Do you think eternal love cannot begin with a plot that involves gang rape and an ax handle? Ukraine’s most commercially successful writer might prove you wrong – at least in her books.
One of the stories by writer Simona Vilar kicks off as young viking Rollo and Emma the Bird, a young princess brought up in a monastery, meet in the middle of a very brutal rape scene in medieval France. But eventually the relationship gets going, and it seems that the readers of this novel, which was originally published in 1996, weren’t put off by the naturalistic and repulsive start of the book called Wind from the North.
This is one of the books that made Simona Vilar what she is – Ukraine’s top selling author, according to Focus magazine’s 2012 ranking. An average print run of her books is about 30,000 copies – a huge number in a country where top league writer Sergiy Zhadan sold over 11,000 books in 2012, according to Focus. In the same year, Simona Vilar sold 200,000 books. It helps that she writes in Russian, though, which extends her readership beyond Ukraine.
“When I sell less than 30,000 copies of my book, I think it’s a failure,” says the writer. “I guess the average for me is 80,000.” Vilar makes about Hr 50,000 off a new book. Reprints yield less, but she has a lot them. Some of her 20+ books have been reprinted up to seven times, she says.
The author, whose real name is Nataliya Gavrylenko, lives in Kharkiv with her husband and 23-year-old daughter. But it was a Moscow-based printing house that noticed her and gave her a chance as a writer in 1994, by printing her first book, Betrothed to a Rose. She’s churned them out like crazy since then, both under the pressure of the publishing house and her own inspiration.
“I heard that many call my books chick lit, but I know that lots of men also read my novels,” Gavrylenko says. “These are mostly historical novels, but as I am a woman myself, and most of my main characters are also women.”
It would be hard to argue against those who say Gavrylenko’s writing sits firmly in the women’s literature genre. Her typical heroine is a beautiful young maiden in a medieval gown, and story plots include hugging half-naked young men in a picturesque setting such as a rose garden near a castle.
This type of image often adorns her books’ cover, but just like your typical chick lit in the west, it wins many a male heart. “I don’t think that Vilar’s prose is just for women,” says Viktor Favenen, a 23-year-old Moscow resident . “Both male and female romantics like novels about knights and bonnie ladies.”
Gavrylenko’s novels are often set in France, England and Kyivan Rus, and include elements of history, passionate love, medieval magic and battle scenes. The author says some of the characters are real historic figures, while others are totally fictional.
“All my plots are found in history. While learning history, I can actually find space for my own plot,” explains Gavrylenko, who received a history degree at Kharkiv National University.
The writer makes sure to visit the city or the country where her novel takes her. “When I was writing a novel about Khortytsya (Cossack fort in Zaporizhya), I visited Khortytsya. When the plot brought me to medieval Bulgaria I visited Bulgaria,” Gavrylenko explains.
But even her fans notice that her portrayal of history is somewhat skewed. “There is no more historicity in her books than the names of the main characters,” says Favenen. He hastily adds that he likes the way the writer describes a particular era in her books.
“I try to dig into a subject as much as I can, not just the general epoch atmosphere, but what they were eating, how they cursed, learn as much detail about the historical characters as I can, because every person is not black or white, but real,” Gavrylenko explains.
It seems to work for Vilar’s fans, who have created a few online fan clubs for her. The author herself says she really enjoys meeting her fans in person, though.
“It is always such a pleasure to meet my readers, because of what I do for them,” she says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected]
