Tears, fears, longing, belonging and living.

Ruth HartleyApartheid, Citizenship, Colonialism, Creativity, Displacement, Family, Feminism, Freedom Fighters, Human rights, Identity, Justice, Migration, Poetry, Politics, Power, Race, Racism, Religion, South Africa, Southern Africa, Visual Arts, War, Zambia2 Comments

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 story of my stories — writing and publishing

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Books by Ruth Hartley, Creativity, Identity, Memoir, Poetry, Politics, Reading, Southern Africa, The Love and Wisdom Crimes, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, The White and Black Blues, Writing Process, Zambia10 Comments

The storyteller’s story It is time to tell of my own journey as a writer from the young poet in 1961 to the writer of today. It’s a story of both writing and publishing. I am in the process of publishing three more books right now. They are a novel, The Love and Wisdom Crimes, a memoir, When I was […]

My family and other writers

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Book Publishing, Books by Ruth Hartley, Creativity, Family, South Africa, The Love and Wisdom Crimes, Writing Process2 Comments

The unbearable lightness of writing I don’t like all Milan Kundera‘s novels but I did like his The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  I  joke about the lightness of writing, of course. Writing makes my spirit light even when it is an unbearably heavy task. Being part of a family is both heavy and light work. My daughter, Tanvir Bush, is […]

The German surrender & the East Africa Campaign 1918

Ruth HartleyPolitics, Power, South Africa, Southern Africa, War, Zambia5 Comments

Mbala, Zambia 25.11.2018 WW1 Remembrance Service           On Sunday in this remote part of Zambia a remembrance service will be held for those who died in the 1914-1918 war during the East Africa campaign. Here is a link to an excellent and brief history of it by Indy Neidal. Its really worth watching. Many people will […]

A hundred years of remembering the Great War

Ruth HartleyFeminism, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, War, Zambia9 Comments

The war to end all wars Tomorrow people in Britain will wear red poppies and visit cenotaphs, war memorials, churches and gravesides to remember those they will call the fallen heroes. In Germany they will carry Forget-me-nots, in France they will wear cornflowers. I will think of that song asking where have the flowers, the girls, the young men, the […]