Stephan Collishaw has written two novels, "The Last Girl" and "Amber," both of which were set in Lithuania. Born and brought up in Nottingham, England, he qualified as a teacher after university. After teaching for two years, he traveled around Eastern Europe and ended up in Vilnius where he stayed for a year in 1995/6. There he met and fell in love with his Lithuanian teacher, Marija, who he married at the end of that year. They moved to Palma de Mallorca with her two daughters, where they lived for two years before moving to England with their new son, Lukas. Besides writing Stephan teaches at Nottingham Trent University. They visit Lithuania at least once a year.
What was the inspiration behind your new novel "Amber"?
There are two main threads that wove their way into the novel Amber. The first was the play "Tamberlaine" by Christopher Marlowe, which I read when I was 17 and was blown away by. An image from that play stuck in my head, and I wanted to find a way to use it. There are a lot of references to "Tamberlaine" throughout the novel. The other inspiration was my conversations with veterans of the war in Afghanistan. At the time I was writing the book, the war had largely been forgotten in England. I wanted to explore it from the opposite point of view to that which we had been fed in the West at the time
It's interesting that in both "The Last Girl" and "Amber" you write from the first person perspective of a Lithuanian. What kind of response have your books had from Lithuanians in general?
I really wanted to try to write from the inside, rather than from the perspective of an Englishman looking in at an exotic culture. I was nervous of the response I would get from Lithuanians, but so far the response has been positive which I feel shows a tolerance and openness on their part. The only negative feedback I have had is from the Lithuanian community in America, which is perhaps not surprising considering the conservative and somewhat static view they seem to have of what Lithuania is supposed to be as a culture.
As a foreigner writing about Lithuania, do you feel that you're susceptible to romanticizing the country?
I don't think that anybody reading my novels could come away with the opinion that I romanticize either the place or the people. I tried to be as realistic as I could, and the Vilnius I knew intimately in the mid 1990s (when "The Last Girl" is set) was a gritty, difficult place. Having said that, I feel that my love for the country and the city comes through. Reviewing "Amber" the Yorkshire Post wrote: "He doesn't paint an unrealistic vision of Lithuania and, despite the corruption and class struggles woven into "Amber," you find yourself warming to the culture he describes."
"The Last Girl" and much of "Amber" are set in Vilnius. Is there something about the city that especially appeals to you for the purposes of fiction?
I literally fell in love with the city when I was there and when we were in Mallorca, I longed for it. I wrote "The Last Girl" in an attempt to recapture it - much as one might write about a woman one had fallen in love with. The first novel was also an attempt to come to terms with the history of the city - to try to understand what had happened there, to understand how it could have happened.
"The Last Girl" was a very powerful exploration of Lithuanian complicity in the Holocaust. What made you want to write about this especially emotive topic?
Walking the streets of the ghetto area of Vilnius in the mid-1990s was a ghostly experience. Many buildings were in ruins, and it was still possible to walk into the old Jewish buildings and catch a whiff of the community that had disappeared. It was as if the city was haunted by a ghost community. As though its heart had been torn out. At the same time the money was beginning to come into the city to do up the buildings. The old ghetto streets were being renovated and smart boutiques were opening and expensive cafes and restaurants. It made me angry, because it was as if this open wound was being covered up and hidden away. History denied a second time. I wanted to learn and try to understand what had happened in these streets and to make sure other people knew too. It is only by facing up to these things and dealing with them honestly that we can begin to hope to start moving on from them.
The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan happened while you were midway through writing "Amber." Do you see any parallels between the Soviet and the U.S. invasions of the country?
Shocking ones. After spending a day revising "Amber" I sat down to watch the news. A British general came on and said more or less exactly what the Soviet generals had been saying in the books I had been reading. Amber explores the way in which young men become brutalized by conflict - how it brutalizes them as much as they brutalize others. It was not a shock, then, when the scandal broke earlier this year about the way some British and American troops had been behaving toward Iraqi prisoners. How can we put young men and women in such brutal conditions and hope that they will remain unaffected? Being brutal brutalizes. Our governments should realize this too, especially when they are so eloquently condemning the soldiers they posted out there.
Antanas, the central character in "Amber" is a very laconic, emotionally inarticulate sort of man. Is that just a literary device, or were you trying to make him somehow authentically "Lithuanian?"
Soviet culture did not exactly promote counseling for men brutalized by war. Vodka has always been one of the immediate solutions. And who's to say it isn't the best one? On the whole, though, if Antanas is emotionally inarticulate then I think it reflects more on the author than Lithuanian men in general. Maybe that's why I like Lithuanian men.
You lived in Vilnius in the mid-90s. How do you think the city has changed since then?
It has transformed. It is a Western city now. And I don't necessarily say that happily. It has shopping centers, bowling alleys, top-notch cinemas, smart bars and restaurants - but does it still have the soul it had earlier? I'm not so sure. You can't deny progress, but I just hope the city doesn't sellout its anarchic, crazy heart.
If you were Lithuanian, how would you have voted in the EU referendum back in May 2003?
"Yes." I'm not a great fan of states defined along ethnic-linguistic lines. I think it's time we realized that the nationalism of the late 19th and 20th century has run its course and that looser larger unions of states, cooperating and working together is the better way forward.
What are your plans for your next book? Can we expect another literary outing to Lithuania?
Lithuania doesn't appear in the book I'm working on now, even though I keep finding reasons to slip it in. The one after, though, which is already brewing away in my head, will return to Northeast Europe, if not Lithuania.
