The emerging author HG Parry writes complex and engaging fantasy novels. She talks to Lynn Freeman about reinventing the 18th century in this highlight of 2021's Dunedin Writers Festival.

Wellington author HG Parry writes complex and engaging fantasy novels.

She talks to Lynn Freeman about reinventing the French Revolution in her novel A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians.

Listen to HG Parry in conversation

This conversation is a highlight from the 2021's Dunedin Writers Festival.

Slaves in 19th-century Jamaica are not only under physical domination by their masters but also under magical control in A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians.

Parry intertwines the story of Fina - a young slave working on a sugar plantation who has her magical abilities held in check by her owner - with a reimagining of how the French Revolution might have unfolded if 18th-century France had been a place where magic was a potent force, suppressed by those in power.

Lynn Freeman:

I found an extra degree of horror when you think about that era. Fina is taken as a child, which happened . But the extra element that you've added in within this magical realm is that she is spellbound. That just chilled me.

Given that it's in the first three or four pages, we can probably talk about how you wove into the story an extra layer of horror for these slaves ripped from their homes.

HG Parry:

I put it in the first few pages partly so if it was getting too dark, people would know not to read any further because my first book was a lot lighter than all this stuff.

But it definitely wasn't a question of trying to make slavery worse.

I don't think you can make slavery any worse looking at magical control vs. what really happened. They were routinely tortured and beaten.

Among other things, the idea of spellbinding was to kind of cast that light on the idea that that is literally what slavery is trying to do.

I mean we don't have magic but the idea of taking someone and trying to strip them of as much bodily autonomy as possible, and telling yourself - which they do in the book - that when you're doing it they don't have minds either.

That attempt to dehumanise is exactly what the purpose of slavery is. So if you're horrified by the idea of that happening by magic, then you should by rights be horrified by the intention of slavery at all.

Lynn Freeman:

Well, the sad thing is, Fina's only young and has heard rumours that if you eat this food it'll take the pain away. She wanted to die. She's shackled in a boat - a horrendous situation. I can completely understand her hoping that this would be her escape. But it's not. How does the spellbinding work?…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details