In 2021, A.B. Stone was shortlisted for the Best Unpublished Manuscript award, now the New Voices. Fast forward three years and Stone's debut novel, The Butterfly Hunter, is now published. Huge congratulations to Alan, who kindly caught up with Foundation Manager, Georgina, who had a few questions.

Twenty years after the end of the Second World War, Klara Brandt discovers that the man responsible for the brutal massacre of her family when she was a child in Germany is still alive.

Her thirst for vengeance compels her to leave her comfortable new life in New York and risk everything to find him. But is the man she eventually encounters in the remote backwaters of Brazil really the sadistic killer she’d set out to find, or someone else?

GB: From The Hound at his Heels to The Butterfly Hunter – can you tell us about your journey to publication?

ABS: My debut novel, The Butterfly Hunter, started out under the title The Hound at His Heels. It’s about a notorious fugitive holed up somewhere in the Amazon jungle and the young woman who, twenty years later, obsessively tracks him down. The title was a reference to the Jonathan Swift quote: 'And, though the villain 'scape a while, he feels Slow Vengeance, like a bloodhound, at his heels.'

I was highly encouraged to develop the manuscript further when it was shortlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for the Best Unpublished Manuscript. Its further development was greatly helped by the wonderful editorial help I received as a reward for being shortlisted. I eventually decided that the title was too cumbersome so changed it to The Butterfly Hunter. This title is relevant for two reasons. First, the main protagonist (Klara Brandt) is helped in her quest by a collector of tropical butterflies. And second, they are hunting a dangerous fugitive who they refer to as “the big red butterfly” in order to conceal their true aims.                            

GB: Where did the initial idea for The Butterfly Hunter spring from?

ABS: That’s a good question, but it’s a long story. In brief, back in 1963 I did a lot of travelling in Central and South America, with the principal aim of experiencing life in the Amazon rainforest, meeting the forest Indians and, yes, collecting tropical butterflies. Just as my two protagonists did in the story, I encountered a Nazi fugitive living with missionaries in a remote part of the region (and I reported this to the authorities when I got back to England). Years later, it struck me forcibly that my experiences during those hectic months, which I’d recorded accurately in my notebook every evening, would form a wonderful basis for a fictional story. That’s how The Butterfly Hunter was born. 

Central Manaus in 1963. The domed building on the right is the opera house where Caruso once sang.
Tukano women washing their laundry in the river, with the mission’s chapel in the background. You can see how this inspired the book on page 117.

GB: How did you make the relationship between your two protagonists, Klara and Joszef, feel real? 

ABS: Another good question! To convey the different personalities of Klara and Joszef, I wanted to bring to the page not only their actions and their spoken words, but also their thoughts and ruminations. As a man, I had to think as I imagined a woman would think in those particular circumstances. I hope I succeeded in this, particularly in exploring the unequal relationship between them. Klara Brandt is several years older than Joszef Poganyi and has a more mature, rational attitude – for most of the time. She’s very much in charge of the relationship and only once gives in to Joszef’s romantic inclinations. Joszef, on the other hand, at age 27 is still “growing up” and tends to be impetuous. However, as the story proceeds, he develops a more rounded understanding of himself and of Klara. 

GB: We believe self-editing and rewriting plays a large part in the writing of a novel. Firstly, would you agree? And secondly, which part of the process did you enjoy the most? 

ABS: I most certainly agree. I have all my earlier drafts stored on my computer and have occasionally looked back at them with horror. Reviewing, editing and re-editing are utterly essential, and the editorial assistance I received from the Wilbur & Niso Smith Foundation played a crucial part in this. I honestly think I enjoyed every part of my journey.  

GB: Your novel is set in the 1960s, across New York, Costa Rica and Brazil. Can you tell us more about your personal experiences of any of these places?

ABS: After living for two years in California I decided to return home. I could have taken a flight from Los Angeles to New York and from there to London and I’d have been home in two or three days. But instead, I chose to travel through Central and South America, including several weeks living with missionaries ministering to Indian tribes in a remote region of the Amazon rainforest. 

Three young nuns and their supervisor en route to the mission. This was before we hit the rapids. You might notice similarities on page 109 of the book.
The author drying his laundry on sun-baked rocks.

