Peter FitzSimons Batavia Interview

Peter FitzSimons Batavia Interview

Betrayal. Shipwreck. Murder. Sexual Slavery. Courage
A Spine-Chilling Chapter in Australian History

Batavia combines in just the one tale the birth of the world's first corporation, the brutality of colonisation, the battle of good vs evil, the derring-do of sea-faring adventure, ship-wreck, mutiny, love, lust, blood-lust, petty fascist dictatorship, criminality, a reign of terror, murders most foul, sexual slavery, natural nobility, survival, retribution, rescue, first contact with native peoples and so much more.

Described by author Peter FitzSimons as "a true Adults Only version of Lord of the Flies, meeting Nightmare on Elm Street," the story is set in 1629, when the pride of the Dutch East India Company, the Batavia, is on its maiden voyage en route from Amsterdam to the Dutch East Indies, laden down with the greatest treasure to leave Holland. The magnificent ship is already boiling over with a mutinous plot that is just about to break into the open when, just off the coast of Western Australia, it strikes an unseen reef in the middle of the night….

'Far and away the greatest story in Australian History, if not the world's' - Peter FitzSimons

Former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons is a well respected columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald and television presenter on Fox Sports. He co-hosted a radio shows with Mike Carlton and Doug Mulray, has interviewed famous people around the globe from George Bush to Diego Maradona and written eighteen best-selling books. He is the biographer not only of World Cup winning Wallaby captains, Nick Farr-Jones and John Eales, but also former Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, boxer Les Darcy, aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and war heroine Nancy Wake. In 2001 he was Australia's biggest selling non-fiction author, and duplicated that feat in 2004, with his book on Kokoda. He has been Australia's best-selling non-fiction author in the last decade.

Batavia
Random House Australia
Author: Peter FitzSimons
Price: $49.95

Interview with Peter FitzSimons

Question: Why do you think it is that this part of Australian history is not more widely known?

Peter FitzSimons: It is the sort of story that when I came across it I was absolutely stunned for what a good story it is. I am in the business of telling stories; it is what I do for a living. What I wanted to do was to take it from being a historical text to make it feel like a novel, to research it and to try and make the reader feel like they are right in the middle of it. Every story has its contours and this one has everything: mutiny, murder, mayhem, shipwreck, sexual slavery, revenge, redemption, rescue, justice, first indigenous contact between Europeans and Indigenous people as well as an adventure on the high seas.

I was stunned that such a fantastic story wasn't better known although it is fairly well known in Western Australia but it's not at all known east of Kalgoorlie.


Question: What research went into Batavia?

Peter FitzSimons: I went to Amsterdam where the ship left from and I went to India to look at the way the Spice Code works because that is why the ship was out on the high seas. I also went to the Abrolhos Islands where the ship hit the reefs. Then, I worked with academics to try and get my information correct and then I needed to make it feel like a novel.


Question: You've described Batavia as "a true Adults Only version of Lord of the Flies, meeting Nightmare on Elm Street," - can you explain why you've said this?

Peter FitzSimons: It is an Adults Only version of Lord of the Flies, it's were fundamentally good people arrive on an island, on the edge of nowhere and you look at what happens when you're removed from civilisation and there is no police force, no prisons, there are no judges and there is no necessary penalty for behaving badly; only the strongest survivor. It is staggering what otherwise good people got up to when they were removed from civilisation. You wonder if 331 Australians were put on an island, far removed from all justice systems and it was only the strongest who survived, who would behave well and who would behave badly. In this instance the fascinating thing was that goodness did finally prevail with some good men who got together and said "we are not going to cop this" and they reestablished the community.