Louis de Bernières pays a visit to Warwick

[dropcap]C[/dropcap] aptain Corelli’s Mandolin. Many of you have seen the film. Some of you have read the book. But how many of you have met the author?

Well, you had the chance to on the 29^th January when Louis de Bernières came to Warwick to hold a poetry reading. De Bernières’s novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, and was listed at number nineteen on the BBC’s ‘The Big Read’. He has also published many other novels, including Birds Without Wings and The Partisan’s Daughter.

I was sure that people would be queuing up in their hundreds to see such a remarkable man, however only a couple of dozen people turned up, which was certainly surprising. Perhaps the event could have been better advertised.

Michael Hulse, the event organiser, joked that he had promised de Bernières a stadium with two thousand people. However, he added that the experience will be something for us to tell our grandchildren: not many people can say that they have had an intimate gathering with Louis de Bernières.

Initially, there was some confusion with the location of the room, but I breathed a sigh of relief when de Bernières walked in, wearing a dark-brown cowboy-style hat and carrying stacks of papers.

De Bernières read poetry from his collection of poems called Imagining Alexandria, as well as other material. Imagining Alexandria is a beautiful collection of poetry that is both mournful and sentimental in tone. Through his poetry, he revisited life as a student and as a young lover. He also conveyed his feelings about ageing and leaving the past behind. I must admit that I was moved to tears on a few occasions.

After the poetry reading, de Bernières answered some of the crowd’s questions – after forbidding anyone to ask him what he thought of the film adaptation of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin!

A woman asked him what the so called ‘author’s life’ is really like. He replied that he is very lucky to be able to write as a fulltime job, and laughed as he recalled some of his past jobs including being a mechanic, a gardener and a teacher. However, the tone in the room changed to a more melancholy one as he confessed that even authors have problems. The fact that he does not see his young children as often as he would like to is a source of great pain for him.

De Bernières offered some great advice and writing tips. He declared that he never forces himself to write. However, luckily for him, he feels like writing every single morning. He also said that if you find yourself at a dead-end with a story, it is sometimes best to just scrap it. However, never throw anything away: it may be of use in twenty years or so.

The audience laughed at de Bernières’s claim that the hardest thing about growing old is knowing that when you see a pretty girl, there is no chance at all that she will be attracted to you.

I asked de Bernières whether or not he suffers from writers block. He replied that nowadays, he never struggles to write. However, despite being an avid writer as a young child, he barely wrote a word throughout his twenties. He was in his mid-thirties when he properly began. This is good news for us aspiring writers: we have a little longer until we need to publish that best-selling novel!

As I watched de Bernières signing my treasured copies of his novels and books, I realised that this was an experience that I wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon.