Joanne Harris on why her best-selling book Chocolat has haunted her for 20 years

When Joanne Harris wrote Chocolat some 20 years ago she was a French teacher working in a boys’ grammar school in Yorkshire. She had a four-year-old daughter and had written two Gothic novels. She had no plans to give up teaching. “I liked it, I was good at it, and my writing was a hobby that I took very seriously, but knew to be unlikely ever to earn me a living,” says Harris, who was born in Barnsley but now lives near Huddersfield.

And then, along came Chocolat. “It was a story very different to those I had published before; an old-fashioned tale of tolerance, love and the magic of everyday things and about community and I am very interested in the idea of community.”

She had already been told that her approach to writing was all wrong. “I’d been told (by Al Zuckerman, my agent’s American counterpart and author of Writing the Blockbuster Novel) that no one wanted to read a book set in an unknown French village, and that food had no place in fiction, but should remain in the kitchen, where it belonged.”

And yet she wrote it anyway. It took her just over four months, while working full-time as a teacher. She sent it to her agent with no great sense of expectation; then went on holiday with her family and promptly forgot all about it. “By the time we got home, it had already sold to a handful of countries, had landed a film deal and was the talk of that year’s Frankfurt Book Fair.” Harris’s life was never to be the same.

“But I had no idea at the time what that funny little book would come to mean to me, and to my family over the course of the next 20 years. I had no idea to what extent Vianne Rocher and her daughter, Anouk, would grow alongside my own family, reflecting our adventures.”

Her daughter Anoushka inspired one of the main characters in the story, along with her imaginary rabbit, Pantoufle.

She says this got her thinking about her own mother and the members of her family in France and in particular her great-grandmother, to whom the book is dedicated. “Denounced from the local pulpit for daring to send her son to a secular school rather than the fee-paying Catholic one, she was the template for both Vianne and Armande, and her picture is on the back cover, just as I remember her, in her garden, with her milk-jug in one hand,” says Harris.

“But more than 20 years later the characters are still with me. I hadn’t originally meant to make Chocolat a series, Vianne and I kept meeting in the most unexpected of places. Like Vianne herself, I have travelled the world; had adventures; seen places I once only dreamed of; encountered some of my heroes; explored a multitude of new horizons. I have written many books, translated into many different languages.

“But Vianne and Anouk were never far.”

The Lollipop Shoes and Peaches for Monsieur le Curé followed, although she says they are not exactly sequels. “They are another part of their journey, based on the fact that people change, that children grow up, and that life is full of surprises, each one a new story.”

Last year she published The Strawberry Thief which was due to come out in paperback this month but has now been put back to next year. “I wrote it as my daughter was preparing to get married and go off to live in Moscow; as old friends died; as new plans were made.”

She says The Strawberry Thief is a book about letting go; and adulthood; and falling in love; and learning to accept the marks and scars that life inflicts on us.

“It takes us almost full circle from Chocolat, 20 years ago. Like Chocolat, it is a love story, not just between a woman and her children, but between a woman and her world – a world in which the horizons are only just unfolding,” she explains.

While Harris may be best known for the Chocolat series they are far from her only works and she says it is her loyal fan base that has allowed her the confidence to explore other genres. “I feel lucky that I have never been under pressure to write the sequels to Chocolat, my readers and my publishers have been patient and that has allowed me time to explore my other passions.”

Since Chocolat she has written 15 more novels, two collections of short stories, a Doctor Who novel, several screenplays and three cookery books. Her latest novella, Orfeia, based on the Orpheus myth is due out in September.

She is also a passionate advocate for author’s rights and uses social media to help other writers, as well as encouraging people to read books. “I believe it is important that the people who are successful should stand up for those who are less successful,” says Harris.

While she’d love to see more young people reading she says schools shouldn’t force it.

“If children don’t want to read then that is the fault of the educational system. Find something they are interested in and a medium they find engaging – it could be ebooks or audiobooks – it really doesn’t matter. It is about engaging them.”

She still writes in the garden shed of her Huddersfield home and is celebrating that her daughter has now returned from Russia with her husband who is a diplomat, to live in London. “She is in publishing now after working in the theatre,” says Harris. “She is very different from me – her style and approach are different to mine. She is a real perfectionist and a born editor.”

When not writing Harris plays in a band with her husband of nearly 40 years Keith, which put some of her fairytales in Honeycomb to music.

She may not have planned for Chocolat to become a series but she says we may still not have seen an end of the character she has lived with for two decades. “It may not be the last of Vianne. We have been together for a long time, Vianne and I. We have watched our children grow; we have shared our deepest fears. And now the winds are turning again, bringing new stories with them.”

The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris is currently out in hardback. Joanne’s new book Orfeia will be published in hardback on September 3.

Harris is due to appear at the Gliterary Lunch in Leeds on November 5. She will be joined by Sarah Vaughan, author of last year’s bestseller, Anatomy of a Scandal who will be talking about her new book Little Disasters. Tickets cost £60 and include a two-course lunch, talks from both authors about the inspirations behind their writing, and a chance to ask questions and purchase signed copies. Visit Gliterarylunches.com for details

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