Celebrate female friendship with Moira Buffini

When Moira Buffini isn’t busy writing standout screenplays (see Jane Eyre [2011] and The Dig [2021]), she’s writing irresistible novels in fantastical worlds. Her debut novel, Songlight, has everything we love in a book: star-crossed lovers, unbreakable bonds, and a world that needs to be set to right. It quickly made the rounds of the Google Play Books team, and safe to say that we became obsessed with its ode to female friendship. It’s the perfect read for International Women’s Day, and really, any day of the year. Below, Moira shares her inspiration for the book, and a bit about her process:

I wanted to write an epic adventure with young women at its heart, to celebrate the strength of female friendship. I wanted to write about the wanton destruction of creation and how this is enabled by powerful and autocratic men. I wanted to write about resistance, romance, resilience, love and light. I read a book called The Chrysalids by John Wyndham when I was in my teens, set thousands of years in a post-apocalyptic future about a group of telepathic young people. I have never forgotten it and I wondered what I’d do with that same set of ingredients. My Songlight world began to appear.

Writing drama is very spare and distilled, with not a word wasted. I have loved writing expansively, using the internal voice of my characters. My editorial notes have all been ‘write more’. No one is telling me to cut. But I think I have kept the economy that comes naturally to me as a dramatist. I appreciate everything that I have learned about tight plotting and making vivid characters. I have tried hard to give them all their own distinct voice.

I don’t think I drew on any fictional friendships, I drew on real ones. I come from a family of sisters and have gone through my life with a circle of dear female friends. I love the men in my life but I wanted to write about the foundational friendships between young women as they begin to find their way in the world.

The world of Songlight continues to grow and it passionately intrigues me. In book two, Elsa is a fugitive from Brightland’s harsh justice. We will find out what happens to her beloved Rye, last seen fleeing from the Chrysalid House. Her friend Kaira is pulled even more closely into Sister Swan’s dark world of power. And we meet a new narrator, Petra, who comes from far-off Sealand. Could she be the saviour Elsa and Kaira have been hoping for?

Lots of history books about the apartheid era of South Africa and the transition to democracy. I get just as inspired by real events as I do by fiction. For light relief, I am re-reading I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith which is like an old friend. I’ve just started Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, which has me at the first page.