Six Questions with Costantia Manoli

Costantia Manoli is the award winning author of Tomatoes in My Lunchbox, a Bookstagang Future Classic Picture Book 2022, a Kirkus Most Empowering Picture Book 2022 and an Ezra Jack Keats Writer’s Award 2023 finalist. Her new book, The Fig Tree, explores the purpose of the Green Line which divides the island of Cyprus.

Manoli was born in the UK to Cypriot parents and spent the picture book period of her life in London. She now lives amid almond and olive trees on the outskirts of a hot, dusty Cypriot village with her family and dogs.

Website: www.costantiamanoli.com

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/costantia_author_illustrator/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/costantiamanoliauthor

1. If you could be any character in a book, who would you be? Why?

I used to dream of being a very girlie princess of some sort when I was younger; I was a very quiet child who viewed the world through the romanticised lens of all the classic fairy tales that I devoured. Now that I’m older and possible wiser(!), I think I’d really enjoy being Max from Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. I only discovered this book in my adulthood (I know, shocking, right?!), and the more time I’ve spent with it, the more I love it! Max is bold and brave and there’s a real honesty and authenticity to him – I would love that kind of freedom – to be expressive and impulsive. I think the illustrations really bring this wildness home too – I love the defiant tilt of his head in the first pages, the very grumpy expression on his face and the pandemonium that follows him wherever he goes.

2. To what extent is your writing inspired by your own experience, or by watching your children’s experiences?

For me, writing is a bit like weaving a tapestry with many threads in many different colours and textures. All the threads are necessary to create something that is, hopefully, beautiful and that works as a coherent whole to tell a story that is detailed and layered. My own experiences are definitely one or some of those threads – I have to draw from what I know for the writing to work and mean something to me. My children’s experiences are another thread – I see what they go through and how things have changed over the years for children, but also how essentially much has stayed the same. The objects and surroundings may be different, but at the heart of it all, they are still dealing with the same concerns and emotions. I also draw from the experiences of the rest of my family and people; our traditions, history and culture. 

3. How do you know your idea will make a good book?

I’m not sure that you can ever know if an idea will make a good book. There are some ideas I’ve had that I have been quite certain would be brilliant as a book, but have somehow lost their magic once on the page. Then there are other ideas which have barely been recognisable as ideas and yet, once I’ve started working on them they take on a life of their own and grow into something so much more than I thought they could ever be. This is why it’s important as writers to write a lot – a lot a lot - and to try things out. You simply cannot judge an idea before you’ve given it a chance!

4. Did the plot or structure of this new book change a lot during the writing process?

It certainly did. The Fig Tree started off as a straightforward 3rd person narrative about two girls. The girls were named and the story followed the journey of one of the girls which leads her to meet the second girl. In the earlier versions, the tree was introduced later on in the story as a device to bring the two girls together. After multiple revisions, I ended up flipping it so that even though it is still in 3rd person, it is from the perspective of fig tree itself. This gave me the opportunity to be far more objective when telling the historical part of the story and I think this is key – it is a story about peace, not politics. The two girls come into the story right at the end, we don’t know which girl is from which side of the divide, and while they are not central characters in the sense that we follow their journey from the beginning of the book and get to know them as individual characters, they are absolutely vital as the solution to the Cyprus problem. The heart of the story remains the same, but the vehicle for telling it changed quite dramatically.

5. What was the most challenging thing you faced while writing/researching this book?

Trying to keep the book as neutral as possible was challenging. As I said, this is a story about peace, not politics. I had to make sure that everything about it makes this clear. And, being of Greek-Cypriot origin, it would have been easy for subconscious biases to slip in. I had beta readers from both sides of the island read both the story and the Author’s Note (again, multiple times!) to make sure that I had the details correct and as balanced as possible, but also, that the language used was not in any way triggering. I hope I succeeded in this – it still makes me rather nervous.

6. What’s a particularly striking or memorable reaction someone has had to this book?

I was interviewed by a local English language newspaper on the island a few months ago and it was the first time I had read the story out loud to someone who had not seen a draft or worked on the book in some way. I have to admit I struggled through tears towards the end as the journalist broke down multiple times while I was reading. It was a beautiful experience and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to witness the emotive power of storytelling in such an authentic way. For anyone who is connected to the island of Cyprus, I hope I have represented our island well. It’s an enormous responsibility – and a great honor – to put our island into the hands of readers who may not have even heard of Cyprus! To anyone who has experienced any kind of war or conflict or is concerned about conflicts happening right now around the world – I hope it opens up very important conversations about these conflicts and ways to move forward. Young people, children, really are the future – if we can open up their hearts and minds through our stories, then the future will be brighter. As I say at the end of the Author’s Note, ‘a tree is a tree, a fig is a fig, and people are people – whichever side of the line they happen to grow or live on.” The Fig Tree is A Story About Building Friendship and Peace in Cyprus specifically – but also, the rest of the world too.