'Sometimes you've got to jump. It's deep water… but you can swim' (2024)

In the library of London’s Hellenic Centre, Victoria Hislop is telling me how filming Dancing with the Stars – the Greek version of Strictly Come Dancing – made her cry. ‘It was an amazing experience, but hardcore,’ says the bestselling author, whose ten books have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, all but one set in Greece.

‘I used to lie in the bath for hours every day, soaking in German spa salts after all the practice. I’d phone Ian every night, sometimes sobbing, saying, “I can’t go on”, and he would say, “But you said that last week and you were fine, and you are going to be great again.”’

‘Ian’ is Ian Hislop, editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye and a long-term team captain on Have I Got News For You. As Victoria’s husband of 36 years, he knows better than anyone that his wife was never going to let the rigours of a dance show get her down. It tells you everything about her tenacity: she was diagnosed with breast cancer between lockdowns, needing a lumpectomy and radiotherapy to treat it. ‘When the call came to do the show in early 2021, I was still on the drugs,’ she says. ‘I’d also just lost my mum, so it wasn’t the ideal time for it. In the end I thought, sometimes you’ve got to jump. You know it’s deep water, but you also know you can swim.’

Hislop is one of life’s smart, can-do people. Such is her literary celebrity in Greece, she is the only international author to have appeared on Dancing with the Stars there. And Ian was right, she was great, outlasting contestants 30 years younger than her. In the UK she’s been inducted into the Bestseller Awards Hall of Fame (the book version of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame), where she sits alongside Lee Child and Ian Rankin. The panel bestowed a Platinum Award on The Island, too. She has also just been appointed among the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) fellows, making her one of the few authors to pull off huge sales with highbrow acclaim. Her debut novel The Island, published in 2005, was made into an epic 26-part series for Greek TV. Even Ian had a cameo part in it as the father of the heroine. The Figurine, her latest novel, was hailed as ‘a tightly wrought excavation of family history’ by The Mail on Sunday. She now speaks fluent Greek, too.

‘That came from having to speak through a translator in interviews,’ she explains. ‘I felt such a dummy, so back in London I found the Hellenic Centre and said I want a one-to-one teacher three times a week. I just stuck at it and ended up coming for a few years.’

Hislop uses the word ‘nerdy’ a lot, but it’s modest shorthand for possessing a strong work ethic, something she’s had since childhood, growing up in Tonbridge in Kent. Back then she wanted to impress her formidable teachers at school, but inspiration and learning came from another source: her mum’s new boyfriend. ‘By the time I was 13, my parents had separated and my mum was in a relationship with a Frenchman called Michel who I adored and learned such a lot from. I worked in his restaurant on Saturday nights, we played tennis every weekend and I spoke French to him all the time. That’s how I became fluent in French. so of course I was top of the class in French,’ she says with a grin.

She studied English at Oxford where she met Ian, then worked at publishers Sidgwick & Jackson. As the salary barely covered her rent, she took a Saturday job at Selfridges staffing the cheese and nut counters. She would finish, rush for the train to Kent, shift at Michel’s and return the next day to start back at Sidgwick. ‘They were good days,’ she says. ‘Kenneth Williams used to come into Selfridges every Saturday, and I lived above a bakery that smelt of pastries. Although there did come a point when I thought, “I don’t want to worry about money any more”, so I moved into advertising. By 28 I had a BMW and my own parking space in London. You should see our wedding photos: on my side there were a lot of corporate shoulder pads.’

The 20-something who took three jobs to balance the books became the 30-something mum who went back to work just weeks after the birth of her daughter Emily. ‘They were the Nicola Horlick “superwoman” days,’ she reminds me. ‘I expressed my milk in the loo, not even questioning if it was right or wrong, but all I knew was that I was miserable. Finally, I spoke up and my employers gave me freelance copywriting work. Then there was the trip to Crete that changed everything.’

In true Hislop style she turned a setback into an opportunity on that group holiday in 2001. ‘We were staying in very basic apartments so we planned lots of excursions. Ian was usually the driver of them, but I’d spotted the former leper colony Spinalonga. I wasn’t confident about suggesting it – it’s not exactly a waterpark – but the minute we got there I was entranced and knew I had to write about it and the people who once lived there.’

The result: her novel The Island was a hit, setting the tone for her intelligent blend of history, drama and family secrets. Her books don’t shy away from the darker periods of Greek history, which meant she kept her work away from one house guest: ‘Like many people, we took in someone from Syria during the refugee crisis. He asked to read one of my novels, but I thought, “They are all about civil war except for one, which is about leprosy.” I gave him something else to read.’

Unlike many high achievers, Hislop says there’s been no big strategy behind her brilliant career. ‘You can have objectives and follow ideas that you feel sustained by, but I’m not sure you can plan. And the [Strictly] experience shows that, whatever age you are, you can do it. Not everything is easy – it can be tough – but it’s no reason not to do it.’

She calls herself a poster girl for Greece – the previous week she was demonstrating for the Elgin Marbles to be returned – but Hislop is an inspiration for a blooming midlife. She became a bestselling novelist in her 40s, mastered Greek in her 50s and is rewriting the 60-something rule book: author, reality TV star, activist and ambassador for leprosy charity Lepra. She looks great, too – in a chambray shirt dress and metallic wedges, Hislop could be 15 years younger than 65. She is lithe and strong from boxing, pilates and skipping. Her skin glows from Greek sunshine and a Mediterranean diet.

