The children's fantasy novel which the late, much-loved author Diana Wynne Jones was writing shortly before she died has been completed by her sister, and will be published next year.
Wynne Jones was working on the manuscript for The Islands of Chaldea when she became too ill to continue, said her sister Ursula Jones, also an award-winning children's author. Diana Wynne Jones died of cancer, aged 76, in 2011, leaving behind some of the best regarded novels in children's fantasy, from the Chrestomanci series to Howl's Moving Castle.
"Everyone in the family knew Diana was writing her book, but no one really knew how much she had left to write. She got so ill she had to stop and most of us felt 'oh, that's that'. And then her husband, I think it was, suggested someone might complete it," said Ursula Jones.
An actor and children's writer, Ursula Jones said it was felt by her sister's agent "that as I came out of the same stable, I rather than anyone else should have a go at it first". And so far, no one has guessed where she takes over the story, which is "a good endorsement".
Picking up where her sister left off was an "odd journey", said Jones. "Diana was very much my eldest sister, and I was very much aware of a fury from her, either that I was doing it, or that I was not doing it fast enough. I had awful nightmares about it. It was curiously traumatic," she said. "I was conscious of her looking over my shoulder in many different ways. To start with, there was this disturbing feeling of fury. Then once I'd got under way there was almost a moment of rather grumpy 'oh all right then'. I'm not a believer in any of this sort of thing but I tell you it was palpable, and quite uncanny.
"Then it went ahead very easily. I did notice I was moving things around and changing structures or settings almost at her prompting, possibly because I knew how to get right inside the book at that stage. I certainly managed to erase my style."
And writing the last sentence, she said, "was an unbearable second parting from her: as if she had died again".
Publisher Ruth Alltimes said that Ursula had "done an amazing job of tying together the several story strands that Diana so expertly set in motion. We are very lucky to have had someone with such an intimate and meaningful connection to Diana in a position to help bring the book through the final writing stages to publication."
The Islands of Chaldea is set on a group of four warring islands, where a king's son is held for ransom behind a magical force field which a young girl and her bossy witch aunt set out to fight. "Along the way they encounter a giant invisible cat, a very fiery lizard and a boy and his gas air balloon that relies on singing to keep it afloat," according to HarperCollins Children's Books, which will publish the book next March. It has "all the hallmarks of Diana Wynne Jones's very best books – it is funny, fantastical and packed with adventure", said the publisher.
Jones said there were also "other things were coming to light" among her sister's papers. "She left behind a mass of stuff," she said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment