58 pages • 1-hour read
The Elements: A Novel
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Background
Content Warning: This section of the guide features sexual violence and harassment, rape, child sexual abuse, child abuse, death by suicide, child death, emotional abuse, physical abuse, antigay bias, bullying, suicidal ideation, and self-harm.
Authorial Context: John Boyne’s Personal Connection to The Elements
The Elements by John Boyne combines four novellas published by Boyne every six months over the course of two years. In each of these novellas, a different perspective of child abuse is explored. Boyne’s motivation for writing these novellas, each one connected to one of the four primary natural elements, is a personal one. As a young man in Dublin, Boyne was assaulted by a high school teacher though he and other victims did not report the man until they were adults: “The man was arrested and due in court in March 2024. However, he died of natural causes a few months before the trial was scheduled to begin” (Heath, Nicola and Claire Nichols. “Irish Author John Boyne on Writing The Elements, a Four-Part Series Examining Child Abuse.” ABC, 6 Aug. 2025). Boyne and others experienced the crime and traumas that plagues the characters in The Elements. Boyne cites this experience as being a motivator for the novel, hoping that those who read and connected to it gained the confidence to report their abusers, even if the crime was in the past.
Writing The Elements was more than just activism for Boyne, as it helped him explore his trauma and begin to heal from it. He cites this work as being a turning point in his life: “Now that The Elements is complete, the author has had the chance to reflect on the series and what he describes as a cathartic writing process” (Heath). This is a process that he deems as essential to the healing process: “Every second, every minute that you give your abuser further thought is still giving them some sort of power, and I choose not to let that happen anymore” (Heath). Boyne used his writing to separate himself from his abuser and find freedom, away from the pain of the past. By writing The Elements, he describes the ways in which victims can heal, while also exploring the wide-ranging effects of abuse and its complicated motivations.
Critical Context: Controversy Over John Boyne’s Transphobia
The Polari Prize is an annual award, founded in 2011, that acknowledges authors in the UK and Ireland writing about LGBTQ+ experiences. In 2025, Earth, one of the novellas from The Elements, was longlisted for the award. The novella follows a gay man on trial for accessory to rape. However, its inclusion stirred a controversy, as many other authors believed that transphobic comments the author made were at odds with the purpose of the award: “some other nominated authors asked to be removed from the longlist, objecting to an article Boyne wrote defending JK Rowling’s stance on trans issues and women’s rights. More than 800 figures in the publishing industry also signed an open letter criticising his nomination” (McIntosh, Steven. “Organisers Cancel Book Prize Over Trans Controversy.” BBC, 18 Aug. 2025). The pushback against Boyne’s nomination was severe, with condemnation coming from every corner of the publishing world. Some believed that his comments were hateful, as he aligned himself closely with British author J.K. Rowling, who is famously against trans rights, even going so far as to label himself a TERF (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist).
Boyne, a gay man, wrote an article in which he criticized detractors of J.K. Rowling who disagree with her transphobic opinions. Many interpreted his opinions as not only transphobic but misogynistic: “He suggested that women who had publicly disagreed with Rowling in recent years were ‘astonishingly complicit in their own erasure,’ and compared them to a commander’s wife in the patriarchal regime in The Handmaid’s Tale” (McIntosh). His suggestion that women who were critical of these views supported their own erasure, combined with his reference to The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) was widely considered misogynistic. The suggestion that these women were not thinking for themselves is just one of the reasons many opposed his nomination for the prize. The controversy exploded when the Polari Prize cancelled the entire award as a result of the pushback: “Polari said it had consulted authors, judges, stakeholders and funders, and had ‘decided to pause the prize this year while we increase the representation of trans and gender non-conforming judges on the panels’” (McIntosh). As a response to the anger Boyne’s inclusion spurred, the prize decided to reevaluate and reorganize the award itself and its process of selection.
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