Author accidentally names his fictional war criminal after a real person
David Savill wanted to draw on his experiences volunteering during the Bosnian war for his first novel, "They are Trying to Break Your Heart."
While he was writing, he went back to the city of Tuzla to conduct research and interview people he worked with. Savill, a former journalist, kept in-depth notes of his findings to establish the historical accuracy in his book. To protect those he spoke to, he changed their names and even set his novel in a made-up town.
But despite the precautions he took, Savill received an email that shocked him.
As it turned out, the name he'd given the war criminal in his book was also the name of a real-life person. In his email, the man said his wife and children would be in danger if the book was published using this name.
Savill spoke to As It Happens guest host Helen Mann from Manchester, United Kingdom.
Helen Mann: Mr. Savill, what was your first thought when you saw your character's name show up in your email inbox?
David Savill: Honestly, my first thought was, "What do you want now?" In my mind, there was no distinction between this guy's name and the character I had created. I had just spent six years working with him.
HM: So are you saying that there was a blurring of reality and fiction there?
DS: Not in my clearest mind, but in the smaller moments and the waking hours when you're falling asleep. You get so involved in thinking about a book, that yes, I think there is a blurring of distinction. When this guy emailed me, I just thought, "What can I do for you? Have I done something wrong? Why are you bugging me?"
HM: Once you actually saw that this was a real email from someone, what did you read?
DS: We can't use the same for obvious reasons, so let's just [call him] Joe Bloggs. It said: "Dear Mr. Savill, My name is Joe Bloggs. I've lived in the Netherlands for 20 years. I was born in the former Yugoslavia. I'm the only Joe Bloggs from the former Yugoslavia. I work for an international company, and my American colleagues recently Googled me and said there's a book about my former life as a war criminal in Yugoslavia."
HM: And your book of course, is about a war criminal from the former Yugoslavia.
DS: That's right. I just started putting out some information about the book, pre-release. Some of that synopsis information mentioned the name. Bloomsbury hadn't put the book out. We had just finished the copy editing. But certainly, the name was out there and somebody had immediately picked up on this. It immediately struck to my deepest fears about why I had written this book ... and what business did I have involving myself in this controversial recent history in telling these people's stories?
HM: How much of an effort did you make to try to avoid this kind of thing from happening in the first place?
DS: That's a really fair question. I've been working with Bosnians on the book and had a deeply held interest in this subject. I was a volunteer at the end of the Bosnian War in the safe haven of a town called Tuzla. I went back as I started to write the book 10 years later in 2006 to visit the people I'd worked with there. As you may have gathered, I was a former BBC journalist and my process when I started was very journalistic. I went to great lengths to establish the historical accuracy in the book and I had a month by month timeline of what was happening during the war in this town.
But then, I also had my fictional story of things that had never happened. And in terms of being ethical about the use of the name for a war criminal in the book, I asked people I've been working with in the Balkans, "What's an unusual name that's just not going to exist? This was the name we came up with. But as I'm sure your listeners are screaming at the radio now, what a stupid thing to do.
HM: What crimes is the character in your book accused of?
DS: I wouldn't want to give too much away because the story of this book is the story of a human rights researcher who goes looking for a war criminal who supposedly died during the Bosnian war. She finds out many years later that there's a chance he didn't die and is in hiding. I don't want to give away [what he did], but it's nothing that you would want your name associated with at all. You know, it's the worst kind of war crime.
HM: So how soon after receiving the email, did you begin to realize you were going to need to come up with a different name?
DS: I immediately rang my editor. She was very sympathetic and said, "OK, we can do this. We can change it straight away and we will change it to a common name." But, it was a really real reminder to me as an author as to what the purposes of fiction and of storytelling are. They may not be the historical facts, but they [come from] shared cultural memory.
If you're going into the recent and controversial history of the former Yugoslavia, this is a country where the truth is still really contentious. So, you have to ask yourself as an author, "What business do I have going in and telling these stories?"
HM: What is the name of this war criminal character now?
DS: This guy is called Marko Novac, which is a name you can find all over former Yugoslavia. And I mean no offence to any Marko Novacs at all.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. For more on this story, listen to the full interview with David Savill.