Lennox Truman van der Put VAN DER PUT
I have wanted to be a writer from an early age. That aim was partly interrupted by a career in the marine insurance and shipping sectors of the City of London. During that time, I wrote articles in the trade press, and over a period of nine years, also compiled and self-published a quarterly subscription-directory of maritime events, subsequently selling the publication to Lloyd’s List/ Taylor & Francis Group.
In addition to scribbling down swarms of words, trying to be a worthy husband to a remarkable wife and a good father to three creative (now grown) children, I harbour a longing to be a street performer in the trouvere tradition, alas…
I’m driven by an urge to make stories, create characters, communicate ideas, and snatch my readers “into” the time and place of my stories. I admire C S Forester, Rosemary Sutcliff and Alfred Duggan, and write for adult readers interested in historical fiction.
Main Book - unpublished (but completed) manuscript
The Hermit & The Warrior
This is set in Northumbria in AD700. A young man in a bad relationship with his father escapes from Pictish pirates and is cast ashore, being found by a hermit. Despite persecution and battles, with help from a network of Celtic Monks, and a Byzantine Greek, he establishes a settlement. The story covers themes of forgiveness, faith and reconciliation.
Other Books beside The Hermit & The Warrior
in 2009 I wrote a travelogue (Crimean Diary: an essay in bemused travel): in English, translated also into Russian) and another in 2011 (In & Out of Odessa: 4 days & more in a life) also with short stories and a novella. These were privately printed in a limited circulation of 1,000-2,000 copies and distributed by a friend of mine.
I am working on two further books.
1. Fool, Mapmaker & King: a novel based on the lives of and relationship between two real persons: the Arabic mapmaker Ibn Al-Idrisi, and the Norman King Roger II in 12th Century Sicily. To avoid monotony there are two narrators, myself and a troubadour.
2. The Rabbi of Odessa: a A fictional character in the late 19th-early 20th century. Inter alia, he will survive a pogrom and, with the help of a British secret service agent, escape to Ottoman Palestine where who knows what awaits him. I don't.
