FORCED TO MURDER, AGED 10
Independent on Sunday, New Review, 7th December 2008
I first met Ojok Charles in August 2006. I was travelling in Central and East Africa, specifically Uganda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. I was researching my novel, which is set amid the prolific brutality of the region, and I was looking for characters. Within hours of meeting Ojok, a fourteen-year-old with a pronounced limp and a heavy scar on the top of his head, I knew I'd found my human protagonist.
Independent on Sunday, New Review, 7th December 2008
I first met Ojok Charles in August 2006. I was travelling in Central and East Africa, specifically Uganda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. I was researching my novel, which is set amid the prolific brutality of the region, and I was looking for characters. Within hours of meeting Ojok, a fourteen-year-old with a pronounced limp and a heavy scar on the top of his head, I knew I'd found my human protagonist.
Read More >>>
CHILD SOLDIER
Roof, Shelter’s Magazine, Oct 2008
Imagine this. You are forced from your bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night, tied up and dragged off, half-naked and barefoot, into the wilderness. You are made to walk for twelve hours, then permitted to rest, but for no more than two hours, on hard ground, on a bed of leaves, in the dirt, damp and rain. You are not fed, just given water. And then you are ordered to walk again, for another twelve hours.
Roof, Shelter’s Magazine, Oct 2008
Imagine this. You are forced from your bed at gunpoint in the middle of the night, tied up and dragged off, half-naked and barefoot, into the wilderness. You are made to walk for twelve hours, then permitted to rest, but for no more than two hours, on hard ground, on a bed of leaves, in the dirt, damp and rain. You are not fed, just given water. And then you are ordered to walk again, for another twelve hours.
Read More >>>
GETTING IN PRINT - the need, the sweat, and just a little luck
Staple Magazine, 2008
Getting in print is damn hard these days, and you’re always going to need a little luck! If you’re not a celebrity – and preferably one that is a chef, model, singer, footballer, media pundit or talent show judge – then chances are you’re going to struggle. And even if you do manage to – to get an agent and convince a publisher to take a punt – you’ve next got to battle it out on the high street, a ruthless place where publishers and retailers increasingly tend to bet on just a few books.
Staple Magazine, 2008
Getting in print is damn hard these days, and you’re always going to need a little luck! If you’re not a celebrity – and preferably one that is a chef, model, singer, footballer, media pundit or talent show judge – then chances are you’re going to struggle. And even if you do manage to – to get an agent and convince a publisher to take a punt – you’ve next got to battle it out on the high street, a ruthless place where publishers and retailers increasingly tend to bet on just a few books.
Read More >>>
DON DON
Arena, 2007
When I set about writing my second novel I realized I had to get deep into the hearts and minds of two very different men – one, a brash and bullish American millionaire with a formidable appetite for self-gratification and excess; the other, a wise and noble Thai Buddhist monk who lives a life of compassion and restraint – and that in order to do this I had to, quite literally, become them. Imagination, though a critical tool for the writer, has its limitations: it does not enable him to get inside the bellies of his characters. For this, actual experience is required. The writer must attempt to transform himself, to live his characters’ lives, in order to capture the labyrinth complexity of their innermost natures.
Arena, 2007
When I set about writing my second novel I realized I had to get deep into the hearts and minds of two very different men – one, a brash and bullish American millionaire with a formidable appetite for self-gratification and excess; the other, a wise and noble Thai Buddhist monk who lives a life of compassion and restraint – and that in order to do this I had to, quite literally, become them. Imagination, though a critical tool for the writer, has its limitations: it does not enable him to get inside the bellies of his characters. For this, actual experience is required. The writer must attempt to transform himself, to live his characters’ lives, in order to capture the labyrinth complexity of their innermost natures.
Read More >>>
THE BROKEN-HEARTED
Roof, Shelter's magazine, Sep/Oct 2006
The plight of the homeless first really dawned on me when I was twenty-one and living in America. My friend, Justin, and I were fast running out of money and needed work: we’d prepaid the rent on a short-term let – a poky studio flat just big enough to swing a cat in – and had just a few weeks remaining before we were out in the cold. Well, at least we were in Los Angeles, we told ourselves, the sun is nearly always out in southern California. But, thankfully, work came in the nick of time.
Roof, Shelter's magazine, Sep/Oct 2006
The plight of the homeless first really dawned on me when I was twenty-one and living in America. My friend, Justin, and I were fast running out of money and needed work: we’d prepaid the rent on a short-term let – a poky studio flat just big enough to swing a cat in – and had just a few weeks remaining before we were out in the cold. Well, at least we were in Los Angeles, we told ourselves, the sun is nearly always out in southern California. But, thankfully, work came in the nick of time.
