In the footsteps of Jane and Mary

Former BBC journalist Bee Rowlatt, who lives in New Delhi, is two books old, both based on women writers of the 18th century. The first, Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad (2010) is the story of her friendship with an Iraqi lecturer, and the second, In Search of Mary: The Mother of All Journeys (2016), retraces Mary Wollstonecraft’s journey from Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. A repeat visitor to Zee-JLF, she tells Gargi Gupta that, she loves its informal spirit.

Both your books reference other books and writers. How did this come about?

I certainly draw inspiration from writers I’ve read throughout my life. But this was a coincidence – the purpose of the two books is very different. The first, Talking about Jane Austen was conceived as a way to get my Iraqi friend out of a warzone and into safety. The title – and even the book itself – didn’t matter to us until much later. But In Search of Mary uses the prism of an earlier voice – of the extraordinary but little-known Mary Wollstonecraft – to explore today’s world.  

What is it about Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen that inspires you?

Austen is a technically brilliant writer. Wollstonecraft’s gifts lie elsewhere – in her staggering bravery, in the originality of her ideas and her life, in her unfiltered optimism and rage. Reading her is not like reading anything else. Here’s how I compared the two writers in In Search of Mary: “Look how everyone adores her near-contemporary Jane Austen. They are choosing the view into a tidy garden over one onto a crashing sea. Have courage, readers!”

Women have come a long way 200 years since Wollstonecraft. Would you say that all the battles have been won? 

No one can say that all the battles have been won. Women in the public eye, be they writers, politicians or even actors are subject to a particular and a very punishing kind of scrutiny. This has got much worse over the centuries.

You’re a repeat visitor to JLF. What is it that brings you back? 

Last year I came not as a speaker, but as a wide-eyed visitor, wandering from tent to tent and reveling in the buzz.

You took your son with you when you retraced Wollstonecraft’s steps in Scandinavia. Is he here in Jaipur too?

Will is the smallest of my kids, he’s six. He knows full well that he came with me on the adventures and that he’s part of the book. He hasn’t come this year but my older girls are here. I couldn’t wait for them to experience their first JLF.