As JK Rowling turns 60, John Boyne on why he stands behind the fearless author

[miri1985]

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books-arts/book-news/john-boyne-on-jk-rowling-as-a-writer-im-in-awe-of-her-achievements-as-a-reader-i-love-her-work-and-as-a-fellow-terf-i-stand-four-square-behind-her/a857888465.html

https://archive.ph/7FufV

Just found this. Interesting read.
https://quillette.com/2025/08/12/another-tiresome-trans-activist-power-play-boyne-polari-prize/

Thank you @ReTerf yeah v interesting…
I understand that trans people are a tiny minority and I understand that they are vulnerable to violence and discrimination, just like women. What I don’t understand is how the lobby for trans people has become so powerful that any disagreement, or even any questioning/debate, is immediately labelled transphobic and people are cancelled, abused, John Boyne is bullied out of a literary prize nomination etc.
Like @DeanElderberry said, the Irish media won’t engage in the debate (though granted they did print the article re boyne on JK). I find this power to shut down all debate quite frightening…history has shown us where this leads. How is it that such a small minority has become so powerful?? Please share your views.

Well I can’t answer your question but I can offer that I was meant to see John Boyne in conversation on a book tour thing probably last Oct time. It was in a venue in a quite rural but affluent community - not a place where I would imagine TRA’s would bother to make the journey to. But it was cancelled because of the furore. Any way, it’s back on a year later and so maybe just maybe it’s an indication that this stuff is losing its chokehold.

@Inkspotblue I agree. It is terrifying that any intelligent discourse on this matter is shouted down as bigotry. It makes me wonder how many people in the public eye hold GC beliefs but keep silent out of fear of losing their livelihoods or worse.

I'm suspicious of any man who identifies three groups as at fault, men, young people and women, and takes it upon himself to decide women are the worst of the three.
TRA women aren't beyond reproach. But they weren't the people sending JKR rape and death threats.

Yes absolutely 💯. When people are afraid to ask questions or discuss ideas openly because they risk being labelled immoral or bigoted, we lose the ability to think critically. Cultures where dissent is punished (socially) usually become more and more intolerant and authoritarian over time..we know this from history. I was going to ask is that where we’re headed but I honestly think we’re already there with this. Democracies need open debate, disagreement, and the freedom to examine ideas without fear. @Sweetbeansandmochi it is heartening to hear John Boyne is trying again with the tour and I really hope this does means it’s starting to lose its chokehold 🤞🏼

And of course courage is not the absence of fear, but feeling the fear and still doing what you know to be right anyway.

I found this conversation between Julie Bindel and John Boyne very illuminating John Boyne - Julie Bindel's podcasts and writing | Podcast on Spotify

Oh yeh, that Irish guy who made up a nonsensical fantasy story about the Holocaust, centring the Nazis as the victims, and then refused to apologise after pretty much every Holocaust memorial organisation told him how offensive and hurtful it was.

Is it worse than The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas?

Is that ‘The boy in the striped pyjamas’? I don’t think the Nazis were portrayed as victims, and certainly not on a par with those they dehumanised, vilified, persecuted and murdered. That wasn’t something I took from it. It was fiction, showing family dynamics and dysfunction. Explored centring a child’s understanding.

A lot of people did see the Nazis as victims though when they read it. More than 1 person told me they didn't realise that they stopped gassing Jews when the Nazi boy ended up in the chamber by mistake. Ffs.

A child's understanding? Are you joking? Henry appeared to have landed in Nazi Germany the day before the story started, or his parents had kept him (and his clueless sister) in a cellar since his birth with no exposure to the outside world and managed somehow to completely prevent him from being exposed to the ideology which permeated the entire lives of every other ordinary German. Despite the fact that indoctrinating the children was a key part of Nazi strategy and would be a top priority for a high ranking Nazi family.

A version of Nazi Germany in which children were not radicalised and brainwashed, the son of a commander didn't know what a Jew was, and inmates of the camps were at liberty to wander about by the fences, chatting to passing Germans. No wonder, when both Nazi Germany and the concentration camps in it were such relaxed and happy places to be, that the real tragedy would be the death of Henry and the pain caused to his family.

Utter drivel.

I agree with every thing you've said. But the boy wasn't called Henry. I think his name was Bruno.

