Joanne Harris
Author Interview - Joanne Harris
Author of VIANNE
This prequel to my 1999 novel CHOCOLAT introduces my heroine, Vianne Rocher, at a pivotal moment in her life, before she becomes a mother, learns to cook or discovers her passion for chocolate.
On the evening of July 4th, a young woman scatters her mother’s ashes in New York and follows the call of the changing winds to the French coastal city of Marseille.
For the first time in her life, Vianne feels in control of her future. Charming her way into a job as a waitress, she tries to fit in, make friends, and come to terms with her pregnancy, knowing that by the time her child is born, the turning wind will have changed once again.
As she discovers the joy of cooking for the very first time, making local recipes her own with the addition of bittersweet chocolate spices, she learns that this humble magic has the power to unlock secrets.
And yet her gift comes at a price. And Vianne has a secret of her own; a secret that threatens everything.
Author Interview - Joanne Harris
Author I draw inspiration from:
Angela Carter (Nights at the Circus, Wise Children): I love her casual incorporation of magic into real-world scenarios, her sly humour, her feminism and her impeccable flair with language.
Author Interview - Joanne Harris | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
An inglenook fireplace in winter, or a window-seat overlooking the sunny lawn in summer, with a tea-tray close at hand and a generous supply of biscuits.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
The idea of being trapped anywhere, with anyone sounds like one of my nightmares: but I'd be more than happy to spend some time in an enclosed space with the Book from Douglas Adams' HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. I could learn the secrets of the Universe whilst waiting to be rescued, as well as how to achieve total perspective and how to make the perfect Jinnan Tonix.
Author Interview - Joanne Harris | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
I've always known: even before I could read, I used to make up stories. But it took me rather longer to believe I could make a living from it: I finally gave up my day job when my third book, CHOCOLAT, took off unexpectedly. (Even then, I took a year-long sabbatical from teaching; when I finally contacted the school to announce that I wasn't coming back, my boss just laughed and said: "Oh darling, we knew that. We've already given your job to someone else!")
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
I think that as long as people are reading, the medium doesn't matter. I use e-books and audiobooks most when I'm travelling or on the move: the rest of the time I prefer physical books. I like the security of them, and the physical connection with the text, and the memories the physical object conjures for me (I often re-read favourite books, so that the object itself becomes part of the reading experience).
The last book I read:
The last book I read was BUTTER, by Asako Yuzuki: a wonderful exploration of feminism, fatphobia, society and food. I loved its bleak humour, its tension and its compelling depictions of cooking.
Author Interview - Joanne Harris | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
I don't obsess over writing tools. The writing process comes from somewhere else altogether, and depending on the stage of the process, I might use any tools that come to hand. My phone is useful for notes on the go: in the same way, I carry notebooks in which to write casual thoughts when I'm away from my desk. My usual writing tool is my laptop, which goes everywhere with me, but when I need a change of perspective, I've been known to go back to longhand. I work most often from my writing shed in my garden: I like to re-read the previous day's work aloud, and make any line-by line corrections as I go. To help me get into the zone, I use scent: a different one for every book I've written. It's a trick I learnt from Stanislavsky's book, AN ACTOR PREPARES: most of the methods he uses for actors to get into character work just as well with writing. (My scent for VIANNE is Coromandel, a close relative of the one I used for CHOCOLAT, as the narrative voices are so similar.)
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Fevvers, the circus bird-woman from Angela Cater's NIGHTS AT THE CIRCUS: though we are very different personalities, I think we'd bond over her contempt for social conventions, her appetite for seafood and gin, and her natural affinity with stories. She might even teach me how to fly...
Author Interview - Joanne Harris | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
Teacher. I managed to co-ordinate teaching and writing for 15 years before I gave up to write full-time: I enjoyed it and was good at it, and left it with some reluctance. I could always go back. But whatever I did for a living, I would still write. It's not a career as much as a compulsion.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
The Fifties were great, with their clean silhouettes and classic shapes (I especially like the men's fashions; the baggy suits and wide-brimmed hats); although aesthetically I love the 18th-century, with its sumptuous fabrics and Watteau pleats. (I wouldn't bother with the lead and arsenic-based makeup, or the mouse-skin eyebrows, though).
Place I’d most like to travel:
I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world in this job: but I have a particular longing to see Iceland, where I've never been: I love the dramatic scenery, the wealth of history and the generous, inclusive society.
My signature drink:
Tea, or champagne, depending on whether I'm on duty, or not.
Favorite artist:
The poet Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote the most sublime verses in the French language before he reached the age of twenty, but whose varied and disreputable life somehow manages to top even that achievement.
Number one on my bucket list:
I'd like to take the Orient-Express from Paris to Istanbul.
Anything else you'd like to add:
I have a kind of synaesthesia that allows me to "smell" colours: that's how I generally experience the world, and why my books are so rich in colour and scent.
Find more from the author:
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/joannechocolat.bsky.social
Twitter: joannechocolat
Instagram: joannechocolat
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoanneHarrisAuthor/
Website: joanne-harris.co.uk
About Joanne Harris:
Author Interview with Joanne Harris
Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) is the internationally renowned and award-winning author of over twenty novels, plus novellas, cookbooks, scripts, short stories, libretti, lyrics, articles, and a self-help book for writers, TEN THINGS ABOUT WRITING. In 2000, her 1999 novel CHOCOLAT was adapted to the screen, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sheffield and Huddersfield, is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Her hobbies are listed in Who's Who as 'mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion of the system'. She is active on social media, where she writes stories and gives writing tips as @joannechocolat; she performs in a live music and storytelling show with the #Storytime Band; and she works from a shed in her garden at her home in Yorkshire.