It took me four months to get home. I was lucky to get home at all. There were three or four occasions during my travels when my survival was in the balance and it was only sheer luck that preserved me. 

For part of the way, I travelled with a Hungarian friend who’d escaped from Hungary after the 1956 revolution against the Russian occupiers. He was a biologist, and my character Joszef Poganyi is loosely modelled on him.

Most of the key characters are based – again, loosely – on real people I met along the way. Peter Hoffman, the Costa Rican coffee planter in my book, is based on a real coffee planter I met there. In creating Wolfgang Müller, the jaguar hunter, my thoughts went back to a hunter I’d befriended in Manaus, Brazil. Nakuma, the chief of the Tukano tribe in my story, is based on the actual Tukano chief I got to know during my time living with Catholic missionaries in a settlement on the Upper River Negro.

The hereditary chief of the Tukano tribe. He was happy to pose in his traditional regalia for photos.

Padre Mazzanti, Padre O’Connor and their respective clericos are fictional versions of the missionaries I met in that region. My story’s bad guy, Walther Schacht, is a fair reflection of an insufferable old man I came across in a remote backwater of Brazil, whose offensive remarks made me very suspicious of his reasons for choosing to live in that isolated place. As for my heroine, Klara Brandt, I met no one who even remotely resembled her! She is purely fictional. 

Some of the dangers faced by my two protagonists are reflections of real hazards I was lucky to have overcome in my travels. I clearly recall the feeling of foreboding when I was lost in thick jungle for many hours, with night closing in. I know from personal experience what it’s like to have to escape from the crater rim of a violently erupting volcano (Irazu in Costa Rica), with my hair singed by red-hot gravel falling from the sky.

Irazu Volcano, Costa Rica, 1963. The road was blocked with volcanic ash and we had to walk the rest of the way. You can compare the scene in The Butterfly Hunter on page 56.

Irazu Volcano. That’s me, the author, on the right. We’d run for our lives from the crater. You can see that the place where we’d been standing is now inundated with smoke and falling rocks. Go to page 60 to read the scene this inspired.

I know what it’s like to voyage for four days on a semi-derelict riverboat crewed by a gang of down-and-outs, as Klara did. I remember exactly what it’s like to believe you are about to drown in the rapids of the River Negro, then to find that you are still alive. That’s what happened to Joszef. 

The riverboat João on which the author voyaged for four days on the River Negro. You'll find the inspired scene on page 165.
The author’s hammock on board João. Check out page 170.
Cooking freshly caught fish beside the River Negro. Author on the left.

I almost certainly wouldn’t be here to tell the story had I gone ahead with plans for a trip up a remote tributary of the River Uaupés, near Brazil’s border with Colombia. The Tukano tribesman who offered to paddle me upriver in his dugout canoe didn’t tell me this was a no-go area, populated by a tribe with a reputation for attacking any white man who entered their territory.

For most of the Tukano who live along the Upper River Negro, the dugout canoe is the only available form of transport.

A missionary warned me to decline the Tukano’s offer, and at the last minute I did. On the other hand, Klara and Joszef ignored the missionary’s advice, with almost disastrous consequences.  

GB: Is there a scene in The Butterfly Hunter you’re most proud of? And which was hardest to write?

I’m sure that every author is proud of many parts of their book and I can answer only subjectively. But as you’ve asked me the question:

The scene where Joszef first meets Klara (p 34 et seq).

Action at the top of Irazu volcano (p 58 et seq).

Chapter 25, the denouement. 

GB: Exciting! That's a sure-fire way to get readers to read the book! Which scene was hardest to write? 

ABS: Well, of course… the opening page! I can’t count how many times I re-wrote it, even when most of the work had been done.  

GB: This is your debut novel (huge congratulations!) - what advice would you give to aspiring writers out there? And how does the prospect of writing a second novel make you feel now? 

ABS: Advice: It’s tough but enjoyable. If you enjoy writing then get on with it and stick with it. But don’t expect an easy ride – and don’t give up your day job. I’ve very greatly enjoyed writing my debut novel and feel I’ve learned a lot, so writing a second novel should go more smoothly.  

GB: Thank you, Alan! It's wonderful to catch up with you and we're excited to see what the future holds. 

You can pre-order your copy of The Butterfly Hunter, here: