I’m leaving Barcelona today after a busy few days of press interviews to discuss THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE. If you speak Spanish or Catalan and want to see what was said you can read some of them online: Publico, ABC Newspaper, El Correo, La Vanguardia, and listen to a radio interview from Catalunya Radio.
Now – on to the airport.
I’m in Barcelona at the moment to promote THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE / LA CASA DEL PROPOSITO ESPECIAL which has just been published by my Spanish publisher Salamandra and my Catalan publisher Editorial Empuries. It’s my 3rd time in the city; I was here a couple of years ago when STRIPED PYJAMAS won the Que Leer Award for Novel of the year, and last year when MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY was published, although I haven’t seen as much of the city as I have Madrid. Last time I was here I pledged to learn Spanish by my next visit but I have been sadly remiss and remain monolingual, so interviews have to be conducted through translation. But you get used to that and off you go. Today was a full day of interviews, some of which are – rather mysteriously – already online: one for EFE, the other for Publico. More to come.
The Dutch edition of THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE has just been published in Holland by Arena with the title HET WINTERPALEIS.
The Spanish language edition of THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE, entitled La Casa del Propostio Especial, and the Catalan edition, (La Casa Del Proposit Especial) are published this week, by Salamandra and Empuries respectively.
To coincide with this, the books programme Pagina 2 broadcast the interview and video piece that we shot in St Petersburg earlier this month. It felt very good to be back in the city where I wrote so much of this novel – which is, I think, my favourite of my own books – and particularly to be allowed access to some parts of the Winter Palace that I had not been in during my writing trip there in 2007. The entire interview, including a reading from the section of the novel that takes place in Tsar Nicholas’ private library which I read in that same library can be viewed on the Pagina 2 website here.
Also, the Spanish newspaper El Pais published a long feature article on the book and interview with me which we also conducted in Russia a few weeks ago.
I’ll be back in Spain next week for publicity duties on the novel. I just got back from Singapore late last night so intend to catch up on as much rest between now and then as possible.
Spain
Catalan
Outside the Winter Palace
I’ve spent the last few days in St Petersburg, Russia. It’s my second trip here; the first came in late November/early December 2007 when I visited the city while writing THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE. I researched quite a bit of the novel here, writing many scenes in the Winter Palace itself, and despite being here during the coldest time of year, I fell in love with the city.
I’m back here now, almost 2 years later, on a promotional trip courtesy of my Spanish publisher Salamandra. The novel is published in Spain on October 22nd and I came here with a Spanish television crew to film an interview and programme in the Winter Palace itself, in which we were lucky to be granted permission to film. We spent much of the day filming in various rooms of the palace and conducting an interview in Tsar Nicholas II’s private library where I wrote a scene in the book that appears at the opening of the chapter titled ‘The Prince of Mogilev’. In the scene, the young hero Georgy Daniilovich Jachmenev finds the library and is examining the bookshelves when he is surprised by the Tsar himself. The library is an extraordinary place and it was wonderful to write the scene in the room and even more special to return a couple of years later to film an interview there.
Tsar Nicholas II's library
The Spanish language newspaper El Pais also accompanied us on this trip and conducted an interview later in the day. Both the television programme and the newspaper interview will run closer to publication date in Spain and I’ll post the links then.
I absolutely love this city. I’ve said before that this is the only novel I have written which has made me want to write another one set in the same location, simply because I want to spend more time here.
Getting Ready To Film
The audio edition of THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE has just been published by Isis Audiobooks. It’s available on cassette, CD and mp3 from Isis and Amazon. It’s read by actor Richard Teverson.
My seventh novel, THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE, is published today. Here’s what it’s about:
Russia, 1915: At the age of 16, Georgy Jachmenev steps in front of an assassin’s bullet intended for the heart of a senior member of the Russian Imperial Family and is instantly proclaimed a hero. Before the week is out, his life as the son of a peasant farmer is changed forever when he is escorted to St Petersburg to take up his new position – as bodyguard to Alexei Romanov, the only son of Tsar Nicholas II.
Sixty-five years later, visiting his wife Zoya as she lies dying in a London hospital, memories of the life they have lived together flood his mind. Their marriage, while tender, has been marked by tragedy, the loss of loved ones, and experiences of exile that neither can forget.
“The House of Special Purpose” is a novel about a young man ripped from an impoverished home and thrust into the heart of a dying empire. Privy to the secrets of Nicholas and Alexandra, the machinations of Rasputin and the events which led to the final collapse of the autocracy, Georgy is a witness and participant in a drama which will echo down the century, both publicly and privtaely. For his story is also one of a marriage riven by a husband finds it impossible to live in the present and a wife unable to reconcile herself with the past. Part love story, part historical epic, part tragedy, the novel moves from revolutionary St Petersburg to Paris after the First World War, and from London during the Blitz to the eastern coast of Finland during the 1980s, before returning to a quiet hospital bed where Georgy and Zoya’s story must finally be 
resolved.
The first review of the novel, published in The Times last week, called it “absorbing and richly satisfying.”
Today also sees the publication of the paperback edition of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY. When it was published in 2008, the novel received terrific reviews: “enthralling… storytelling at its most accomplished… stands comparison with William Golding’s Rites of Passage” (The Independent); “a remarkable and compelling piece of storytelling” (The Irish Times); “A cracking adventure story” (The Sunday Tribune). The novel has gone on to be published in Spain, Serbia, Canada, Holland, Catalan, America, and Australia and editions are forthcoming in Galicia, Brazil, Greece, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Norway and China.
THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE can be purchased from Amazon, Waterstone’s and Borders; MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY can also be purchased there, there and there.
For anyone who hasn’t had more than their share of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS over the last few years, BBC Radio 7 is broadcasting the novel this weekend at 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The novel is read by the very talented actress Anne-Marie Duff and nestled within the reading is an interview about the writing of the novel with the author, i.e. me.
Meanwhile Radio 4 continues its broadcast of THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE every night until May 8th and you can catch up with any episodes you’ve missed on the BBC iPlayer.
This coming Monday, the 27th, BBC Radio 4 begins a two-week transmission of my seventh novel THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE in its Book At Bedtime slot.
The programme will run at 10:45 pm every night in fifteen minute segments until Friday May 8th and is read by actor David Warner. You can listen live or on the BBC iPlayer.
The novel will be published in the UK and Ireland towards the end of the series, on Thursday May 7th.
You can pre-order it from Amazon, Waterstone’s and Borders.
If you simply cannot wait until May 7th to read my new novel THE HOUSE OF SPECIAL PURPOSE, you may want to get a copy of this month’s Ulster Tatler magazine, which contains an abridged excerpt from the opening chapter in its literary miscellany pages, edited by novelist Glenn Patterson.
The opening chapter is titled 1981 and the published excerpt contains four short scenes from that chapter: the opening paragraphs, where narrator Georgy Jachmenev considers his earliest days in Kashin, a moment in London in 1923, where he seeks employment at the British Library, an account of Georgy and Zoya’s daily routines throughout their marriage, and a meeting between Georgy and Zoya’s doctor which takes place in – as the chapter title suggests – 1981.
I’m planning on reading from the novel at the Ennis Book Club Festival on Saturday 7th March and if you read the excerpt or hear the reading and like it, you can pre-order online from Amazon, Waterstone’s or Borders.
