Unusual Historicals: Guest Blog: Christina Courtenay

12 May 2013

Guest Blog: Christina Courtenay

This week, we're so delighted to welcome back an award-winning author Christina Courtenay, with her latest title, The Gilded Fan. The author will offer a free copy of the book to a lucky blog visitor. Here's the blurb:

How do you start a new life, leaving behind all you love?

It’s 1641, and when Midori Kumashiro, the orphaned daughter of a warlord, is told she has to leave Japan or die, she has no choice but to flee to England. Midori is trained in the arts of war, but is that enough to help her survive a journey, with a lecherous crew and an attractive captain she doesn’t trust?

Having come to Nagasaki to trade, the last thing Captain Nico Noordholt wants is a female passenger, especially a beautiful one. How can he protect her from his crew when he can’t keep his own eyes off her?

During their journey, Nico and Midori form a tentative bond, but they both have secrets that can change everything. When they arrive in England, a civil war is brewing, and only by standing together can they hope to survive …

**Inspiration for the Gilded Fan From Christian Courtenay**

The Japanese are always very welcoming and polite to foreigners, treating them with courtesy and consideration. That wasn’t always the case, however, which is why I came up with the idea for my new novel The Gilded Fan where my heroine has to flee the country or be persecuted.

When the first foreigners (Spanish and Portuguese) appeared during the 16th century, they were initially allowed to enter the country and many of them came as missionaries, trying to spread Christianity to what they thought of as “the heathens”. (The Japanese in their turn considered the foreigners “barbarians”). The English and Dutch came only to trade and were also cautiously welcomed to begin with. The Englishman Will Adams even went so far as to become a confidant of the Shogun (ruler) Tokugawa Ieyasu and James Clavell’s novel Shogun was based on his life and true events. But then things started to go downhill.

The Shogun heard that the Christians considered God’s word as law and that was something he couldn’t tolerate. In Japan, the Shogun’s word was law – end of story. So the Christians were persecuted and the Portuguese and Spaniards evicted from the country, while the English and Dutch were allowed to stay on in the port of Hirado only (north of Nagasaki). The English traders didn’t do very well and eventually left of their own accord, but the Dutch clung onto their tiny foothold.

This became even smaller when they were forced to move to a man-made island called Dejima in Nagasaki’s harbour. It was shaped like the Shogun’s fan and connected to the mainland only by a single bridge which was guarded at all times. The foreigners were forbidden to set foot on the mainland unless invited and so they had to spend all their time on this island. It must have been a surreal existence and very claustrophobic! (The novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell describes this).

While doing research for my own novel, I visited Dejima and it was an amazing feeling to stand where those long-ago traders had spent their lives. I was very fortunate to be able to see it because Dejima had at one time disappeared under reclaimed land in the harbour, but has now been reconstructed and designated a national historical site. Many of the original buildings have been rebuilt and I was able to go into the Chief Factor’s residence and other houses and see how the traders would have lived – it was fascinating! I also walked from one end of the island to the other, which didn’t take very long at all, and spent time studying a model that has been built to show the island as it would have been in the past.

Although I had read a lot about Dejima beforehand and thought I knew it well, actually visiting the place was invaluable when it came to writing my book. There are some things you just can’t imagine and I came away loaded with notes, photos and memories, all of which were woven into my story.