‘You know, I tell young people, “You are not going to have one job”,’ she says, pointing out that she didn’t want to write fiction until she was about 40. ‘When we’re young, we make compromises. The fun jobs tend to pay less, so we pick careers to pay the mortgage. But latterly I’ve followed the ones I enjoy. I think, as you get older, they’re the things you are quite good at, which can lead to later-life success, a sweet spot between reward and professional pleasure.’

Life is certainly sweet for Hislop, with family homes in Crete, Kent and Chelsea, which has led to some embarrassing celebrity mix-ups. ‘Once I saw someone near our house and rushed over to say “Hi”, only to realise it was Spencer Matthews from Made in Chelsea, and I only knew him from the telly!’

She writes either at the London Library or at the Hislops’ Cretan home near Agios Nikolaos, where she spends much of the year – and where she spent lockdown. ‘I go to Greece for work commitments usually once a month and then stay on to write.’ Does that mean life with Ian can feel like a long-distance relationship? She shrugs it off with the ease of the happily married. ‘He comes out as often as he can. During Dancing with the Stars, you’d see him in the audience most weeks.’

There are usually three years between books, giving her time to travel, meet people and chase the detail that gives her books such evocative authenticity. She takes her research seriously, even going on a dig while working on her latest book The Figurine, getting up at 5am with the other archaeologists. When she needs something she just asks, which puts all sorts of interesting people, from the director of the Acropolis Museum to the chair of Sotheby’s, into her orbit.

‘I’m relatively timid, but I’ll find the top person, write a polite letter to ask for help and I’ve never been turned down,’ she says, adding that many such people stay in her life. ‘When someone gives you their time and shares their stories, it creates an emotional connection. I hate just saying, “Thanks and goodbye”.’ Clearly it’s reciprocal – the Sotheby’s chair has just sent her a birthday card. It’s no surprise, when Hislop is so likeable: easy company, warm, down to earth and fun. Three hours slip by as we talk about her love of Greece and her favourite islands, including Crete, Tinos and Sifnos: two Cycladic islands she describes as ‘unspoilt and beautiful’. She is also a passionate chef. ‘Cooking is the only thing I think I’m really good at,’ she tells me, demonstrating the impressive knife skills she learnt in Michel’s restaurant.

We relocate to a coffee shop in the balmy streets of Marylebone, where we meet one of her writer friends, who also has a place in Crete. Plans for dinner are to be put on an author WhatsApp group – it’s a fleeting insight into her life in Agios Nikaloas – and it seems idyllic. ‘It is,’ she admits. ‘Although I do go to Crete to work – I wrote almost all of The Figurine there. People would come up to me and say, “Are you having a lovely holiday?” and I’d think, “Actually, I’m stressed trying to get my book finished”, because it was post Strictly, post cancer treatment – and during those things I hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything else. But nothing beats my desk in Crete with a view of the sea. My head, my imagination is just stimulated by Greece.’

I bring up the thorny issue of cultural appropriation, and she looks thoughtful.

‘When the American Dirt backlash happened [author Jeanine Cummins was criticised for writing a book from the perspective of a Mexican immigrant] I thought, “This is exactly what I’m doing, putting myself in the shoes of a Greek character”. But then I was made an honorary Greek citizen and I’ve never had to face that sort of criticism.’

Next year she can collect her pension but, with her work ethic and thirst for knowledge, she has no plans to retire. She’s already working on her 11th book but keeps the subject under wraps. ‘I don’t even tell Ian,’ she confides. ‘It’s my golden rule not to discuss it because I think if I do, and it sounds stupid or wrong, it may put me off. Although I do get Ian to look at it when it’s finished, and he always has something interesting to say.’

After this book she wants to start writing a collection of short stories and would love to work on a British TV adaptation of her books, having had so much fun as ‘executive producer/control freak’ on the Greek one.

As for more reality TV, she quite fancies the Great British Sewing Bee, telling me about her lifelong love affair with sewing. Not only does it relax her, she seems rather good at it, recalling what she’s made over the years: Austrian blinds, bridesmaid dresses, even the outfit for her Oxford interview. Will we see Ian on the British Strictly? She laughs, shaking her head. ‘He’s not interested. A little-known fact about Ian is that he is an excellent ice-skater but not even Dancing on Ice can tempt him.’

Soon she will set off for another month in Greece, where days will be spent writing, taking morning swims in the Aegean and having evening drinks with loved ones in the whitewashed harbour of Agios. But first for the 60-something living her best life is a trip to Glastonbury with a friend. Her son Will – an actor who had roles in One Day and Baby Reindeer – is going, too. ‘He’s warned me I can’t expect to hang out with him. I said, “Don’t expect to hang out with us, either!”’

The Figurine by Victoria Hislop is published by Headline, £11.99. To order a copy for £8.49 until 18 August, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free UK delivery on orders over £25.

Picture director: Ester Malloy.

Styling: Nicola Rose.

Styling assistant: Hope Palmer.

Hair: Jamie McCormick using Hair by Sam McKnight.

Make-up: Jose Bass using QMS Medicosmetics and Iconic London.