Morgan Llywelyn was born in New York City as reported in many places. Her mother and father were Irish, this allowed Morgan to have dual citizenship. If you listen closely you might catch the story of where Morgan was really born. In the United States or in Ireland or on the ship sailing to America, just another mystery that is part of Morgan.
(more can be found here )
Hello Morgan. Speaking of you is speaking of Ireland. if you don't mind, I'll start this interview from your coming novel: The young rebels: is there a part of you who wants to be a mainstream author?
Actually I began as a mainstream novelist. My first book was THE WIND FROM HASTINGS, published in the United States in 1978 and in England the following year. It was a factually-based historical novel for adults, exploring the incidents surrounding the Norman conquest of England in 1066. It did very well for a first novel, receiving excellent reviews and being purchased by a major American Book Club.
My second novel was my 'break-through' book, however. LION OF IRELAND, which is a novelised biography of Ireland's greatest High King, Brian Boru, has never been out of print since it was first published in 1980. Ronald Reagan even quoted it in his inaugural address when he was elected US president. LION is definitely a mainstream historical novel - as are most of the books I have written since. Only two of the many characters in LION are fictional; the rest are taken straight from Irish history. During Brian's lifetime there were still druids in Ireland, as I discovered while researching the book. I found the druidic culture so interesting I wrote one of the two fictional characters as a druid. Unfortunately the American booksellers, who knew nothing about European history or the reality of druids, decided that they were 'fantasy' and put LION on the fantasy shelves as well as with the mainstream fiction.
Which brings me to your second question. At the time LION was published there was not much crossover between mainstream historical fiction and fantasy. I never set out to write anything but mainstream fiction. Yet because American booksellers did not know that the druids had, in their own time, been as real as Catholics are in ours, I acquired a bit of a fantasy reputation. I also received huge amounts of fan mail from readers wanting to know more about the druids. So I did serious research into the subject and produced my third novel, THE HORSE GODDESS, was basically a mainstream novel, but also explored the shamanistic tradition and beliefs of the early Celts in the seventh century BC. For this I found books such as TRACING SHAMANS IN SIBERIA - which was the basis for a Master's Degree in the nineteen thirties by one of the leading students of the tradition - extremely helpful.
Some years later, in response to the ongoing interest in the subject, I published my historical novel DRUIDS. DRUIDS is based on Caesar's campaigns in Gaul and tells the story as it really happened - but from the point of view of the Gauls, who were Celts of course. Because the Gauls believed in the sorcery of the druids, I wrote their story from that viewpoint. Fortunately many details of the druid culture has survived, mainly handed down to us by the Greeks who were their contemporaries. I also quote Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, and the Greek writer Strabo on the subject, to help demonstrate that they were not fantasy. Julius Caesar considered the druids of Gaul his most formidable adversaries during his battle with the Gaulish king, Vercingetorix. When DRUIDS was first published it was praised for its accuracy by no less an authority than Stuart Piggott, one of the foremost anthropologists, and by Dr. Anne Ross, the leading expert on the Celtic culture.
The reality of druidry - not Californian 'New Age' stuff but the belief system of our ancient forebears - has become a repetitive theme through much of my subsequent work. My books are mainly an exploration of the Celtic culture from ancient Hallstatt in the Austrian Alps to modern Ireland. The mysticism that began with the druids continues to inform and influence Ireland today. I think one reason why my readers respond to it so strongly is because that particular type of spirituality is embedded in the collective unconscious of Celts and their descendants. I try to present an accurate picture of the druids in their own time, and what their contemporaries believed them to be.
I have three types of readers: the majority of mine, judging by the huge amount of fan mail I get, are interested in the history. A slightly smaller but equally devoted number are interested in the concept and teachings of Celtic druidry. A significant number are interested in both, as I am myself.
But it is that early exploration into the druid culture which has fuelled my subsequent work in the fantasy area. With very few exceptions I have always sought to remain true to the reality of the druids, rather than interjecting my own imaginings.
Historical novels, counterfactual novels, novels starting from history and turning into fantasy. It seems as if the market is in love with crossover books. Is this also your opinion?
I would agree that readers seem to like crossover novels in general, not just mine. People have curious, questing minds; they want something different, something that will stretch them. Writing which offers more than one point of view does that.
Ireland and its magic. Hasn't everything been written, by now, or fantasy novels based in fantasy homeland have still something to say?
The Ireland I write about is not a fantasy homeland, but taken from Ireland's actual past. This island has been continually inhabited for over six thousand years and we have a folk history dating back almost three thousand years, one of the oldest in the world. In the sixteenth century Irish scholars collected all of the existing stories from that tradition and published them as THE ANNALS OF THE FOUR MASTERS, which includes oral history dating back to twelve hundred years before the birth of Christ. With such a vast wealth of material upon which to draw, I am very fortunate!
After making my career an exploration of ancient Ireland, its culture and belief system, for the last fourteen years I have been writing a series consisting of five mainstream historical novels exploring Ireland in the twentieth century. These cover the struggle for independence from Britain and the rise of the IRA. No room for druid magic here, I'm afraid, but even in this material there is a lingering essence of the ancient spirituality because it is still part of the modern Irish people.
How do you explain to yourself this explosion of fantasy novels? Everyone seems to adore druids, elves and dragons. Does this happen because of the movies we see at the cinema?
We are all still children on some level, I think. But for me that particular question is coloured by the fact that the druids were not fantasy at all in their own time, but very real. They were the intellectual class of the ancient Celts - the historians, teachers, healers, sacrificers, diviners, poets, and genealogists. Therefore they had nothing in common with fictional creations like elves and dragons - until modern fantasy writers subsumed them. I have written novels and particularly short stories in which druidic magic takes place without ever being identified as druidic, however - because I have done so much studying about ancient shamanism.
Do you think to be owing something to Tolkien?
I must admit I've never read Tolkien, although I understand he was very influenced by early Celtic myth.
Which are your favorite authors, both in the fields of fantasy and also in mainstream?
My favourite authors - there are so many! One would definitely be Mary Renault, who, like me, found herself writing both history and myth with her explorations of ancient Greece. I also love the work of the American, John Steinbeck, and the adventure tales of Joseph Conrad. Three years ago I was one of the international judges for the Impac Literary Award, which gives the largest prize in the world for a single work of fiction - 100,000 euros. We read many novels from all over the world. I was very impressed by the eventual winner, MY NAME IS RED, by a Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk. I also love the Irish writer, John McGahern. In the realm of science fiction/fantasy I think Ray Bradbury stands alone.
Women writing fantasy and men writing science fiction. Does this pattern still work?
I believe there is considerable crossover - there's that word again. Men are writing fantasy and women sf. Why not? Each has something unique to bring to the field.
You did write also a humoristic sf tale, didn't you? How did you find yourself in writing sf?
I have written quite a few short stories for various anthologies and magazines in both the fantasy and sf area. The short story allows room for much more speculative material than my novels do. When I begin a short story I am not thinking of any particular category; I just tell the story that comes into my head. Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes the other. And some of them do not seem to fit into any category at all!
Do you know any Italian fantasy or science fiction author? And if yes, what do you think about them?
I know several fine Italian authors and have been very impressed by their work. Those which I have read are very imaginative and passionate, a quality that the English authors in particular seem to lack.
What are you working to at the moment?
I just completed the final volume in the IRISH CENTURY series I was talking about before. The five novels are entitled 1916; 1921, 1949, 1972, and 1999, each year being a watershed in Irish history in the century just past.
