AFTER nearly a decade of writing, Louis de Bernières will finally unveil his follow-up novel to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin today. For critics and many of the author’s fans it is the adult equivalent of a Harry Potter launch.

Even though the new book, Birds Without Wings, will not be published until next year, de Bernières will read extracts from it at the Hay Festival of Literature today. “It’s a bit of mischief. Give people a taster,” he said last week.

Since the extraordinary success of Captain Corelli, which sold more than 3m copies worldwide, huge anticipation has built up over the new novel. The Hollywood film of Captain Correlli, starring Penélope Cruz and Nicolas Cage, served to whet appetites further. Yet for de Bernières, such demand has proved a burden. He said last week that he “almost regrets ever having started” Birds Without Wings: “It’s been nearly 10 years of slog.”

In fact de Bernières has yet to put the final touches to the new novel. Though he does not admit to writer’s block, he accepts the book has been a struggle. Dan Franklin, who commissioned Captain Corelli for the publisher Secker & Warburg in 1992, said: “Whenever I talk to Louis, he says he’s mending the car or decorating the house. He’s a great one for displacement activities.”

De Bernières, who interrupted Birds Without Wings to write a children’s book, Red Dog, 18 months ago, is not the first author to suffer after a huge success. Donna Tartt took 10 years to write The Little Friend after publishing The Secret History, while Margaret Mitchell stopped writing altogether after her success with Gone With the Wind.

Like Captain Corelli, which focuses on the Greek island of Cephalonia during the second world war, Birds Without Wings is a work of fiction with a factual backdrop. Set in southwest Turkey between 1900 and 1923, it chronicles the stories of Christian and Muslim villagers whose lives were torn apart in the aftermath of the first world war. As the Ottoman empire collapsed, the Christians were forcibly moved to Greece while Muslims from Greece were deported to Turkey.

De Bernières was inspired to write the novel after a holiday in Turkey. “I came across this ghost town. I then got to learn more about what had happened to its inhabitants,” he said.

Although Birds Without Wings (the title derives from a Middle Eastern saying that “man is without wings”) is a novel, the author describes it as “a number of inter- connecting novellas”. It is much longer than Corelli, which ran to 437 pages, and is at the moment scattered around de Bernières’s East Anglian study in “many boxes”.

This seemingly shambolic approach is in a way reflected in his novels. Captain Corelli at times rambled, but that was partly what attracted readers. It was also marvellously evocative, with characters such as Corelli and his lover Pelagia being vividly drawn.

De Bernières admits he has been enjoying the money from Captain Corelli. He received an advance of £10,000, then made his fortune from its vast sales: “I suppose I’m a millionaire. The money has simply dripped in over the years.”

De Bernières has refused to accept an advance for Birds Without Wings. “It’s ridiculous for writers to accept huge advances. It’s vulgar. And it puts too much expectation on authors and publishers alike,” he said.

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