Chapter 1: What is Kester Grant's background and how does it influence her writing?
all right this is gonna be good isn't it i loved this book put that effing book down when it comes to crime only murder will do i'm reading it and reading it and i'm going oh no so i thought i really have to hook the reader it's taken up half my heart you know weirdly i found i could also read this book backwards
Hello again, it's Kate Evans here with another podcast extra interview for you, part of our regular series for Radio National's Bookshelf, in which writers talk about the books that inform both their latest work and their approach to words generally. Last week, it was the established writer and essayist Nicholas Shakespeare. This time, it's debut novelist Kester Grant.
What they both share is a peripatetic life. Kester Grant describes herself as a British Mauritian writer of colour. She's multilingual, and this comes through in her selection of books, and she's written a rich piece of fantasy fiction, The Court of Miracles.
And this court is full of rogues and tricksters, thieves and assassins, and so it made me think of Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series, although it turns out she'd never read those. It's also an underground version of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, and she's definitely read that one, and in French.
You might have heard her on the book show with Sarah Lestrange too, but here we branch out into, or is it onto, her own bookshelves.
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Chapter 2: How is 'The Court of Miracles' inspired by Victor Hugo's works?
Kester Grant spoke to me from Mauritius, so let's head there. Kester Grant, thank you so much for joining us on the bookshelf.
Thank you for having me.
Congratulations on the Court of Miracles. But before we get to that, I'm speaking to you and you're in Mauritius. Now, Mauritius has a complicated history, but it's a bilingual country. Is that right?
Yes. So technically on paper, English is the national language. But in fact, that's a bit of a fallacy because we were a French colony before being a British colony.
Chapter 3: What unique world-building elements are present in 'The Court of Miracles'?
Most people can speak English. The language that most people are more comfortable in is French. If you go into a little corner shop on the side of the street, mostly they speak English to foreigners and French to the locals. And, of course, we have our own dialect of Creole.
So in terms of your own reading and influences, which we'll get to specifically, but it was French literature as much as English literature?
Yes, I think so. Definitely the fact that I grew up in Mauritius meant that I had that access to French literature. Even if you think in terms of like TV, there were as many French cartoons that we grew up watching as English cartoons. And I was able to have all of Victor Hugo's works in the original French in my school library. So there was almost no barrier.
Chapter 4: How do Kester Grant's multilingual influences shape her literary style?
And actually, interestingly enough, One of my best friends, she went to a French school. I actually went to an English school and she hated her homework. And every day I would stop by her houses on the way home from me and I would stop by and help her with her French history homework mainly.
So I spent all of my time reading all about the revolution, and that's where my real passion for both literature and French history was born, having to create essays for her and dictate them to her. She had to write it in her own writing so that they thought she was the one doing the work, obviously.
Well, we'll get to that passion in just a moment, but let's just pause on this novel of yours, The Court of Miracles. So it takes us into this highly stratified world, of guilds and skills and allegiances and laws. But what are the skills that your central characters hold?
Chapter 5: What themes of betrayal and loyalty are explored in 'The Court of Miracles'?
Well, each character who is a member of the Court of Miracles, the Court of Miracles is an underworld criminal society, something we would today call the mafia. But in those days, there was no such word. When you enter the Court of Miracles, when you join, you're divided into a guild according to your abilities or what you would prefer to be doing.
So, of course, there's the Guild of Thieves, which can be split into cat burglars that are breaking into buildings, highwaymen who actually stop carriages and that kind of Regency delightful stuff, and pickpockets who sort of roam the streets. If you're more inclined to murdering people for fun, you could be an assassin.
So you could do the physical work of being an assassin or the other house in the Assassin's Guild is The House of Poison, where their art is a little more subtle, let's say. So there's all these different guilds. I always forget them, which is terrible because I created them.
There's the Guild of Smugglers, there's the Guild of Gamblers, there's the Guild of Dreamers, which is basically dealing in drugs and opiates in that era.
Chapter 6: Which classic literature significantly influenced Kester Grant's writing?
But it really depends on what your particular skill set is. For instance, if you were a sniper... you would not end up in the Guild of Assassins, although they would have trained you, but you would have ended up in the Guild of Mercenaries because they have half of them, one of the wings of the Guild of Mercenaries are actually snipers. So...
So this is an entire world that you've created with very complicated rules and into it walks all these characters and particularly one young woman whose life is defined partly by love, partly by betrayal. But it feels both like a fantasy world and it also feels particular and historical. And so there are names that crop up. that made me think, oh, we're in Paris.
We're dealing with the aftermath of the revolution. So what did you think you were doing with this novel of yours?
Chapter 7: What contemporary authors and works resonate with Kester Grant's storytelling?
Where were you wanting to take us?
Well, if you look at the novel and the series, because it's a trilogy as a whole, my aim was actually a lot less to tell the story of two sisters, two adopted sisters who are protecting each other in a very, very difficult era than
and more to tell the story of a city, which was the city of Paris, caught in between all sorts of different political upheavals, which is why each of the main characters comes from a different slice of the city's social groups. So, for instance, you have Nina. She's the main character. She grew up in the criminal underworld. You have Cosette, who's Etty.
She originally was what is known in the novel as those who walk by day, so the lower class of society. Then you have the nobility, and we've got the main character, the prince, the dauphin, the heir to the throne.
Chapter 8: How does Kester Grant incorporate historical context into her fantasy writing?
And I feel like I'm forgetting one, but I'm sure it'll come back to me. Oh, yes, sorry. The revolutionaries, of course, led by Angel Ras Saint-Just. who want to bring change in a time when change is desperately needed.
So I want to tell the story of a group of people that might otherwise have been friends or lovers or something akin to that, but their loyalties, their factions, their families, the societies from which they come, place them at odds with each other, and they're sort of dragged along. And I'm trying to tell that slice of Parisian history upheaval through the eyes of those characters.
So where would you begin in tracing the other books that have helped you create this one, The Court of Miracles?
If we were to look at the bookshelf that sits behind The Court of Miracles, this is what you'd see. Obviously, Les Miserables. That is the cornerstone of everything. I actually watched it before I read it. But after having watched the 10th anniversary musical, I went straight to the library, pulled it out in the original French, read it.
And I don't advise this to people who aren't fans of reading classic literature because it's known as the brick because it is literally the same size as a brick. And there are several chapters devoted to the history of the Parisian sewage system. So it can get a little long in places.
But there was something about the story of Limas that captivated me from the start and has captivated the whole world because it's still one of the most beloved classics and beloved musicals in the world. The Jungle Book, being British as well as Mauritian, I grew up in England and went to British schools. I was brought up on the Jungle Book.
And there was something about the Jungle Book that just I think I would almost call it seductive. I love the idea of this wild jungle, but they have a very, very strict regimented law that everyone has to adhere to.
And what about Kipling's language?
Kipling's language is just one of the things that made it so magical to me. I mean, Kipling, of course, is a poet as well as being an author. And he also brings in this aspect which is rooted in old traditions of folktales, of telling these animal folklore. And each of the animal clans and packs... has their own rules and their own laws and how they interact with the rest of the jungle.
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