Guy Saville was born in 1973. He has lived in South America and North Africa. The Afrika Reich, published by Hodder & Stoughton on 17th February, is his first novel.

After reading it for review, Bookgeeks’ own Simon Appleby asked Guy to tell us more about his literary life and the writing of the book.

Are you a bookgeek?

Very much so. Books and reading have always been an essential part of my life, the only downside being that I never have enough shelf space at home.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given (and do you follow it)?

When I was first trying to get published my agent told me that the most important thing which separates published writers from unpublished ones is perseverance. So I suppose it was this – to persevere – that was the best piece of advice I got, though I had no idea at the time just how much perseverance would be called for. It took me twelve years to get a publishing contract.

Which authors do you find most inspiring as a writer?

A very eclectic list of writers has inspired me over the years. But in terms of my current book I would say: Robert Harris, Alistair MacLean and Luciano Vincenzoni, with a bit of Conrad and Balzac lurking in the background.

Do you have an audience in mind when writing, or do you just write for yourself?

I think if you’re writing with the goal of getting publishing you must have some kind of audience in the back of your mind: a target readership to keep the marketing department happy. That said, ultimately I am writing for myself and exploring issues and scenarios that interest me. This is very important. It took me more than two years to write The Afrika Reich so it was essential it was a story that I cared deeply about.

Where do you write, and why?

I’m very lucky in that I write in a log cabin at the back of my garden surrounded by countryside. It’s a calm, quiet and comfortable environment with a big desk and lots of books around me – which hopefully also answers the why part of the question.

Tell us the book you most wish you had written

It would have to be Any Human Heart by William Boyd. I first read it about a decade ago and am still in total awe of it. I’ve never read a novel that captures the human experience so well. It’s a book full of warmth, love and laughter, aching tragedy and despair that spans the 20th Century. In my opinion: a masterpiece.

How important was it to you that the historical elements of the story were as plausible as possible, and do you think it’s equally important to the reader?

I wanted to convince people that a Nazi Africa could have existed and the best way to achieve this was to make the history realistic. So I took existing facts and extrapolated my alternative world from them. Not just in the broad sweep of war and politics but also the details. In fact I feel that if you get the minutiae right, people are more likely to believe in the bigger picture. To me nothing persuades more about the possibility of the Nazis conquering Africa than the fact they had plans for things as obscure as what colonisers would eat for breakfast. (Raw leeks and mineral water, in case you’re curious!)

I think it’s equally important to readers. They want the chill of knowing the world they’re reading about could have happened. That they’re not reading a fantasy but something just one step removed from our own reality. That’s why I added an extensive historical note at the end of the book – to show how much was based on fact.

How did you approach your research for an historical scenario that never actually came to pass?

The first thing I had to do was find out whether the Nazis actually had any plans for Africa. If they hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have started the book. I began with some general reading on the period and from the bibliographies of these books gleaned more specialised, academic works. From here it was simply a case of following a trail of ever more obscure texts and out-of-print books that eventually led to the archives.

Did your researches and the writing process change any of your feelings and thoughts about World War Two?

What surprised me most was how close we came to signing a peace accord with Germany. In the years since the war a myth has taken hold, inspired by Churchill’s speeches and the moral righteousness of victory, that Britain would have fought to her dying breath to beat off the Nazis – but this just isn’t true. It’s easy to see how we could have come to some agreement with Hitler and benefited from it; certainly the British Empire would have lasted longer.

Another fascinating aspect was how advanced German technology was. By the mid-1940s they had fully functional jet fighters, helicopters, night-vision equipment, even camera-guided missiles. We tend to think of this hardware as essentially modern but if the Nazis had managed to produce it in large enough quantities they could have changed the course of the war.

What can you tell us about the next book(s) in the trilogy?

I’m already working on Book 2 which is set in Madagascar, a huge island off the coast of east Africa. Prior to the Holocaust, the Nazis planned to deport the Jews of Europe here and this is the backdrop to the story. It features some of the same characters as Book 1 as well as a new villain, Odilo ‘Globus’ Globocnik who readers may recognise from Robert Harris’s Fatherland.

As for Book 3, I have the story – but no contract yet. For commercial reasons my publisher only committed to the first two books (i.e. they wanted to see how many copies I would sell!). I therefore need Books 1 & 2 to do the numbers if I’m to write 3… so I hope all the Bookgeeks reading this will rush out and buy a copy of The Afrika Reich and help me finish the trilogy.

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