HG: But it seems now as if younger readers are spoilt for choice when it comes to books. For no other reason, my children have got such pleasure out of the books that it was worth it for that alone, really.

You read it out to them so you're kind of rediscovering it technically as well as anything else. It's not only that you have access to their imagination and the way they see the world, but also all the literature is coming up again, all the books you read as a kid. So what prompted you to write for younger readers?ĮMcN: I think I have an ability to almost over-compartmentalise - firewalls through each segment! I started doing it for my kids when they were old enough.

HG: It's always very interesting when writers jump out of genres - you've also written crime novels. But, you know, I just kind of wander off into this semi-fantasy kind of world - I don't know where it comes from! My older brother claims to be able to identify everything in the first series and all the places because it was the kind of terrain we played on when we were kids. There's a technique and a specific way of going about it and it's very story-driven.

In a way it's closer to writing screenplays than it is for writing for the adult section, if you know what I mean. And then when I saw that you were writing books for younger readers I thought, 'Wow, that's a jump'.Įoin McNamee: It is and it isn't. Harry Guerin: I read your book 'The Ultras' some years ago and thought it was superb. It tells the story of Danny, a lonely misfit who packs his bags for boarding school but on arrival discovers that he is the new student in an academy for spies. He has also written 'The Navigator' trilogy for younger readers and has just published the first book in a new trilogy for them, 'The Ring of Five'. 31 August 1997') and the screenplays for 'I Want You' and 'Resurrection Man'.

Long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2001 for his book 'The Blue Tango', Eoin McNamee's CV includes books about the Troubles ('Resurrection Man', 'The Ultras'), crime fiction under the pseudonym John Creed ('The Sirius Crossing', 'The Day of the Dead' and 'Black Cat Black Dog'), the death of Diana, Princess of Wales ('Paris.

The Ring of Five by Eoin McNamee