Why read a book (let alone write one)?
There is a YouTube clip called Medieval Helpdesk, in which a monk is showing another monk how to read a book. It reminds us that every innovation is a new technology at first. The video underlines for...
View ArticleMrs Engels and me
Before writing my first novel, I had some very clear ideas about the kind of book it wasn’t going to be. It wasn’t going to be a) extensively researched (because ‘research destroys art’), b) set in the...
View ArticleFilthy treasures at Flower Island
Bugeye heard indistinct chatter around him in his sleep, but decided to stay curled up and ignore it. “Wake up, honey,” his mother said, pulling the blanket off him. “It’s time to go to work.” She...
View ArticleA dream of good fortune
“When he’d heard the name ‘Flower Island’, he thought they were going to some paradise overlooking the ocean” – with not much more than these words, a thirteen-year old and his mother must choose...
View ArticleBack to that place
José went in a car with two plainclothes policemen. I went in another with the detective and a muscular man covered in tattoos. The vehicle I was in drove slowly, up the same road that a few days...
View ArticleA fresh start
Dinah Glover arrived in Tokyo to take up residence in a block ambitiously named Maison du Parc. The building was surrounded by concrete and clad in more concrete, pink and stuccoed. It was long and...
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