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Talking with Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
Q: What inspired you to write The Welsh Girl?
A: One of my earliest memories of my grandmother’s house in North Wales is
playing with the small brass trinkets – a letter opener in the shape of a sword,
a tobacco tin I took for a treasure chest – shining on her mantelpiece. She told
me they were made from old shell casings by German prisoners of war held in
camps in Snowdonia. I was fascinated by how these objects had passed from their
hands to my grandmother’s and then to mine. It might have been the first time I
felt history brush up against my own young life.
Q: Your father is Welsh, but your mother is Chinese, and you grew up in
England and now live in the United States. How Welsh do you feel?
A: I wasn’t sure at the outset that I was Welsh enough – whatever that means
– to write the book (I’ve had the same anxiety when writing about Chinese
subjects, too, so it’s a double bind). In the end, though, I think I wrote it
not despite that doubt, but because of it. The writing of the book is an effort
to answer the question, How Welsh am I? Or actually to enlarge that question a
little, to understand what it means to be Welsh.
Q: And what does Welshness mean to you now?
A: The aspects of the Welsh character I respond to the most are the
endurance and the stoicism. They’re the ultimate underdogs, after all, the very
first colony of the British Empire, in a sense (something that provides an
interesting link for me to my mother’s family, most of whom grew up in Malaysia
when it was a British colony). That long colonial history takes a toll on a
people, I think, but also brings out certain strengths. I admire the dogged
stubbornness of the Welsh, though at the same time I suspect that, taken too
far, it approaches a tragic flaw.
Q: You’ve created sensational emotional chemistry between Esther and Karsten.
Was this component of the novel a pleasure to write or a creative dilemma?
A: Creative dilemmas are a pleasure – at least if you can solve them! Once I
decided to take on the challenge of writing a period piece, I thought, why not
write from the point of view of a woman, and then, if I was writing from
Esther’s point of view, why not try to get behind the eyes of a German POW? It
was like a poker game where the players keep raising the stakes. In retrospect,
though, it may be that this relationship and my take on it owe a lot to a
longstanding interest in and sympathy for forbidden love stories – some-thing
that probably dates back to my own parents’ interracial marriage, which in its
time was quite shocking.
Q: The Welsh Girl is a historical novel. Why did you choose to write
it rather than something more contemporary?
A: I’m not sure I see a hard distinction between historical and contemporary
work. I think most good historical novels resonate with the times we live in.
And the question of nationalism seems a timeless one. The idea of German POWs
imprisoned in North Wales, a hotbed of Welsh nationalism, struck a chord with me
from early on. It made me think of the contrast between what we might call a
benign nationalism like the Welsh kind and an evil one like National Socialism.
And, of course, recent world events have raised new questions about what it is
to be a loyal citizen, a patriot, in a time of conflict, and about how we treat
enemy prisoners and define war crimes.
Q: One potentially controversial aspect of the book is your portrayal of
Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy führer, who was also imprisoned in Wales for a
time. There are those who argue that any depiction of such figures in fiction
tends to humanize them.
A: The German film Downfall, about Hitler’s last hours, was criticized for
scenes in which Hitler is shown as being kind to his dog, as if this humanizing
touch would make him more sympathetic. But to me a Hitler who’s kind to his dog
is more frightening than the idea of a Hitler – or a Stalin or a Saddam for that
matter – who is only and always vicious. The idea that monsters are monsters
every moment of their lives seems simplistic, and more than that, dangerous. The
corollary to that logic would suggest that a man who’s nice to his dog or a man
who’d be good company at a barbecue (as we sometimes frame the question in our
own political time) is incapable of monstrous acts.
Q: You’ve served as director of the MFA program at the University of
Michigan, one of the top creative writing programs in the country. What are your
thoughts on the writer in academia? Does time in the classroom inspire you, or
does academic life stifle you? How do you strike a balance between teaching and
writing?
A: I’m a believer in the workshop, without claiming that it’s the only way
to learn as a writer. Having come from an academic environment in the UK, where
there was almost no teaching of creative writing, I think such programs are a
wonderful gift. Growing up in Britain, it simply seemed impossible to me to
become a writer. I didn’t know any writers, I was of the wrong class, I didn’t
live in London. Martin Amis was the most famous young writer of the day, and
since his father was Kingsley Amis, a famous older writer, I thought writers
inherited the family business. In the United States, by contrast, just about
every college student has the chance to take a creative writing class. At a
fundamental level, that seems to me to represent a kind of democratization of
art – something wonderfully American.
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