Month: October 2023

Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was the first book that made me angry, made me cry, and made me question racial injustices. Why would anyone write a book with such an unhappy ending? I asked myself. Life for the protagonist, Tom, was endurable. His master, Mr Shelby, was a kindly man, but a businessman who accumulated…

As a child, I recall a strange ornament an old lady had on her mantle. It was three monkeys. One with his hands over his mouth, the other with his hands over his eyes, the other with his hands over his ears. It wasn’t the fact that they were monkey I thought strange. It was…

There are moments that dance in my head throughout life. Like the Northern Lights, they appear uprovoked, they are just there under the surface and enter my thoughts univited, but welcome, and that’s the way it should be: Fleeting Moments I was driving from Gothenburg to Stockholm with my son and his two friends. We…

Like most days for the past four years, I sit to write. The blank page often remains blank, presenting me with feelings of anxiety. This can be more acute when writing to the clock. I feel the empty page taunting me. Sentences surface and audition before me. I do polkas with structures. I hope for…

A friend asked me, “Who is your favourite character in literature?” “Oh, that’s a difficult one; it’s like deciding who your favourite child is,” I replied. “But, let me think… there’s Lucy Pevensie in Narnia, Boo Radley in Mockingbird, Hans Huberman in Book Thief and then I read Striped Pyjamas last year and Bruno impressed…