Why I cried about who I might become “Why do you want to become a French citizen?” I was asked this question at the end of a gruelling two hour naturalisation interview. I burst into tears. “It’s such a difficult and important decision,” I replied, sniffling. “I’ve had to leave too many places I thought of as home. I want […]
The Shaping of Water
The Shaping of Water Such a lovely thing happened to me today. My first novel The Shaping of Water has appeared on the Facebook Page and Website of Gadsden Publishers in Lusaka Zambia. This is the right place for my book to be – Zambia is the home of this novel. You can see the video about the book here […]
Issam Kourbaj, artist and mentor – “Dark Water, Burning World”
Wonderful good fortune Sometimes you know that you have been really lucky! I was when I met Issam Kourbaj, a Syrian artist in Cambridge. I can’t remember who told me about Issam’s workshops but I went along to one without a clue about what to expect. Possibly I heard about Issam from someone at Cambridge Artworks where I had a […]
‘The Shape of Water’ and ‘The Shaping of Water’ and the Oscars
Films and books and Oscars There’s my first novel The Shaping of Water – and there’s the film – The Shape of Water – its quite strange when the title of your book is almost, but not quite, on the shortlist of the Oscars! If only! Add to that that there is a fascinating character called Oscar in my […]
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah
New Year in another country On New Year’s Day we fled from France across the snow-covered Pyrenees pursued by stormy winds and heavy rain. There we wandered along empty twisting roads among ruined and isolated stone villages and ancient monasteries in the brutal mountains of Spanish Aragon. In our hotel room the television showed no news and told no stories […]
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