John Boyne
John Boyne
John Boyneis an Irish novelist. He is the author of nine novels for adults and five novels for younger readers. His novels are published in 50 languages...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth30 April 1971
CountryIreland
children book writing
I don't change the language for children books. I don't make the language simpler. I use words that they might have to look up in the dictionary. The books are shorter, but there's just not that much difference other than that to be honest. And the funny thing is, I have adult writer friends [to whom I would say], "Would you think of writing a children's book?" and they go, "No, God, I wouldn't know how." They're quite intimidated by the concept of it. And when I say to children's books writers, would they write an adult book, they say no because they think they're too good for it.
book two firsts
I was dropped by my publisher after my first two books. But I always believed in myself.
years dublin events
It's not easy making a living as a writer, and for many years I worked at a Waterstones in Dublin. It was a good environment for an aspiring writer, with lots of events and authors appearing.
memories book passion
I hope for so much from every book I read. And time and again, I find myself disappointed. I look across my bookshelves and see hundreds of titles which in my memory seem merely mediocre or second-rate. Only occasionally does a novel appear for which I feel a lasting passion, a book that I think could in time become a classic.
children book writing
Children's book writers tend to feel quite superior, and adult writers tend to feel they wouldn't know how to write a children's book - which might surprise you because I think a lot of people think it's the other way around.
boys years immaturity
... Nine-year-old boys usually turn ten at some point. It's the nineteen-year-olds who have difficulty turning twenty.
trying world breathe
There is cruelty in the world Eliza, you can see that, can't you? It surrounds us. It breathes on us. We spend our life trying to escape it.
unknown-worlds finding-happiness knows
It is possible, you know, to drift off to an unknown world and find happiness there. Maybe even more happiness than you've ever known before.
children boys stairs
He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.
boys dots figures
The dot that became a speck that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy
brother speak moments
But still there are moments when a brother and sister can lay down their instruments of torture for a moment and speak as civilized human beings and Bruno decided to make this one of those moments.
trying way sides
. . .only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.
children book writing
I think that books for young people should have serious and important themes, they shouldn't be trivial. So the books I write, they would be the kind of stories you would write in an adult novel only they just happen to feature a child at the center of them.
boat ask-me wells
Well you've been brought here against your will, just like I have. If you ask me, we're all in the same boat. And it's leaking.