Critiques en avant-premièreFranciska Soares

To my dear readers,

This novel is my debut into the world of fiction, after having achieved undreamt-of success in the world of non-fiction with my publishers Hachette of the UK.

The move has been influenced by an artistic impulse that has lain dormant in the years bookended by ‘life’ – the same life that has metabolized in a dark place and from which I have drawn on, now that it has ripened. It’s time for that exilic ideator, that person who has hitherto stood outside of, looking in, constantly cross-examining and pondering the questionable societal norms that exist, to come into her own, I decided. As a child and a teenager right up until my (teenage!) marriage I wrote and got some recognition – I have a letter from the President of India that says: ‘I hope you grow useful to the country’, which speaks to my fresh-faced, exuberant prolificity . . .

The time lag is what I draw on - the turning points, the high-noon's, the knife-edges, the quotidian - all of it experienced during my checkered life lived in three disparate countries: India, The UAE and now New Zealand; as well as my confusing (to me!) ethnicity (Portuguese, Italian, Indian, Kiwi). It is my intriguing ancestry that has urged me to write this novel. I remember snippets of conversations my parents used to have about someone who 'did not like sex'...

In returning to writing I have found my native language, one that has afforded me an ‘in’ to be in. Art, of which writing is one, is not a torch, it is said, directed at the root of things, but a subtle mist where the unseeable is revealed. This, my most Eastern of attributes, has helped me find my home.

My dear readers,

This novel is my debut into the world of poetry, after having achieved undreamt-of success in the world of non-fiction with my publishers Hachette of the UK.

The move has been influenced by an artistic impulse that has lain dormant in the years bookended by ‘life’ – the same life that has metabolized in a dark place and from which I have drawn on, now that it has ripened. It’s time for that exilic ideator, that person who has hitherto stood outside of, looking in, constantly cross-examining and pondering the questionable societal norms that exist, to come into her own, I decided. As a child and a teenager right up until my (teenage!) marriage I wrote and got some recognition – I have a letter from the President of India that says: ‘I hope you grow useful to the country’, which speaks to my fresh-faced, exuberant prolificity . . .

This lag is what I draw on - the turning points, the high-noons, the knife-edges, the quotidian - all of it experienced during my checkered life lived in three disparate countries: India, The UAE and now New Zealand; as well as my confusing (to me!) ethnicity (Portuguese, Italian, Indian, Kiwi).

This novel is one I've always wanted to write, ever since I heard veiled, intriguing, conversations my parents would have among themselves about some ancestor who 'didn't like sex'.

In returning to writing I have found my native language, one that has afforded me an ‘in’ to be in. Art, of which writing is one, is not a torch, it is said, directed at the root of things, but a subtle mist where the unseeable is revealed. This, my most Eastern of attributes, has helped me find my home.