John Boyne, author of the famous book “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” has a deep connection with children and a desire to help them through difficult experiences. If he wasn’t a writer, he would have liked to be a children’s therapist. Boyne believes that he has missed out on being a parent in his life, which is why he often includes children who are facing adult traumas in his books. His latest book, “All the Broken Pieces,” is a sequel to “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” and follows the life of Gretel, Bruno’s sister, who is also dealing with the aftermath of the Holocaust. Boyne says that he felt compelled to write Gretel’s story and had been collecting notes on her character for years.
Boyne explores themes of guilt, complicity, and grief through Gretel’s character as she tries to escape her family’s involvement in the Holocaust. Despite moving around the world, she cannot escape the shadows of the past, and it isn’t until she is 92 years old that she is able to confront her past and find some form of redemption. Boyne enjoyed writing the two chapters where Gretel meets Kurt, a former Nazi, and confronts her own culpability in the crimes of the past. Boyne also explains that he likes to alternate between historical and contemporary settings and enjoyed exploring the experiences of both Bruno, the innocent child in “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” and Gretel, his older sister who lived through the war and its aftermath.
Despite Gretel’s difficult character, Boyne wanted to give her a moment of redemption in his book. When a family with a young boy moves in beneath her London apartment, Gretel has the opportunity to face her past and try to make amends. Boyne believes that this moment is essential to give readers some hope and not leave them with a sense of despair.