I work for a cultural relations organisation and have been lucky enough to spend the last twenty years living and working in different countries around the world. I enjoy people and entertainments that make me laugh and make me think. Cooking, especially baking with my daughter, is probably my favourite way to relax.
This Speck of Land is a 47,000 word contemporary novel loosely based on the modern history of the Pacific island of Nauru.
Teo’s struggle to find his place in the world mirror those of his country, Tanualu, which has only recently secured independence and access to its own mineral resources after decades of colonial rule, but those resources are running out and the future of the island is not certain.
Over the past two decades, my work has taken me from South America to South Asia witnessing first-hand the impact of globalisation on developing nations.
I had already written an unpublished novel about the adventures of an unlikely pair in colonial India and I was looking for a more contemporary story and setting. My wife being barred from entering Georgia because she was Venezuelan led to my discovery of the history of Nauru. It is a tale of near genocide, resource stripping, UN recognition, financial deregulation, a failed West End musical, a diabetes epidemic, the War on Terror and the demonising of refugees. Powerful international forces have buffeted this tiny island but the common thread in western media narratives is not the resilience of its people, but their apparent ignorance and profligacy. This Speck of Land is an attempt to offer some balance to that perspective, by having the inhabitants of my fictional island, Tanualu, tell their own similar story.
