Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past is a bighearted tale of family, forgotten stories and the search for belonging, from award-winning author Maisie Chan. BooksfromScotland caught up with Maisie to talk about the inspirations behind her book.

Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past
By Maisie Chan
Published by Piccadilly Press

Hello Maisie; it’s fantastic to see another book of yours out in the wild! What can you tell us about Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past?

Yes, I’d love to tell you all about my latest novel Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past! The book is about Nate who’s a myrmecologist which means he studies ants. His mums are kind, but Nate thinks they don’t understand him because they’re not Chinese. He makes a couple of new friends, and everything changes when he gets his hands on a shell casing from the First World War that is engraved with a Chinese dragon. He meets a ghost from the Chinese Labour Corp who doesn’t remember why he’s appeared. It’s a book about identity, untold histories and it has ant facts, karaoke and more surprises.

The book starts with Nate coming to terms with moving with his family from the country to the city of Liverpool, and to a new school. What did you want to explore with that ‘fish out of water’ dynamic

Many kids move schools, houses, or to different areas and I think often it’s underestimated how much that upheaval affects them. It’s a big thing but then throw in the mix the fact that someone has moved to a big city from a small village, and you have even more tension and things to get used to. I really like the ‘fish out of water’ dynamic and have used it a few times in my other novels. Nai Nai moved from China to Birmingham in Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, Lizzie Chu from Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu needs to take Wai Gong from Glasgow to Blackpool but she’s only twelve – it allows for different encounters with new and sometimes challenging things. I guess, you could say I am exploring resilience and what happens when the familiar becomes the not-so-familiar.

You work in such lovely details into your books (we’re big Beatles fans at BfS, so we appreciated the school’s House names); we loved too Nate’s passion for his ant farm. Where did you come up with that part of Nate’s character?

The ant fact part of the book was pure serendipity. I was walking my youngest child to school, and they told me an ant fact (very much out of the blue). It was – if you squash an ant, it releases pheromones so the other ants will come and find the dead body to take it away.  I knew there and then that I had to use it in my book, and I asked if it was okay. I like to give my main characters interests. It worked out perfectly because there was a link between ants and the men who worked in the Chinese Labour Corp. Each chapter of the book begins with an ant fact, and I tried to make each fact link to what was happening in that particular chapter. I like my readers to learn something new, which is an idea I got when reading Frank Cottrell Boyce’s books because I realised that I was learning a new fact about something in each of his novels.

You’ve introduced a supernatural element to Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past with the character of Jirou. Why did you want to move into this imaginative territory?

I always like to challenge myself. Writing contemporary books is within my comfort zone, so I wanted to see if I could write a contemporary book about history but also have a ghost in it. I need to keep the writing process interesting for myself and I wanted to have fun, plus young readers love ghosts in their stories. I found it hard to think about what the rules of the ghost appearing were because there are lots of different kinds of ghost stories – some are scary, some dark, some funny. I wanted my ghost to be in the funny camp – so it’s a bit like BBC’s Ghosts where only Nate can see him, and he’s got a mission. I want to continue to write for a long time if I can, so I am always looking for ways to write things that make it fun.

You’ve also shone a light on a moment in history that often doesn’t get talked about, the Chinese Labour Corp and their experiences in World War One. Can you tell us more about this? Do you remember when you first learned of them?

As far as I can tell there are very few books for children in the UK that mention any British Chinese history. I can’t actually think of one and I wonder if your readers can think of any. I remember studying history at school but finding it quite irrelevant for me. I think it’s that idea of not being seen as part of history and in Britain there is a constant feeling that we can’t forget the world wars we’ve been involved in. However, when I found out there were around 140,000 Chinese people in France who were helping with the war effort I wanted to tell others about it. I think I found out about the Chinese Labour Corp about ten years ago. I was surprised and had never heard about them as a child or even a young adult. I know in recent years there has been a play called Forgotten made about them and numerous documentaries. I read a few books about them by historians, and I read one book which was a fictionalised version which I found disturbing as it kept using a racial slur the whole way through. I felt that moving across the world also mirrored Nate’s move to a different place and I thought it would be brilliant for a Chinese ghost to help Nate with his issues about being Chinese.

Nate Yu and your previous books have often had your characters grapple with their heritage, and we loved how Nate and Missy responded to each other (even if their first encounter at the assembly gave us anxiety dream flashbacks!). How have readers responded to these explorations?

I do explore what it feels like to be an outsider or to not belong. It’s a common theme in my book and that’s because I am exploring my own feelings of not belonging. I am a transracial adoptee just like Nate and like Nate I didn’t feel Chinese enough and even pushed away ‘Chinese stuff’ as a child. This is why I feel it’s important for me to write about the themes that I do and to include things that are related to Chinese culture because it goes back to the idea of mirrors and windows. I am trying to write for multiple readers – ones who may have a connection to Chinese culture or who look Chinese but feel marginalised, and also those who know little about Chinese culture. I think readers have responded well, especially in Britain as my writing is very British and there is a lot of empathy in my books. I’ve had lots of lovely reviews from fellow authors and a few of them said how relatable it is for diasporic kids who might have heritage from different countries but who are also British.

Although you’ve probably spent the last few months focussing on your writing, what are your favourite books you’ve read this year so far?

I enjoyed The Shrapnel Boys by Jenny Pearson which is a Second World War book about boys in London who have to endure time in bomb shelters, but it also explores big subjects like fascism and male role models. I thought it was very clever. I also admire how Jenny has gone from writing very funny books to this fairly serious historical novel, although it also has lots of moments of humour. I’m reading The Doughnut Club right now by Kristina Rahmin and it’s about a girl who finds out she has sixteen donor siblings, and she wonders if any of them are like her.

Nate Yu’s Blast from the Past by Maisie Chan is published by Piccadilly Press, priced £7.99.