No self-respecting author born in Senegal and with a blog called, Teranga and Sun, should omit to pen a novel set in their birth place. I am pleased to have begun a historical crime novel partly set in 1970s and 80s Dakar.
Western Africa is a such a world apart from the last thirty-four years of my life in Australia. Yet now that I am currently living in France, so close to the place of my birth, the memories of Senegal have flooded back.
A wonder it is, don't you think, that just as I commence a new life in Brittany in the home of my French ancestors, I find myself drawing from an older life in order to create.
No surprises, given you have read this post's title. My new novel is called The Silence of the Pirogue. A pirogue, in case you are not familiar, is a slender traditional Senegalese fishing boat. It is beautiful and very common along the Atlantic shores. And that's all I'll say!
I have two other novels in progress, though one is purely at embryonic pen-free stage and its title has not been announced... Hint: it is partly set in a beautiful island and it takes place in 17th century France. D'Artagnan might just make an appearance.
In the meantime, I am eagerly applying the last beta-feedback edits to The Secret of Chantilly. I have made a decision to query agents and publishers and hope to find a home for it. Wish me luck. I do tend to keep my affairs secret but it is no secret that I aim to get rejected many times this year.
2020 is off to a good start. After ten years of erring, and wondering-where-to-grow-roots, it is wonderful to not be renting a home anymore. I feel as though the last six years have been incredibly intense. I lived a double life. By this I don't only mean that I was split between my corporate job and my writing job, but I also led the other double life; the one where I had a current Australian home and a potential French home, and everything I did and planned was aimed at leaving one and reaching the other. Who else plans, ever secretly, and for that long? Talleyrand perhaps. :)
Writers need their own quiet place, unburdened by the yoke of the landlord who so often corrupts any good intention one has to write from the heart. And I think artists need their space even more, so they may fill it with pretty things and remain inspired. This year, 2020, is the year I am no longer in transit; I have a place to call my own. I can fill it with books, art and paint the walls any color I wish. What a joy.
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