of them are moved to some sort of civic action by the stories - raising money, doing local projects, etc. Others are moved to investigate the world further. Many tell how they have related to the characters; some tell of violence in their own lives, which is how they can understand what Parvana or Binti are going through.

Your books have been translated into a number of different languages. How do you feel when you see a new edition of one of your books, perhaps in a language you don't understand?

When I see a book of mine in a language I don't read, it's very exciting. I try to imagine who the child is who reads it, where they read it, what they had for supper that night, whether they're reading it when they're supposed to be doing their homework - I do that with books in English, too. Once we tell our stories, they really belong to whoever wants to receive them and make them their own.

What trends do you notice in children's publishing in Canada today?

I'm not an expert in trends, but I do know that there is an awful lot of high-quality fiction for young people being produced in Canada and elsewhere, with books about kids dealing with mature situations in remarkable ways. I don't know if this is a trend, though. We are lucky in Canada to have public funds available for publishers to publish books that take risks and are reflective of diverse communities. The more voices there are out there for kids to access, the better.

May I ask what projects you have in the offing?

I have a book coming out in the spring called Jakeman, The Barbed-Wire Boy, about kids in New York State visiting their mothers in prison and Sacred Leaf should be out in September.

* Marjorie Coughlan is PaperTigers Associate Editor

Posted January 2007

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