In Chapter 1 of Rescuing Árni, I refer to Árni looking out for the puffins to arrive in spring. ‘“They will be early,” predicted the uncle whose name he shared, Árni Ólafsson Thorlacius. “The weather has been exceptionally mild.”’ I was hoping the puffins would be early when I visited Iceland in April 2023, but they […]

I have planted a pomegranate bush in my garden. It honours a special friend, Farida, whose lovely face is often before me. My latest book, Chosen: The Girl with Green Eyes, is about a fictionalised woman from Afghanistan, whose story is enhanced with pomegranates, balloons and kites. I hope you enjoy it. Your review is

Now released on Amazon, my latest book: Chosen: The Girl With Green Eyes. Following the cover picture, I am giving you a taste of the story. “She was the chosen girl, a famous face on a cover, a public portrait, unseen by her for twenty years. She was wary, a child without a choice, last

I never met Reesom Haile. At least, we did not meet in person. Nevertheless, I have become acquainted with him through his poetry about his homeland, Eritrea. In an understated way, Reesom was a protest poet, speaking out about the wrongs inflicted upon Eritrea by those who subjugated her and robbed her of freedom and

Chapter 5: The Men’s Marathon, Olympic Games 2016 ‘…Rain was falling as we went through the drill before the last major event at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games: the men’s marathon. We shed our tracksuits and attached transponders, little devices that measure times and splits, to our shoes. All of us, in our bright

A debate about cultural appropriation recurs in literary circles. I recall Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s List, debating it to himself. What did he know about the Jews and what they had suffered? The book should be written by a Jew, he reasoned, in the same way that a First Nations author should have written

One lonely Saturday afternoon in my apartment at the Bingham Academy compound, in Addis Abeba, I had reached that low point known to most writers. I had travelled to Ethiopia for several reasons, among them the yearning to find a story – a really good story. I hadn’t found it and soon I would be

As I write this blog, Ethiopia is engaged in a civil war. By now the world will have heard of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Tigray, Mekelle, Sudan, Asmara and other names in the news. No matter how closely you follow the conflict from afar, you cannot be sure of the facts as they vary from

The question was posed by a young Ethiopian man after he had attached himself, uninvited, to our small party at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa. The question seemed rather incongruous after leaving the church where the tombs of Emperor Haile Selassie and his wife, Menen Asfaw, had been viewed. The grand mausoleum was