IRISH AUTHOR JOHN Boyne has spoken about his issues with the modern publishing world, and addressed the claims that he was involved in a spat with the Auschwitz Memorial Museum, saying that it “never happened”.
In a wide-ranging interview with RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor, Boyne – who is the author of fourteen novels for adults, and six novels for young readers – discussed his recent trip to Australia, his love life as a single gay man, and his problems with the use of the word “queer”.
The well-known author also spoke at length about his problems with the publishing industry today, and addressed the criticism of a novel he published four years ago.
The young-adult novel – My Brother’s Name is Jessica – featured a trans character, and received criticism online for the way in which Boyne wrote about the subject.
Many trans activists criticised the work for not writing the trans character as the protagonist, and for misgendering and deadnaming, amongst other claims.
Asked by O’Connor if he understood why some trans people would take exception to his portrayal of the trans character in the book, Boyne said:
“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions on these things… but the only thing I ever said about that was that you can only have an opinion once you’ve read it.
If you haven’t read it you do not get the right to an opinion on it, and I will simply just ignore someone’s opinion if they haven’t read it.
He went on to discuss the issue of writing more broadly, including the view held by some people that writers should only write from their own lived experiences.
“We can write anything we want to write and it’s up to us to then write a good book or a bad book or most of the time, to be fair, a middling book,” Boyne said.
“I have no interest in staying in my lane. I only want to stay outside my lane. Just because a book has a transgender character, why should they be centre of it? They’re not more important than anybody else. Not in the slightest… If you want to make them the centre, great. If you don’t, great. If you want to make them a criminal, great.
You write the book that you want to write, nobody has the right to tell you differently.
And I won’t be told as a writer what lane I have to stay in. I have no interest in anybody’s views on that.
Auschwitz memorial
Boyne also spoke about his most famous novel, the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and the controversy that surrounded it a number of years ago.
Back in 2020, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Holocaust memorial museum said that John Boyne’s children’s novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas “should be avoided by anyone who studies or teaches the history of the Holocaust”.
The novel – which concerns the friendship between a German boy and a Jewish detainee at Auschwitz – was criticised as being historically inaccurate and perpetuating negative stereotypes in an article linked by the museum.
Commenting on the incident today, Boyne said it was “urban myth” that he’d had an argument with the museum.
“That is an urban myth. Everybody says that to me, and it never actually happened,” he said.
“What happened was that Auschwitz memorial tweeted that people studying the holocaust should not study the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I did not write a textbook, I did not write a book for schools, I did not write a book for universities, I did not write a non-ficiton book.
I never asked for anybody to use it for educational purposes, I wrote a fable written for children.
“But people say to me, ‘you got into this spat with the Auschwitz Memorial’. With God as my witness that never happened.”
Speaking more generally, Boyne said he believed that it would be very difficult to publish the book today.
“I think it would be very difficult to publish it now, and it would go through all sorts of editorial processes that would, if I had any hair, make it all fall out.
I think it’s a very difficult time now in publishing, particularly in young people’s publishing.
A sequel to the book, All the Broken Places, was released last year.
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