Policing the leprechauns

Irish writer Eoin Colfer, creator of an underground world of highly armed, techno-magical fairies, is lurking in a basement in a house in the south of France. Under siege from the leprechaun police, perhaps, for revealing the secrets of their race to human children in his Artemis Fowl books?

No, the former school teacher and father of two is hiding out from a more dangerous crew to do this phone interview on his summer holiday with family and friends: the gang of 10 ("it could be 11") children waiting for the bestselling children's author to cook them breakfast.

Colfer is making his third trip to New Zealand next week. But such are the overseas travel demands on the international kid-lit star, he'll only have time for a couple of days in Auckland.

The fourth book in the Artemis Fowl series, The Opal Deception, came out a few months ago. But Colfer says this trip is not specifically to promote the latest doings of leprechaun police officer Holly Short and her human nemesis, the most brilliant and wickedest boy in the world, Artemis Fowl. It's a general author visit to a country where his books have always been top of the pops.

"What I tend to do at these events is tell stories. Very often I don't even read from the book, I just tell stories about when I was a kid, or about my own kids or whatever and then take questions," he promises.

Colfer is best known for the Artemis books, which have hit best-seller lists around the world and been translated into more than 35 languages. They are a 21st-century spin on traditional Irish fairytales and began with the story of a boy who wanted to catch a leprechaun to get its pot of gold.

But Colfer's fairies are a fearsome people, fiercely guarding their existence from the human world in a vast city far underground, policed by a force equipped with magic and high-tech wizardry. Genius Artemis is the only human who has managed to penetrate their defences. As the series has developed, an uneasy alliance has formed between him and leprechaun (or Leprecon, in Colfer's version) police officer Holly Short.

By the end of The Opal Deception Artemis appears to have almost left his wicked ways behind him but let's not count our chickens. Colfer has another book in the series planned so his moral improvement might not yet be complete.

Meanwhile, the Hollywood movie of the first book is still on the cards. Miramax bought the rights 31/2 years ago but the film has been delayed because of the company's split from owner Disney, Colfer says. And yes, it is getting frustrating, with promises of big names but nothing confirmed yet: "I'm kind of in the dark. All I know is that the screenplay is finished." 

There's no doubt the high-action, techno wizardry of the books will translate well into special-effects and stunt-packed cinema. Colfer himself has described Artemis Fowl as "leprechauns meet Die Hard." But has he run up against any objections to his cyber-age treatment of Irish folk culture?

"It's funny, I haven't met any Irish people who objected but I have met plenty of foreign people who've objected on behalf of the Irish. I've met Americans and Australians who have got very upset and said: 'This is not what it's like.'

"One person said: 'There's no such thing as a female leprechaun', and I laughed because I thought he was joking. But then I looked at his face and saw he was very serious. I said: 'Well, I have two points for you. The first is that there are no such things as leprechauns. And the second point is, if there are leprechauns, there must be females else there could be no males'."

Real or not, mucking with the fairies, especially revealing their top secret codes to the human world, can be dangerous territory.

"I did get a series of coded emails from somebody who got my [email] address. There would be all this code which I couldn't understand and underneath it would say, 'We are the fairy people and you are very close to the truth and we must silence you.'

"And then I was doing this reading in California and this guy turned up wearing a big hooded jacket and he handed me one of these emails and said he had sent it, and I thought, 'oh my God, a nutter.'

"But he took his hood down and said: 'I'm actually an actor and this is my way of auditioning for your movie. I thought it would be interesting and would attract your attention.' He thought that I was casting the movie — if he knew how little say I have over that, he wouldn't have wasted his time."

The fairy security force might be heartened to learn the Artemis fans are looking after their interests so carefully. "I get so many letters in code it's terrifying. A lot of kids write to me in code. Every time I open fan mail I'm praying for English because sometimes you get pages and pages of these beautiful symbols. It must take them days to write a letter so the least you can do is decode it and write back. But it does take a while."

In the background there's suddenly a tremendous crashing and banging on the basement water tank. Colfer has been found and has to go. The marauding pack of hungry kids might not have the technology or the magic but they do the human race credit. The fairy security force couldn't have done a better job of flushing him out.

* Eoin Colfer: Takapuna Library (free event), September 8, 6.30-8.30pm