William Boyd a sorti son nouveau livre « A livre Ouvert » qui est déjà un énorme succès. Il se découvre ici un peu plus pour les lecteurs de London Macadam…

LM: Could you tell us about your last novel? Its inspiration, its story…
W.B: My last novel was called Any Human Heart (in France, A Livre Ouvert). It was the story of a man’s life in the 20th century. He was called Logan Mountstuart and he was a writer but not so successful. The novel takes the form of his intimate journals and the reader travels through Logan’s life as if almost -- it is his or her own.  It’s a long book (it covers eighty years), over 500 pages, but I wanted to try to illuminate a whole human life, with all its pleasures and frustrations, tragedies and successes, excitement and boredom. I think only the intimate journal actually, truly reflects the way we live, hour by hour, day by day, week by week etc.

LM: Is there another story coming out in September? Where does it take place? Could you tell us more about the story and the project?
W.B: My new novel, in strong contrast, is very tight and narratively driven. It’s called RESTLESS, the story of a mother and a daughter. One day the daughter discovers that her mother was a spy in World War II and everything she thought she knew about her mother is false, a fabrication to protect her identity.  It’s a novel about betrayal and duplicity and the impossibility of trust. It will be published in England in September, in France in Spring 2007.

LM: In addition to novels, you've written screenplays, scripts for television, short stories, essays on art. Do you prefer one form over the others?
W.B: If you write novels you live in a world of perfect autonomy and freedom. If you write films you live in a world of constraints, compromise and endlessly ramifying parameters. Therefore there is no comparison. But I really enjoy my work in the world of cinema because (a) I love the art form and (b) it is a pleasure, for a while, to collaborate, to have colleagues, to share the creative endeavour.

LM: Your novel Armadillo was made into a television film for A&E.
Were you pleased with the result?
W.B: Armadillo was made for the BBC first. I wrote the script and was very involved in its making and I’m very pleased with the adaptation. James Frain (who plays the lead: Lorimer Black) is a fantastic actor. And because we had three hours we had more time. Unlike most film adaptations Armadillo had time to breathe and was all the better for it.

LM: Are any of your other novels or stories being made into a film?
W.B: We are trying to make a film of one of my short stories called "Cork". It’s set in Lisbon in the 1930s and concerns a very strange love affair.  I¹ve written a script of my novel The Blue Afternoon and we are looking for a director.  You have to have about six or seven film projects on the go at any one time: only that way is there a chance that one may get made.

LM: What are you working on now?
W.B: I’ve written a film script for the Australian film director Fred Schepisi ("Roxanne”, "Cry in the Dark"). It’s set in Zimbabwe a love affair/adventure story with, as its background, the land repossession crisis: Mugabe’s war veterans seizing the land of the white farmers. Complex and fascinating.  And, all the time I’m thinking of the new novel that I will write in 2008.

LM: The link between all your stories?
W.B: All my novels and stories look very different from each other. There are links, of course because I am the presiding imagination and consciousness but I¹m not interested in analyzing these common factors (that’s for other people). However, I can see, looking back at my more recent work, a concentration on the idea of identity and its loss, or identity and how to escape from it but I don¹t want to go any further than that!

LM: Will you write a novel with heroes living in France?
W.B: A significant part of my last novel, Any Human Heart, took place in France. France is very present in many of my short stories and other novels ("The New Confessions" for example). However, I wonder if I would ever write from the point of view of a French man or woman. You never know.

LM: Which is your favorite contemporary French writer(s)? English writer(s)
W.B: My favourite contemporary French writers are J.M.G Le Clezio, Jean Echenoz, Daniel Rondeau and a very interesting poet called Dominique Fourcade. In Britain I always read the latest novels by Martin Amis, Ian McEwen and Alan Hollinghurst.

LM: You wanted to be a painter. In your books, you write like a painter your personages…
W.B: I don’t know if I write like a painter. I want my novels to seem real, to be powerfully realised. I am a realistic novelist I want readers to believe in and be seduced by the world of my novels therefore I try to paint a picture of that world that is both tangible and credible.

LM: Your books, novels are about traveling: Africa for example. Why Africa?
W.B: Africa is easy. I was born in Africa, in Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. For the first half of my life I regarded Africa as my home in a way it is more natural for me to set a novel in Africa than in Britain or Europe. All my most vivid memories are African ones.

LM: How do you do your researches for your novels?
W.B: I research a novel as if I was writing a doctorate (which I once did at the University of Oxford). But as a novelist I can roam wherever my whim and inclination take me. I use old photographs a great deal I use old guide books, maps also the key thing is to have a strong sense of place. I find photographs more useful than traveling.

LM: My London by William Boyd. Tell us about your favorite areas, pub, restaurants, events…
W.B: I live in Chelsea I¹ve lived there for 18 years and I can¹t imagine a better part of London. My favourite pub is The Cooper¹s Arms in Redesdale Street; my favourite restaurant is Tartine (très Francais) in Draycott Avenue.  Walk up the King’s Road from Sloane Square to World’s End any day of the week, all human life is there.

Many thanks!