Terry Pratchett on fairy tales, Harry Potter and genre writing

Terry Pratchett on fairy tales, Harry Potter and genre writing

'I always remember G K Chesterton's In Defence of Fairy Tales. Chesterton argued that it is wrongly held against fairy tales that they tell children there are monsters. What fairy tales do is tell children that monsters can be killed...'

'When the hype about Rowling began, people who didn't know much about how children's books have developed in the last 40 years acted as though everything in the Potter books was original... the point is that nobody - not me, not J K Rowling - invented wizards or magic universities or hats that talk. The defining characteristic of genres is that things within the genre resemble each other. As an author you are allowed to help yourself to what's already in the pot but the very act of doing that means that everything you write goes in the pot as well. There are only two crimes: saying that you personally own the pot or denying that the pot exists.'

Terry Pratchett, who has just won the Carnegie Medal for children's writing for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, being interviewed in The Times.