What were British soldiers doing in Palestine in 1945, between the oranges, the swimming and the bombs?
Why does the Christmas show in Sebastian Faulks's Jerusalem swap Gilbert and Sullivan for Oscar Wilde?
And, how did a novelist who plans everything end up with a twist he never saw coming?
Sebastian Faulks tells Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch how his father's posting, hundreds of hours of soldiers' memories and a much-missed friend became his new novel, Farewell to Eden.
His father was sent from Italy in late 1945 for what the army called "rest and peacekeeping", and was there when the King David Hotel was bombed. Sebastian built the book from the Imperial War Museum's sound archive, a 1949 diary kept by the Uruguayan member of the UN committee that drew the borders, and the memory of his closest friend, the Guardian's Middle East editor Ian Black, who first explained it all to him in their first week at Cambridge. Plus Amos Oz's grandparents, who thought Palestine was "too Asian", a padre's vision on Easter Saturday, the grey "tundra" of post-war Britain, and why Sebastian had to unlearn the idea that happy endings are vulgar.
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[0:00] Oranges, sunshine and a storm coming
[2:22] A boarding school, October 2023 and an old friend
[5:52] His father's "rest and peacekeeping" in 1945
[15:17] The Irgun, a bombing in Rome and no easy sides
[18:53] Faith in the Holy Land, and a Christmas show in Jerusalem
[24:51] The twist even he didn't plan
[26:56] How grim post-war Britain really was
[29:43] Why happy endings aren't vulgar
[33:04] Crosswords, coffee and 1,000 words a day
[38:14] A diary from 1949 and the UN's impossible job
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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
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