Book interview: Anya Bergman gives voice to the women killed as 'witches'

There were many different reasons behind the witch trials, but underlying them all was a deep misogyny, says the writer

Anya Bergman - author of The Witches of Vardo

Good ideas are the lifeblood of any writer but the tenacity to realise them is just as important. Take Anya Bergman, whose latest book, The Witches of Vardø, was ten years in the making. The author was living in Bergen in Norway when she came across the true story of the Finnmark witch trials which took place in the 17th century. When we think of witch-hunts, colonial America and places such as Salem leap to mind but they also raged across Europe from the 14th to the 18th century, killing thousands, mostly women.

“I couldn’t believe I had never heard of them because per capita, they were some of the most ferocious trials in Europe,” says Bergman.