Startpage Joan Lingard - The Twelfth day of July

Joan Lingard

• about her

• about her characters

Joan Lingard was born in Edinburgh but grew up in Belfast where she lived until she was 18. She is the internationally renowned author of several novels. Joan Lingard has 3 grown up daughters and now lives permanently in Edinburgh with her Canadian husband.

Joan Lingard received the prestigious West German award the Buxthuderbulle in 1986 for "Across the Barricades". "Tug Of War" has also received great success: shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 1989, The Federation of Children's Book Group Award 1989, runner up in the Lancashire Children's Book Club of the year 1990 and shortlisted for the Sheffield Book Award.

"...Joan Lingard's novels for young people deal with familiar conflicts and tensions associated with adolescence, and her characters have life and credibility. She has a shrewd eye for portraying teenage preoccupations."

more about Joan Lingard

Joan Lingard:

"My characters are shaped by the environment they have been born into or are growing up in."

How she expresses this in her book:

It's clear to see that all the characters in Joan Lingard's "The Twelfth Day of July" are influenced by their environment, especially by the political and social situation in Northern Ireland. The fight between Protestants and Catholics is presented to the children every day as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Growing up with it, they are convinced that everything is right the way it is. The hatred for the other religion and of the people of this religion is one of the first things they are taught. It's difficult for them to get away from it.
Sadie, on the Protestant side, and Kevin, on the Catholic side, are two main persons in the book. They show this hatred very clearly. Both fight for their "belief". Breaking into houses, painting things like "Long live the Pope" on the walls and playing with the lives of other persons, they seem to play a "game" which isn't their own, not even that of their parents. Joan Lingard shows in her characters that this deep hate exists only because of tradition. She shows that it has lost its sense for the young people by describing the sympathy between Kevin and Sadie.
After almost having lost Kevin's sister Brede through a fight between the Protestant and Catholic children, Sadie and Kevin wake up and ask themselves what all this is for. The author explains that all hope is on the youths' shoulders.

© Class 10d Gymnasium Ulricianum Aurich - July 1998