Posted August 15, 2022 by Gecko Press

Frida Nilsson is a number one Swedish creator who has been an August Prize nominee 3 times and gained the Astrid Lindgren Prize in 2014. In 2017 she was chosen as one among Europe’s finest rising writers for younger folks by the Hay Pageant’s Aarhus 39. Her books have been translated all through Europe and nominated for the distinguished Youth Literature Prize in Germany and several other literary awards in France. Nilsson’s writing is characterised by humour and sincerity. She writes in regards to the large questions in life—friendship, loss of life and love—and has been in comparison with Roald Dahl and Astrid Lindgren.

What’s vital to you within the story of The Ape Star?

I wrote The Ape Star a very long time in the past, earlier than my first e book got here out in 2004, and it was revealed in Swedish in 2005. In different phrases, I used to be not a lot older than 20 when it appeared, and I used to be nonetheless very near my childhood. The story of Jonna and Gorilla is about rising up with a mum or dad who shouldn’t be the norm. How one so typically needs that one’s mum or dad may very well be extra like all of the others—and the way one realizes, because the years cross, the benefits of being the kid of somebody who’s a person and walks their very own path. My father has at all times been his personal particular person. Whereas all the opposite fathers had the appropriate kind of garments and haircut, my father wore hopelessly old school rags and had a aspect half— and he drove crummy previous vehicles. The scene when Jonna and Gorilla drive into city and Jonna walks ten paces behind, hoping nobody will notice that she and Gorilla are collectively, is taken instantly from my childhood purchasing journeys to city.

In your books, each phrase has a spot, each motion a objective. Do you rework scenes and sentences typically?

Sure, I do, however with increasingly more expertise, I’ve additionally acquired higher at staying the course. Actually, constructing sentences and the selection of phrases—the precise circulation of the textual content—takes way more time than developing with the story itself. However as a result of I think about my books are sometimes learn aloud, it’s vital to me that the textual content shouldn’t be heavy-handed.

Why did you select a gorilla as the primary character alongside Jonna?

As a result of my father was very large and fairly bushy once I was a baby. Why Gorilla grew to become a she I don’t know—possibly as a result of my father was at all times light and motherly, the alternative of macho.

We have now some sympathy for Gerd, the orphanage supervisor, and never a lot for Tord Fjordmark, the council developer. What’s vital to you about these characters?

Individuals who know my writing know that I don’t write about characters who’re completely good or completely unhealthy. That sort of particular person doesn’t exist in actuality—and in the event that they do, they aren’t particularly attention-grabbing. Once I write, I need to discover human nature. I need to uncover the great and the unhealthy, and once I write a portrait of much less sympathetic characters, I need to sneak in particulars that imply we nonetheless have a little bit sympathy for them. Tord turns into a little bit extra humane when, in direction of the tip of the e book, we’re capable of enterprise inside his workplace and see that he has tried to brighten it in “a maritime model”. As a reader this offers us the prospect to suppose some extra about that. Perhaps Tord needs he have been one other sort of particular person: a salt-crusted sailor or perhaps a captain who sails the seven seas?

The Ape Star was made into an animated film that’s displaying internationally. How does the film examine to the e book, and what kind of course of was it, having your story changed into a film?

Linda Hambäck, who made the The Ape Star film, took this story to coronary heart. I have to admit I used to be a little bit tough to influence when it got here to promoting the rights, however as luck has it, Linda is the kind of one that doesn’t simply quit. What I like in regards to the movie is that Linda has made the story her personal in many alternative methods. One among them is that Jonna appears a little bit like her. Within the unique e book, Jonna was a blonde woman with blue eyes, however Linda, who was adopted herself, made her into a lady who has darker pores and skin, brown hair and brown eyes.*

What’s it like studying a translation of your story?

Really, it’s each enjoyable and inspirational! Once I learn the English proof of The Ape Star it was like rediscovering my very own story. I’m so glad that Julia [Marshall, the translator] managed to search out the humour within the story; in some ways, it feels as if all of the characters have been given a brand new life!

*The Ape Star is illustrated with stills from the movie. In publishing the Gecko Press version we checked out many choices for illustrations from all of the editions in several languages. We selected the movie illustrations for his or her modern and common really feel and the depiction of Jonna—we expect she appears spirited, heat, robust, somebody our viewers of English readers all over the world might see themselves in. Occasionally this meant small variations to the textual content—chopping an outline of hair color, for instance—however just for issues not intrinsic to the story. Rachel Lawson, Writer

All photos © Lee Movies

The Ape Star | Available from all good bookstores and on our website
On this award-winning chapter e book about prejudice and justice, an orphan woman is adopted by a gorilla who lives in a junkyard and a shocking friendship grows between them.