Read More >>>
BRITAIN'S FOREIGN BOSSES
Society Today, Vol. 1, No.3, Summer 2006
With a new world order where money is placed above all else, British corporations are increasingly looking beyond the Great Isle – to the international market of talented executives – in order to recruit the best person to drive up share prices and maximise profits: the candidate's professional competence and business acumen is judged to be far more important than whether or not he or she is native-born, a British citizen. A quarter of the FTSE 100 companies have foreigners at the helm, from an Indian American at Vodafone, to an Italian at Cable & Wireless, to a Canadian at Barclays.
Society Today, Vol. 1, No.3, Summer 2006
With a new world order where money is placed above all else, British corporations are increasingly looking beyond the Great Isle – to the international market of talented executives – in order to recruit the best person to drive up share prices and maximise profits: the candidate's professional competence and business acumen is judged to be far more important than whether or not he or she is native-born, a British citizen. A quarter of the FTSE 100 companies have foreigners at the helm, from an Indian American at Vodafone, to an Italian at Cable & Wireless, to a Canadian at Barclays.
Read More >>>
WHY ARE THEY BEGGING?
Society Today, Vol. 1, No. 2, Nov/Dec 2005
This is the question on our lips when we walk past a man or woman huddled in the doorway of a shop front like some desperate animal, wrapped in a dirty blanket clinging to it for warmth, hiding a face smeared with grime and shame, and clutching a polystyrene cup with a few coppers in it.
Society Today, Vol. 1, No. 2, Nov/Dec 2005
This is the question on our lips when we walk past a man or woman huddled in the doorway of a shop front like some desperate animal, wrapped in a dirty blanket clinging to it for warmth, hiding a face smeared with grime and shame, and clutching a polystyrene cup with a few coppers in it.
Read More >>>
IT'S ME EDDIE, BY EDUARD LIMONOV
Zembla, No. 9, Winter 2005
The obscure book I'd like to tell you about is Eduard Limonov's autobiographical work, It's me, Eddie (or, in Russian, Eto ia - Edichka). Limonov was the enfant terrible of Russian letters in the late '70s and '80s, an identity he openly welcomed. His purposeful, vigorous and flamboyant assault both on Mother Russia's sacrosanct literary canon and her moral consensus makes even Michel Houellebecq seem rather tame, even - would you believe - conservative.
Zembla, No. 9, Winter 2005
The obscure book I'd like to tell you about is Eduard Limonov's autobiographical work, It's me, Eddie (or, in Russian, Eto ia - Edichka). Limonov was the enfant terrible of Russian letters in the late '70s and '80s, an identity he openly welcomed. His purposeful, vigorous and flamboyant assault both on Mother Russia's sacrosanct literary canon and her moral consensus makes even Michel Houellebecq seem rather tame, even - would you believe - conservative.
Read More >>>
MY CURE IS BETTER THAN YOURS
Openmind, No. 117, Sep/Oct 2002
I'm 29 years old, a writer and film producer, and have suffered with anxiety and depression for the last eight years. I have had four major depressive episodes, where I have been unable to work and confined to my bed for periods of at least a week or more. And I anticipate more, not in the desperate spirit of pessimism, but rather in the quiet mood of acceptance. For this is the way I have been made, this is how I am.
Openmind, No. 117, Sep/Oct 2002
I'm 29 years old, a writer and film producer, and have suffered with anxiety and depression for the last eight years. I have had four major depressive episodes, where I have been unable to work and confined to my bed for periods of at least a week or more. And I anticipate more, not in the desperate spirit of pessimism, but rather in the quiet mood of acceptance. For this is the way I have been made, this is how I am.
Read More >>>
THE LIMITATIONS OF LYING ON THE COUCH
Human Givens, Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer 2002
I want to recount my experience of psychoanalysis in the hope that I can determine exactly how effective and therapeutic it was for me. Did it alleviate my mental distress? Did it make me feel less miserable? Did it make me happier? I do not conduct this inquiry solely in the spirit of a former patient's rebellion against his analyst. I am not just writing to make trouble with him and the psychoanalytic institution. Rather I make this examination because I believe that this psychological process, like any other, ought to be scrutinized and contemplated. It should be able to withstand the critic's eye, and even the contrarian's challenge.
Human Givens, Vol. 9, No. 2, Summer 2002
I want to recount my experience of psychoanalysis in the hope that I can determine exactly how effective and therapeutic it was for me. Did it alleviate my mental distress? Did it make me feel less miserable? Did it make me happier? I do not conduct this inquiry solely in the spirit of a former patient's rebellion against his analyst. I am not just writing to make trouble with him and the psychoanalytic institution. Rather I make this examination because I believe that this psychological process, like any other, ought to be scrutinized and contemplated. It should be able to withstand the critic's eye, and even the contrarian's challenge.
Read More >>>