And now we have moved on to my least favourite thing in this story, the characters! It is a real testament to the setting that I continued through a book where the characters were so annoying. I think for awhile the setting helped explain the characters true naivety. But that only works for so long. I could understand Jingqiu being naive at the beginning of the novel; she's young and living in a society where love is discouraged. But throughout the novel Jingqiu does nothing to learn about love, men, sexuality, or reproduction. She is afraid that kissing Old Third will make her pregnant. It did show me how love is such a huge aspect of ones life, and how it can break the boundaries of class. It reminded me very much of The Silver Sword (another of my favourite children's books). It's a simple quest plot which succeeds in bringing children a gripping storyline, fully evoking an awful historical period, yet portraying the realities of the hardships of that time in a manner which is nonetheless sensitive and safe enough not to be traumatising. All I remember is wanted to have a visual look of the hawthorn tree, and Old Third, instead I got a visual of factories and dilapidated houses, not the things that matter. I also wanted her to stop being so stupid!!! No one else seemed as stupid as she. Some may say ignorant or naive, but she was stupid, she jumped to conclusions and had no understanding of life, always took the negative, always went against her body and what ppl were telling her to be true. Q. Your trilogy of Famine novels for children, Under the Hawthorn Tree (1990), Wildflower Girl (1991), and Fields of Home (1996), have been enormously successful and translated into many languages. What was the inspiration for the first of these books and why was it so important that the publisher retain your original title?

A. Not a novel! But I have just finished a short story, A Good Woman, which is set during the Covid pandemic. To Δέντρο Με Τα Λευκά Άνθη". Σίγουρα, όχι μια ιστορία η οποία θα κατάφερνε μέσα από την άπλετη απλότητά της να με συγκινήσει τόσο πολύ, κάνοντάς με να την σκέφτομαι ξανά και ξανά, ακόμα και μέρες μετά το πέρας της ανάγνωσής της. Ίσως να οφείλεται εν μέρη στο γεγονός ότι πρόκειται για μια αληθινή ιστορία. Ίσως πάλι να οφείλεται στο ότι η συγγραφέας του βιβλίου, Ai Mi, κατάφερε να μεταφέρει στο χαρτί με τόση αλήθεια και συναίσθημα την ιστορία που της αφηγήθηκε η πρωταγωνίστριά της, Τζινγκ Τσιόου, μια ιστορία βαθιάς και πραγματικής αγάπης, που ακόμα και με το πέρασμα των χρόνων δεν κατάφερε τίποτα να την κάνει να εξασθενίσει. Βασισμένη λοιπόν στα λόγια αλλά και τα ημερολόγια της Τζινγκ Τσιόου, η Ai Mi μας μεταφέρει μέσα από τα δικά της μάτια την ιστορία δύο ανθρώπων που αγαπήθηκαν πολύ, ακόμα και σε μια εποχή και σε ένα μέρος που το να καρποφορήσει μια σχέση και να αποκτήσει δυνατές ρίζες δεν ήταν τόσο εύκολο. La verdad es que no tengo muy claro que ocurrió realmente durante la Revolución Cultural en China, así que cuando empezaba a leer el libro estuve un poco (muy) perdida con respecto a la Historia. Todo se desarrolla en esa época, y por lo que entendí, la historia del libro se basa en hechos reales. Jing Qiu es una muchacha, hija de padres conservadores, que fue mandada a una comunidad para registrar historias y hechos de los habitantes, y es ahí cuando conoce a Mayor Tercero, un muchacho que piensa muy diferente a la comunidad. Sin querer se empieza a formar una historia entre los dos, una romántica historia, aún sabiendo que está prohibido y que podría ser peligroso que alguien los viera juntos; enfrentando juntos los diversos problemas que se les interpongan.

Three children taken to hospital following suspected stabbing in Dublin

The historical events of the cultural revolution remain sensitive for the censors despite the party's posthumous verdict on Mao Zedong, which ruled it a decade of catastrophe for which he was responsible. After his death in 1976, with censorship relaxed, it became the inspiration for an outpouring of literary emotion; at the time, this "scar literature" seemed refreshingly therapeutic, but the public eventually tired, China changed, and authors moved on. The plot was ok but because the characters are hard to connect with even the big plot point at the conclusion of the novel doesn't have much of an impact. Also, another reviewer mentioned that the plot seemed to repeat itself; Jinqiu doesn't know what to think of Old Third, she won't ask anyone for helpful advice, and she needs to work a lot because her family is poor. Jingqiu was mature and naive at the same time. She knew how to keep her mouth and help her family to survive, but nobody told her what love was. Of course, she figured it out in time...though not as what we imagine nowadays, but still, she did it. I also soon realized that the facts and figures and the huge numbers involved were far worse than even I had ever imagined. It was another massive undertaking in terms of research and time with a very different perspective but it was great to be able to expand on that complexity and the calamity and tragedy of the famine and the massive impact it wrought on us as a people.

