Fantastic Fiction: Best-Selling Author Kate Mosse

Jane McGowan catches up with bestselling author Kate Mosse, part of the stellar line-up for this year’s Guildford Book Festival

When it comes to the business of writing, Kate Mosse certainly knows her trade. Not content with selling more than five million copies of her novels (which have been translated into 37 languages), she is also a publisher, playwright and journalist and the founder of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Oh, and did I mention that she also has an OBE?

But after a break of nearly eight years, the Chichester-based author is back – and back with a bang. The Burning Chambers – first in a four-book saga of love, war and religion that starts in 16th century Languedoc and ends in 1860s South Africa – was released in May and has already hit the Sunday Times bestseller list.

“At its heart, it is a refugee story,” explains Mosse, who is one of the star names arriving in Guildford next month for the annual Book Festival. “And a love story set amid a battle between two families, one Catholic and one Protestant. It is inspired by my love of Carcassonne – all my books are love letters to the south-west of France.”

The quartet concludes in Franschhoek in South Africa, another place Mosse “fell in love with” after taking part in the town’s annual literary festival.

“I discovered these little pockets of Huguenot families who had been forced to flee France and I knew immediately that this was where I wanted my story to end. So I had a beginning setting and a final setting. All I needed was the 300 years in between.”

With her work spanning such an epic expanse of time, Mosse is meticulous about her research, choosing to “build the history” and then put her characters “in front of that history and set them free”. And while it may take years, it is a process she thoroughly enjoys.

“I love research and a lot of my inspiration comes from it,” she enthuses. “I am not a historian and I am not writing a history book. For me historical fiction can fit into the gaps of what is recorded and what is not. It can put ordinary people’s voices on the page. 

“There is a lot of historical fiction that is all about kings and queens and the court. That’s not what I do. I make it about real people – people whose lives are often destroyed by decisions made by those in power. Frequently I am telling the untold stories of women in history; women you won’t find in the history books.”

Mosse’s desire to give women a voice off the page – as well as on it – led her to co-found the Women’s Prize for Fiction (originally the Orange Prize) in 1996. While female authors were achieving huge book sales – think Joanna Trollope, Helen Dunmore, Helen Fielding – and amassing devoted followings, their achievements were not being recognised by the industry they were essentially supporting. By 1992, only 10% of those who’d been shortlisted for the Booker Prize were women. 

“Sometimes access to market is the problem – for example with black or disabled writers, working-class authors or those from ethnic minorities and other sections of society who just aren’t given the same publishing opportunities as writers with a more traditional profile. Basically George Bernard Shaw. 

“But with women it was slightly more nuanced. It wasn’t that they were invisible – it was more that their works were being seen as something niche rather than literature.”

In her own work, Mosse has always been keen to represent both sexes fairly, acknowledging that her readership consists of fans of the genre rather than those of a particular gender.

“I like to include gentle, thoughtful men,” she says. “Not all men were wielding swords while the women sat at home spinning. Throughout the ages wars have meant that women kept civil society going, but you wouldn’t know that from the history books.

“For me everything is about celebrating the plurality of voices, whether through the Women’s Prize or in my own writing. It’s just what I do.”

Mosse also finds time to support Chichester Festival Theatre – she hosts the pre- and post-show interviews throughout the season – and the National Theatre, where she is Deputy Chair. In fact, she is currently adapting one of her books, The Taxidermist’s Daughter, for the stage. It is due to be performed next year.

“I am a baby playwright, a fledgling even,” she laughs. “But I am very lucky in that my husband [Greg Mosse] is a playwright, so I have someone to go to. And one of the best things about working on a play is other people. As a novelist you spend so much time on your own, but for the stage you need meetings with directors and producers. To me that is just thrilling.”

So, with three more novels in the quartet to finish, an adaptation to complete and next year’s Women’s Prize to prepare for, Ms Mosse has her work cut out.

“I plan my year carefully,” she says. “I do lots of research when I am out and about, but from this month I’ll be in my office and writing full time. Obviously though there are one or two things – like the Guildford Book Festival – that will pull me from my desk. 

“I am coming back to Guildford because I have been many times before and it’s definitely one of my favourites. It’s local, there’s always an amazing audience and I would hate not to celebrate my new novel at the Guildford Book Festival.”

Kate Mosse will be in conversation with writer and critic Stephanie Merritt (aka SJ Parris) at The Electric Theatre on Oct 10. For tickets and further details visit: guildfordbookfestival.co.uk

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