Mythological me – images from a memoir of childhood

Ruth HartleyColonialism, Family, Imagination, Memoir, Race, Southern Africa6 Comments

For a child, facts are fantastical and fantasy, factual Somewhere in my infancy, there is a thick green privet hedge, clipped and trimmed to right-angled perfection. It encloses a perfectly square empty space brimful of desolation. It contains no house, no people live there and it is nameless. Its eternal position is located somewhere inside the fortnight when my mythical […]

Storytelling in words and pictures and & what it means for history, fiction and our lives today

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Books by Ruth Hartley, Colonialism, History, Southern Africa, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Visual Arts, War, Zambia2 Comments

The importance of art and photos – Gallery 37d Lusaka Zambia Its wonderful when things come together to help enrich our lives and our understanding of the world. There is an art gallery in Lusaka Zambia – Gallery 37d – that is the home of the stART Foundation which supports Zambian artists. Apart from this important work they have been […]

The Tin Heart Gold Mine

Ruth HartleyBook Launch, Colonialism, Politics, Southern Africa, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Truth, Visual Arts4 Comments

I am delighted to tell you about my latest book! The Tin Heart Gold Mine is the story of Lara, a young and gifted wildlife artist. She lives and works in Chambeshi, a fictional African country whose increasing destabilisation by the Cold War results in riots and a coup attempt. Success has come early for Lara but she is not […]