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Anastasia Balezdrova

I met Victoria Hislop in the pavilion of the publishing house Dioptra, which publishes her books in Greece. The writer was standing behind the stand piled up with her books and talking to dozens of her readers who came for to the Book Fest in Zappeio in order to meet the author of the bestseller "The Island". She was talking to her fans in Greek and did not refuse to sign an autograph for any of them, not even for GRReporter. 

"My third book is called "The thread". The action takes place in Thessaloniki. This is a story about the events of the 20th century. The story goes as follows: The protagonist lives in England and arrived in town to visit his grandparents and he learned from them the story of his family. I hope readers like the book. I truly enjoyed writing it."

Victoria said during the preparation of the book she learned a lot about the Greek history.

"It is amazing how this country went from one crisis to another. There wasn't a time when everything was alright. Starting with the occupation during the civil war and than the dictatorship. I also came often in Greece, I have house here, but only when I read this all I realized that people here do not know very well what peace means. It' s very illusive.

One of symbolic things in the book is an imaginary street named Irini (peace). Readers in England may think that the street is called like this because it is named after a woman, but I chose this name because it is something like an ideal place in which everything is fine. But it is still a small street in Thessaloniki, which appeared in my imagination. Most people do not live on it, but they live on other streets and face various difficulties." 

The author decided to write her first novel, which became a worldwide bestseller quite spontaneously. 

"I went to Spinalonga island as a tourist in 2001. The feeling and the atmosphere there were very different. I stayed there for a little over an hour, but once I left from there I knew I'd write something about it."

Victoria Hislop learned the history of the island, which for over 40 years became the home to hundreds of lepers among the travel guides. "I didn't have the opportunity to talk with the locals, because at that time I still did not know Greek. One of the books about Spinalonga was so big that when I saw it as it was on the shelf I thought to myself that  I will either learn the language after 10 years and I will be able to read it or I will write a fictional story of my own.

The writer decided to do the second thing. All the characters in "The Island" are the product of a fiction. "I went to the cafeteria of Plaka - the village, which is located opposite to Spinalonga and looked through the phonebook. I found the most common surnames in Crete. There were a lot of people with the surnames Petrakis, Vandoulakis etc. So I found the names of the characters. Some people might think that I used the story of some lady called Maria Petraki, but it is not like this."

Unlike the book, however, for the creation of the series were held interviews with elders who have lived in Plaka in the 40s and 50s of the twentieth century and remember the true stories of the residents of Spinalonga. "I learned these stories after I wrote the book. All the additional stories which were added to the scenario were real."

The TV series the final episode of which is broadcasted today had great success. According to the measured viewing rate "The Island" is the best Greek drama series of all times. The measured rating averaged at 53.2 per cent, which means that every Monday night it has "nailed" to the TV screen almost three million viewers.

"To be honest - yes, I expected this success because I attended the shooting of the series and saw the work of the team. The actors, the amazing director, the costumes, the makeup, and especially the manner in which the wounds caused by leprosy were recreated - everything was done in a very professional manner. Just like the music which is more than wonderful, and is not just a tune for a television series. What surprised us all to some extent was may be the interest of the young people. We knew that the older viewers will watch it, but feedback from young people was also very high." Many foreign television stations have also shown some interest to buy the series and to air it in their countries. 

Before she started writing books Victoria Hislop was working in journalism. Today she continues to write articles for the Sunday Telegraph, Mail on Sunday and other publications, but "I definitely prefer the books because when I write I feel truly free."