Today we talk about Blue Dunes, a book by Karine Leno Ancellin published with our publishing house Europe Books.
Europe Books had the pleasure of interviewing the author Karine Leno Ancellin to get to know her better, where she found the inspiration to write Blue Dunes, as well as how she describes her writing style.
Below you can find our interview. Take a seat and enjoy your reading!!!
- Where did you find the inspiration to write your book?
Well, already in my youth I had developed a sharp sensitivity to the voice of the oppressed, as I had found myself rather alone, not completely abandoned but without a room to call my own. So, I was a rebel of sorts [laughs] and identified with Che Guevara, Bob Marley, the Jewish people, Aung San Suu Kyi and others standing for their rights and we had a large choice of voiceless in the 90s! Then when I was a journalist in West Africa, I heard about the Tuareg people and their struggle for freedom and Azawad, the independence of their territory. Immediately I was passionate. Therefore, my first writings on the Tuaregs were journalistic articles. That said, news about armed conflicts can be misleading whereas I wanted to delve deeper into this cause, understand it better and thus I was inspired to write this book set over a period of 30 years.
- What is the message you want to send out with your writing?
The message I want to send out is that peace in our world is a very difficult situation to attain, yet some justice or balance must be found between the colonial countries and their colonial subjects, the subalterns as Gayatri Spivak puts it…. I would like my book to help find collaborative justice for people deprived by neocolonial exploitation. We can’t go back in time, I know, it was an illusion I had nursed to keep the romantic Tuareg lifestyle perennial, but there is a decent human standard to live by. This is the backdrop on which my novel’s story is imagined, to reach a compromise before it spirals down in deaths and terror. It’s a form of collective suicide that drowns civilisations, like the phoenix, every time there is hope for peace and nothing is done, more killing resumes. When you lose hope, then you are left with really nothing to lose and you’ll give your life for any kind of ideal. It’s a vicious cycle and my message in this book is to find ways to stop it.
- How did your passion for writing start?
It comes from way back, as I was often a lonely child, I have always written journals, or commonplace books, not exactly diaries but notebooks with writings or clippings about what I learned from what I read, taking notes about new words or new authors or simply what a friend had said, or a thinker, etc.. I was avid to understand the world and writing was my way to help that process. Then I stopped writing during my late teens as I was going through a very difficult period. It’s a void in my evolution. Then I met my journalist husband, and he opened me to a new world that prompted me to write again…There was a possibility to live by different values than the ones I was taught in boarding schools and other dry places. So, I wrote about my passion for the Sahara Desert, for this lifestyle so remote from anything I knew. I delved in with words, as I was studying sociology-anthropology in Paris, I worked on desert traditions such as geomancy, transhumance…. For instance, I wanted to save the poems that guided shepherds in the desert….I wanted to share my epiphany with the world, consequently I also became a journalist to do just that!
- How was your publishing experience?
Beyond journalism, my first publication was a sort of handmade book, as I had collected and translated Saharan myths and tales. Then I started to publish my poetry, first in magazines and then I had a collection, and another, etc. I also wrote an anthology, because basically I really love to write and discover the world through writing. Now for this book, my first novel, I had no idea how to proceed and I must say it went relatively smoothly because I got accepted by various publishers, and then I selected my favourite one: Europe Books. Considering the present administration in the USA, I wanted to change from my previous American publishers. As a fervent European I wanted Blue Dunes to speak to an audience informed on the subject and I thought the UK was the best place for this, to radiate all over Europe and from here to the USA, of course, because this is where I am from.
- Are you planning to write more books? Can you tell us more about it?
I cannot live without writing, it’s the oxygen that keeps me going. So yes, I have two other books in the pipeline, right now. One is almost finished, and is the life story, in the form of a semi-fantasy biography, of a psychedelic Pop Star from London in the 70s, who formed the band Nirvana UK. It’s the story of an era and quite colourful! The other is a sequel Anthology of Greek and philhellene poetry within the framework of the association A Poets Agora, I cofounded in Athens with Angela Lyras. Then, I have another novel project, that I have barely started, it is set diachronically in Greece and the USA but at this point my imagination is raging.
Europe Books thanks the author Karine Leno Ancellin once again for taking the time and answering our questions. We are really pleased to have walked alongside her on the editorial path that led to the publication of her book Blue Dunes. We wish her the best of luck for his book and for her future works.
To you, my readers, may this book make you reflect on justice and provide you with food for thought to apply in everyday life.
So, my dear readers, all I have to say is to enjoy your reading!
Your editor!