Similarly, Harris admits she did feel a sense of empty nest when Anouchka left home.

In the book, Vianne misses her eldest child (Harris's own daughter is called Anouchka).

When I wrote Chocolat, I was the mother of a four-year-old and now I'm the mother of a 25-year-old, and you can write from those perspectives only when you've actually been there.' We are not each other, of course, but we do have a lot of things in common,' says Harris. I'm not quite the same person I was 20 years ago.

Harris admits that Vianne – and indeed of all of the remaining characters – have changed, just as she has in the last 20 years. When the local florist dies, leaving a piece of woodland to Vianne's other daughter, Rosette, it stirs up all sorts of trouble, as the late florist's own money-grabbing daughter tries to reclaim what she believes is rightfully hers. Harris has also written a new book, The Strawberry Thief, the fourth continuation – not sequel, she is adamant – of the story, which sees Vianne for once feeling a little insecure and unsure of what the future holds, as Anouk has flown the nest. To me, the fact that those characters are still alive and still have stories to tell is a matter for celebration.' Her publishers are pushing the boat out with a new book jacket for the hit title's 20th anniversary – it's actually the original jacket, but Harris has written a new introduction for it. 'Clearly that wasn't true, and I'm astonished on a daily basis as to how many people are still deeply invested in those characters and those stories – and it's wonderful.'

'It's completely unexpected, because I was told Chocolat wouldn't sell and people wouldn't be interested in that sort of scenario,' she says now. The Oscar-nominated film adaptation starred Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and Alfred Molina – and even now, Harris seems a bit bewildered as to how her little book, written on Sunday mornings between her teaching job and looking after her then-three-year-old daughter, became a global sensation. Yet despite his protests, she gently changes the lives of the villagers who visit her, with a combination of sympathy, subversion and a little magic. The bestselling novel, for those who don't know it, starts at the beginning of Lent, when Vianne arrives in the village with her six-year-old daughter Anouk to open a chocolaterie in the square opposite the church, to the outrage of the local priest, Fr Reynaud. ENIGMATIC chocolatier Vianne Rocher swept into our psyche in the picturesque, sleepy little fictional French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes some 20 years ago – and today, Chocolat creator Joanne Harris contemplates how life has panned out for herself and her heroine.

Chocolat harris