Weirdly enough the sequel was an alright read. Its all about the sister and the guilt she'd felt her entire life for her part in the whole affair.

Oh yes, sorry I was confusing the name with the boy in All the Broken Places, which is better but only if you completely forget that the Holocaust was a real event and not just something you can make up as you go along to suit the purposes of a good narrative.

It was fiction. I haven’t read the sequel, which would also have been fiction. So, maybe it explored guilt through one of the fictional characters created in the first book, but it was most certainly not real, and didn’t involve anyone’s entire life.

I couldn't remember the name of the Boy in the sequel, or indeed the name of the sequel! Yes, still implausible, but the better of the two.

Yeh, you don't take one of the most traumatic and appalling genocides in history, and still in living memory for some, and turn it into a silly bit of nonsense fiction (after apparently choosing to do no research at all) and cheerfully make a ton of money off it, unless you're quite happy to completely disrespect the memory of 6 million lives of not just the Jewish community but countless other marginalised groups.

There's a lot of silly stuff online about cultural appropriation, possibly the silliest is that white women cannot plait their hair, and it's made the whole phrase a bit of an eyeroller. However, if we define it as someone co-opting, sanitising and profiting off the trauma of another culture, I cannot think of a better example than this disgraceful book.

The fictional character of Bruno was a device to illustrate the great evil that was being perpetrated in the concentration camp. So, I didn’t think that it minimised what the Nazi machine, as a murderous, authoritarian ideology, was doing. Or that it disrespected the people who suffered, and were killed.

Some liberty was taken, but I am surprised anyone thought light of what was a death camp. I am even more surprised that someone thought the characters it depicted were real people.

Maybe in retrospect, JB, may gone about some things differently. It is quite an allegation that he ‘quite happily’ set out to disrespect those murdered by the Nazis. That seems to speak more to a dislike of JB, than a criticism of the book. That is erring into a different territory. I’m not sure how many works of fiction out there would stand up to scrutiny if they could not use fiction. Education about the Holocaust in schools is obviously important in teaching historical fact to children.

I am not making claims for anyone else, or defending the book from any fair criticism. I just didn’t think less of the suffering in the death camp, or more of the Nazis on foot of the book.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is one of the worst books I've ever read. Such trite, badly written drivel. Shocking

Moving on to JKR - 60, eh? How fabulous 🤩 I hope she's got some marvellous celebrations planned

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum, the Centre for Holocaust Education at University College London, The Holocaust Centre North and many other Jewish organisations would disagree.

It's baffling to me that you think a non-Jewish, non-expert writer turning the brutal murder of millions of men, women and children into a silly children's fairy story for the purposes of entertainment is not disrespectful to the memories of the victims.

What other horrific experiences do you think can be fictionalised for fun? Shall we play fast and loose with the stories of the women imprisoned in the Irish mother and baby homes? I've read the Wikipedia entry and some of the news articles and I even went to Ireland once, so surely I'm qualified to make up a story about that. No need to consult any of the survivors.

There are countless options for child-appropriate stories written sensitively and with historical accuracy, many by Jewish writers and Holocaust survivors and their descendants.

I agree that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas has serious flaws, and many Holocaust educators and Jewish organisations have explained those criticisms far better than I could.

To try and get back to the point of this thread though, a flawed or offensive book should be debated and criticised openly (just to be clear it wasn’t The boy in striped pyjamas nominated for the polari prize, it was my brothers name is Jessica). What worries me is the growing tendency to move beyond criticism into attempts to silence, shame or shut people down entirely.

Those are two separate conversations, and I think it’s important not to conflate them. Criticising ideas is healthy; creating a culture where people fear expressing them is not.

No idea- I was aware of the problematic nature of tBitSP so I didn't read it.

So, now JB didn’t just allegedly set out to be deliberately disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust, but I allegedly am quite keen on horrific suffering being fictionalised for fun and laughs. Bloody hell, are you quite well? Quite the fiction being created right there.

I don’t think I’m dealing with an honest narrator. So, stuff that deliberately nasty invective being disguised as outrage.

Hope that JK has a lovely time with whatever company she is happy.

Who is this directed at @Cailleach1? And what’s the deliberately nasty invective being disguised as outrage?