Fable Becomes
The Moral Center
of Striped Pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
by John Boyne
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In THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, author John Boyne has created a modern fable rooted in the not-so-distant past that deals with the age-old question of man’s inhumanity to man.

“The definition of a fable is a work of fiction with a moral at its center. The truth of this book is at the moral center of the story,” said Boyne.

The story is told from the perspective of nine-year-old Bruno, the naïve son of a Nazi Commandant, who moves from his home in Berlin to house that sits beside a fence. Bruno is puzzled by the people in the stripped pajamas who live inside the fence. In his loneliness, he befriends a boy who happens to be his age who lives on the inside.

Making the story a fable, said Boyne, allowed him to make certain creative choices like creating a camp that is representative of all prison camps (although Bruno refers to the camp as “Out-With” evoking Auschwitz). Contrary to historical fact, Boyne places the Commandant’s house outside the fence, creating a physical as well as metaphorical divide between the two boys.

“The idea of two boys sitting at the fence came to me. I thought of the fence as a mirror. Each boy could be the other if it were not for fate,” observed Boyne.

The book is a bestseller in Europe, on the York Times Top 10 Bestseller List, and as of this interview had been translated into 22 languages.

Not bad for a book whose first draft was penned with feverish intensity over 2 ½ days. “I stayed focused and tried not to think about it too much. People often tell me they read the book in one sitting. I like to think the story retained its initial pace,” said Boyne.

He spent the “best part of a year” rewriting the book. He kept the initial tone and structure but added scenes and expanded the role of certain characters. “Through this process I took a good idea and turned it into a novel,” said Boyne.

He is the author of three previous novels for adults, including THE THIEF OF TIME (2000), which was longlisted for the Irish Times Literature Award, and CRIPPEN (2004), which was shortlisted for the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award.

He has published his fourth adult novel, NEXT OF KIN, since THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS was released.

“With each book I’ve learned a lot more about plot, character and how to tell a story. Once I published a novel I felt more confident in my understanding of the structure and pace a novel requires,” said Boyne.

“This book is a lot shorter than my adult novels, which took about eight months to get a first draft, but at the end of this I felt I had a story that was more important,” said Boyne.

He’d read many nonfiction accounts of the Holocaust over the years. When the idea for the story came to him Boyne knew he could not tell the story from the perspective of the prisoners inside the fence. “I couldn’t speak to that experience. I thought it would be interesting to have the protagonist outside the fence looking in. In that way, readers have the same perspective as Bruno,” said Boyne.

While Bruno is very naïve, there are moments when he begins to have a dawning realization about what might be going on over the fence and pushes the information away.

“The challenge to the reader is to ask yourself ‘How much like Bruno am I?’” said Boyne.

While Boyne visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, he wanted the camp portrayed in the story to represent all the camps where genocide has taken place since World War Two.

His challenge as a writer to was to make all the characters, even the father/Commandant, fully drawn. “I had to portray the Commandant through his son’s eyes and not as the monster we know him to be,” observed Boyne. He spent time face to face with his editor David Ficking questioning many aspects of the story, such as the decision not to name the camp Auschwitz unambiguously, until he felt justified in his choices.

Boyne’s agents are Simon Trewin in the U.K. and Zoe Pagnamenta in the U.S. Both are with Peters, Fraser & Dunlop.

“It is crucial to find an agent you feel you have a connection with. Believe what they tell you. If they say your novel needs work, do it. They want to sell it as quickly as possible.”

Boyne enjoys the process of refining his writing. He said the success of this book has brought him to some important realizations. “Most of what you read about in the media is a first book becoming a big hit. It is important to aim to build a writing career, a consistency in your writing. If my first book had done this well, I am not sure what my career would be like today.”

Boyne earned a degree in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in the UK then worked as a bookseller in Dublin for seven years while writing in the mornings. These days, he is a full-time writer.

“I approach it as a day job,” he noted. He works seven days a week, working on creative writing until lunchtime and doing editing and writing book reviews after lunch.

Contrary to his approach with THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, Boyne typically spends several months plotting his books, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, before writing his first line.

“I like the feeling that I know which section I’ll be working on next,” he said.

Boyne, who has taught creative writing at the Irish Writers' Centre, was surprised to find that while all of his students wanted to be novelists only a few of them read novels regularly.

“How can you want to write if you don’t read?” he asked.

“These days I have less expectation of success and I’m more determined to write a novel that is worthy of success,” he observed.

Ellen Birkett Morris is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in national print and online publications including The New York Times. She also writes for a number of literary, regional, trade, and business publications, and she has contributed to six published nonfiction books in the trade press. Ellen is a regular contributor to Authorlink, assigned to interview various New York Times bestselling authors and first-time novelists.