I tend to write inter-generational stories that can be read on different levels, so I have late teen characters too, who are hardened to the system. Shifa and Themba are eleven–the age at which children are sent away to farms until they’re sixteen. It’s up to readers to decide how far in the future. Is the location fictional, and if not, where does the story take place? What is the age group of the children in the book? Mary: Where the River Runs Gold is a story set in the future. I think if you open yourself to tune into the times you live in, then let your imagination roam, stories grow in you. For me, writing is like a constant treasure hunt of the imagination. It’s as if, in reaching for a story, the real world keeps offering you gems to keep you inspired. When I wrote Kite Spirit, in which owls are featured, I started seeing owls everywhere, even on an early morning run through a city park. When you immerse yourself in a world, things in the real world are constantly chiming with your stories. It was such a magical moment when that group of young women came to the book launch (set in an ancient wood in North London) and read from the story. Similarly, consulting with a group of students from Somali Refugee backgrounds allowed me to build the character of Aisha in the same story. The character that emerged from this interaction was Kezia, in Tender Earth. The next year was spent holding writing groups with this young woman to find a story she was proud of. When talking about the inclusion of a wide range of characters from very different backgrounds in my story Red Leaves, a young woman with cerebral palsy, using a wheelchair, came to me and asked me to include “someone like me” in one of my stories as a central character. As part of the process of writing I always include a research period or time when I share the ideas and a few chapters of whatever I’m writing with potential readers. Can you talk about your favourite experiences writing these novels? Mary: You seem to be a prolific children’s and young adult author, and your previous stories include a series following young teen Mira Levenson as well as a dozen other novels that cover real issues that teenagers face when growing up. Interview with Sita BrahmachariĬhatting with Sita about this novel (and she writes other children and YA/teen novels that are environmentally based!) was a pure delight, and I thank Sita so much for her time and in-depth discussion. The journey ahead is fraught with danger, but Shifa is strong and knows to listen to her instincts–to let hope guide them home. But they have no idea where they are–their only guide is a map drawn from the ramblings of a stranger. Themba won’t survive there, and Shifa comes up with a plan to break them out. The farm Shifa and Themba are sent to is hard and cruel. But Nabil remembers before, and he knows that the soul needs to be nourished as much as the body so, despite the risk, he teaches his children how to grow flowers on a secret piece of land hidden beneath the train tracks. The bees have long disappeared instead, children must labour on farms, pollinating crops so that the nation can eat. The few live in luxury, whilst the millions like them crowd together in compounds, surviving on meagre rations and governed by Freedom Fields–the organisation that looks after you, as long as you opt in. Shifa and her brother Themba live in Kairos City with their father Nabil. But she told me that Meteore mountain–meaning between earth and sky–was inspired by Meteora in Greece and that the Kairos Lands also take their name from Greek mythology. This month we look at Sita Brahmachari’s novel Where the River Runs Gold (Waterstones, July 2019), which takes place in an everyland, according to the author. Adam Kirsch, The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century The local gains dignity, and significance, insofar as it can be seen as a part of a worldwide phenomenon. Life lived here is experienced in its profound and often unsettling connections with life lived elsewhere, and everywhere. In this way, it is faithful to the way the global is actually lived–not through the abolition of place, but as a theme by which place is mediated. The global novel exists, not as a genre separated from and opposed to other kinds of fiction, but as a perspective that governs the interpretation of experience.
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