Q&A with Kirsty Manning

 

Photo by Jacqui Henshaw

 

Kirsty Manning is the author of the new novel The Hidden Book. Her other novels include The Paris Mystery. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.

 

Q: The Hidden Book was based on a true story--how did you learn about it, and at what point did you decide to write a novel based on those events?

 

A: My agent showed me a newspaper article about a hidden photo album found in an old flour sack and donated to the Sydney Jewish Museum. This artefact, created in secret and carried across the world, exists today in the Sydney Jewish Museum.

 

We do know Spanish photographer Francisco Boix took and, with the help of inmates, hid over 20,000 images in Mauthausen camp. These images were used in the Nuremberg Trials as evidence to convict several senior Nazis of war crimes. Several books were created as (horrific) gifts for senior SS officials, and a secret version was smuggled out of the prison.

 

What we don’t know is who smuggled the album out, who it belonged to and exactly how the album had arrived in Australia – perfect gaps for the imagination to start to run wild.

 

Q: What did you see as the right balance between history and fiction as you wrote the novel?

 

A: It’s certainly a challenge. I never want to romanticise the horror of war. It took me four years to work out the best way to tell this particular tale.

 

I wanted to honour the people involved with saving clandestine photos of Mauthausen that were used to convict Nazi war criminals. Part of that story was a secret photo album owned by Bogden Ivavovic, originally from Zagreb. That book now resides at the Jewish Museum in Sydney.

 

Nobody knows how Ivavovic came to own the album, or how it came to Australia. We do know that a Mauthausen local, Anna Pointner, hid thousands of photographs in the stone wall of her garden and there is a memorial to her in Mauthausen.

 

I never want to lean too far into a real person’s story. As such, Lena, Roza, Mila and Nico are all entirely fictional, with an imagined emotional and physical realm. The clandestine photo album is an imagined album. I do feature real memorial sites and museums in this novel, but these too have been fictionalised for the purposes of the story but I do include a resources list for accurate information on museums and memorial sites.

 

My job in this book as a fiction writer was to bring to life to the truth of horror, injustice and intolerance onto the page. History teaches us many lessons and novelists ask questions and put words around feelings. Now more than ever we need compassion and empathy.

 

Q: How did you create your cast of characters?

 

A: I always wanted to write a coming-of-age tale and so Hannah was pretty clear to me from the start. I had an idea of her as a child, the curious student and women grappling with work, study, changing degrees of ambition and opportunity right as motherhood begins. In fact I had so much Hannah my editor made me cut!

 

As for Lena, Anna Pointner was the starting point but I wanted to give her a sister and that bought complications with both plot and material. A sister, though, shows how deeply a person can love and ups the stakes for the character. Like me, Lena would be prepared to sacrifice everything for her sister.

 

I had many readers who helped me gauge authenticity and neurodiversity among my characters and an academic at the museum who read the manuscript for both facts and the sensitive material. I always approach my fictional characters with integrity and respect, and I hope that follows through to the reader.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that particularly surprised you?

 

A: I have included an extensive list of resources at the end of the book. My research started of course with the artefact at the Sydney Jewish Museum –the books of photographs from the Nazi photographic laboratory and identification service. I also researched Mauthausen, and Anna Pointer as well as looking at the Nuremberg trial evidence.

 

The fact that over 70,000 photographs ended up being hidden in the village by brave citizens certainly shocked me. Is there a greater act of hope? To risk a life to hide evidence that would one day tell the truth?

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: The follow-up to The Paris Mystery, my prewar Paris romp with investigative reporter Charlie James.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Kirsty Manning.