The Friend

Interview: Tracy Chevalier

Tracy Chevalier has woven together life and writing through a dazzling string of novels, from the acclaimed Girl with a Pearl Earring to the Quaker-inspired The Last Runaway, which tells the story of an English Quaker, Honor Bright, who is gradually drawn into the Underground Railroad in the American state of Ohio. An empathy with the marginalised runs through all her work, along with a fascination with crafts.

She was born in Washington DC and went on to graduate with a degree in English from Oberlin College. She moved to England in 1984 to work in publishing and in the early 1990s did a masters degree in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Her tutors included the novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain.

Interview: Modern slavery

How certain can we be, as Friends, that we are not supporting slavery?

Sadly, we cannot be more sure than anyone else that we are not supporting slavery. And that is despite the fact that it was Friends who first invented the concept of conscious consuming and originated the first consumer campaigns to support human rights.

There are some products, especially those that come through the Fairtrade network that can be thought of as ‘safe’, likewise locally-sourced goods are more likely to be slave-free, as well as goods from those companies that make it clear in their labelling (like Monkee Genes) that they are slave-free. For the rest it can be a puzzle and a challenge to trace the supply chains all the way to the criminal first link where slavery exists.

The Quaker way

Most of those who become Quakers today will have made a spiritual journey to arrive at this destination. We are now a Society of convinced Friends rather than cradle Quakers. Many daughters and sons of Friends continue their parents’ questing and move beyond the Society, even if holding to Quaker values. Like Tony Philpott I have made that journey. So when his book, From Christian to Quaker: A spiritual journey from evangelical Christian to universalist Quaker, came to hand last Christmas, at that period of calm after the seasonal consumerist tsunami, I avidly devoured it, provoked in part by the implications of its title.

The Inner Light

You probably know the proverb that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Growing up Quaker was rather like growing up in a very lovely village, albeit one dispersed across the country and, of course, linked across the world.

As a teenager being Quaker was all about the annual Quaker summer school. I don’t remember a whole lot of talk about God during those weeks, but what I did experience was concentrated love, in a safe, inclusive and open space that gave us each freedom to explore who and what we were. It was an experience I realise now has informed the rest of my life.