THE bestselling author Victoria Hislop has rejected an offer of about £300,000 from Hollywood to turn her debut novel about a leper colony off Crete into a blockbuster film.

Keen to preserve the integrity of the book and to give something back to the Mediterranean island on which it is based, Hislop has instead allowed one of Greece’s main television channels to dramatise her story for a fraction of the fee. Since its publication in 2005, The Island has sold more than 1m copies in Britain alone, won several awards and been translated into more than a dozen languages, including Greek.

The popularity of the novel in America led to Hislop, 50, being courted by several film studios. “Some were offering me high six-figure dollar sums for the rights,” said Hislop, whose follow-up novel, The Return, set in Spain, has also been a success.

After spurning Hollywood, the author settled for “far less” from Mega, the Greek broadcaster, which is turning The Island into a 26-part drama that has just started filming. “I really don’t mind,” said Hislop. “What I wanted, and will now get, is a chance to have a say in the TV series. (full story at The Times)

March 2010: Oxford Literary Festival

Victoria Hislop will be taking part in the Oxford Literary Festival 2010 from March 20-28th.

The 2010 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival from Saturday 20th to Sunday 28th March offers a wonderful range of talks, discussions, debates, readings, Literary Lunches and Dinners in the exceptional and beautiful surroundings of Christ Church and Corpus Christi College – with many major events staged in The Sheldonian Theatre, The Bodleian Library and other prestigious venues.

Victoria will be joining Adèle Geras and Anita Mason in panel on "History and Family in Fiction" at Christ Church £10.00

The bestselling novels of Victoria Hislop(The Island, The Return), embrace historical events in Greece and during the Spanish Civil War. The Right Hand of the Sun, the latest novel by Anita Mason, (former Booker shortlistee for The Illusionist), is set in the Aztec empire. Adèle Geras (A Hidden Life), has written enthusiastically received work for both adults and children in which the settings range from Ancient Greece to the Second World War. They discuss their use of the past, both personal and historical, in their fiction.

Click here to buy tickets

The Times: "100 books that defined the noughties"

November 13, 2009

"The Island" is selected by The Times as one of the 100 books that defined the decade

"Zadie, Nigella, Steig and, of course, the boy wizard. The decade has seen publishing phenomenons like no other, but which books, for better or worse, have summed up the noughties?

Never in the history of bookselling has there been such a phenomenon as Harry Potter; JK Rowling’s series sold in tens of millions and appealed to adults as well as children. The great success of the British book trade this decade was the Richard & Judy Book Club. It ran in the late afternoon on Channel 4, and made instant bestsellers of Victoria Hislop, Audrey Niffenegger and Zoë Heller, among others. The 100 titles they selected sold 30 million copies. (read more)

Interview with This is Sussex, May 29, 2009

"Sissinghurst-based novelist Victoria Hislop has become a publishing phenomenon in the space of just a few short years.

Her debut novel, 2005's The Island, held the number one slot in The Sunday Times paperback chart for eight consecutive weeks and has since sold more than a million copies.

The 49-year-old's follow-up, The Return, has also enjoyed a spell at the top of the best-seller lists since its release in paperback last month.

The book is set during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and explores the conflict through the eyes of the fictional Ramirez family. Victoria spent time researching the story in Spain and found it a very delicate subject for Spaniards to this day.

The mother-of-two – a former travel journalist and wife of broadcaster and Private Eye editor Ian Hislop – spoke to Go! about the book ahead of her appearance at a literary lunch as part of the Tunbridge Wells Music Festival.

Do you enjoy speaking at literary lunches?

"I do enjoy them. Writers spend a long time locked inside a room and inside their own heads and I like meeting people so it's a very good opportunity. I genuinely like people's feedback, their comments and the questions they ask."

What will you speak about?

"I will be talking about the Spanish Civil War in a historical way. I think people are sometimes surprised as they don't know that's what they're going to get, but that's the background to my novel The Return. It was a three year period of conflict and a lot of English people don't know that much about it."

(read more)

Private Passions (09 May 2009)

Victoria talks to "The Scotsman" about "The Return" keeping secrets, and researching her thrid novel…

"VICTORIA HISLOP certainly knows HOW to keep a secret. No mean feat, considering she's married to a man who has made it his business to uncover cracking news stories about the great and good doing bad things which they would prefer to remain hidden.The wife of the more famous Ian, editor of Private Eye and panellist on the popular BBC1 show Have I Got News For You, Hislop admits: "I am rather good at keeping secrets, especially from Ian."

Indeed, she's currently ferreting away all sorts of things from her nosy husband, including the small library of books she's reading to research her third novel…". Read More…

April 2009

On April 16 2009, The Return, Victoria's much bestselling second novel of passion and secrets of the Spanish Civil War is published in paperback.

"…Hislop's history is reliable; her judgement sound; and the destiny of the Ramirez clan both holds and moves us. The Return aims to open the eyes of readers who mostly won't have read the voluminous literature of the war. The battle of memory against forgetting has to be fought on all fronts, and Hislop deserves a campaign medal for her efforts."

Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, April 9 read more…

February 2009

Victoria Hislop joined a list of International authors taking part in the Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature in Dubai 1 - 26 February, 2009. For more information on the festival, click here

Audio and Video

Watch Victoria discussing "The Return" at the Oldie Literary Lunch

Listen to Victoria discuss her novel "The Return" with Jenny Murray