The book is written from the perspective of the (very) naive Jing Qiu, who is sent to the countryside as a part of her education along with everyone else. She meets Lao San at the beginning of the book, from which point the reader learns what it was like to fall in love and come of age at a time when everyone was under continuous scrutiny and one misstep, or misplaced piece of gossip uttered by a jealous classmate or neighbour could affect could your entire future. It was made mostly made by young film production crew under the supervision of Mike Kelly and shot in Kilkenny. I was made welcome on set and it was shown on RTÉ, Channel 4 and in the US as they had all helped to fund the project. However, I do hope that eventually there will be a much larger-scale film production of Under the Hawthorn Tree. Kinderverein Kalbach Klapperschlange Litteraturpreis von Kindern, Frankfurt Germany 1993 (the Children’s Choice book prize in the Frankfurt Book Fair) I explained that I would never have written the book except for hearing about those three forgotten children. However, fate intervened as my US publisher Holiday House decided they wanted to use the title Under the Hawthorn Tree even if it was called something else here in Ireland. Fortunately, my publishers had a rethink and decided to keep the name. As a girl in the modern society, it was very hard to relate to everything, so I took some time to look up details of the Cultural Revolution in China. And during my research, I slowly began to understand the plot and the characters.What promised itself to be a Romeo and Juliet style romance, fraught with uncertainties and trials, became instead a tale about the mundane life of a young Chinese girl. Though appearances were made by Old Third, and there were glimpses of a budding romance, it came too little too late and Jingqiu's walls came down too unexpectedly for me to invest myself in the romance as much as I would have liked. Jingqiu simply wasn't someone I could connect with. Though her connection with Old Third eventually becomes a sweet one, and there are certainly moments of grand romance, the plodding nature of the novel throughout took away from these moments, and dulled the shine that could have been a sweet young love. The redeeming character was Old Third himself, resolute and kind, but as the story did not focus on him and rather Jingqui, there were certainly narrative lulls.

A. Yes. Dan Donovan was a first-hand witness to what happened to the people and the town of Skibbereen during The Great Hunger. His factual account and recording of events in the workhouse and the dispensary and doing autopsies on bodies revealed a scale of hunger and disease that is almost unimaginable. He was a good, compassionate man who always put the lives of his patients foremost.Published in May 1990, the book was an immediate success and become a classic. It has been translated into over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Bahasa, French, Dutch, German, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and Irish. The book has been read on RTÉ Radio and is very popular in schools, both with teachers and pupils. It has been made a supplementary curriculum reader in many schools and is also used by schools in Northern Ireland for EMU (Education through Mutual Understanding) projects. It was also filmed by Young Irish Film Makers, in association with RTÉ and Channel 4. This is available as a DVD. The book is based in the time of the great famine of Ireland. It's about three kids who fight for their lives and are determined to find their relatives. For a children's book it has a lot of tragedy. The saddest scene for me was when baby Bridget died. I don't even remember being scarred by the death, and this was the saddest book of my childhood, easily. A. It is strange but 1916 is once again a subject that I never intended writing about as so much had been written in various ways about the leaders of the Rising. But then visiting Kilmainham Jail with my daughter and seeing the chapel where Grace Gifford and Joe Plunkett married just before he was executed touched me deeply. I was curious about Grace and was very surprised to discover that her sister Muriel was married to his friend and fellow 1916 leader Thomas MacDonagh. I had never seen any mention of this before… perhaps because they were just women. However, the real eureka moment was discovering that their sister Nellie had also fought in the Rising and was actually imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail at the time that her two brothers-in-law were executed. Third, there is an almost bizarre naivety to Jingqui, the central women character, when it comes to sexual and emotional knowledge. How can this be believable in a reasonably educated community? The love affair between her and Old Third is quite powerful in driving forward what is a novel with many insights into the social and economic texture of Chinese society -- but Jingqui's staggering innocence of sexual realities provides a jarring note.