FEAST OR FAMINE

  Hermsprong, or Man As He Is Not  by Robert Bage (1796) is about London in the years following the French Revolution from an English perspective.   English novelist Robert Bage (1728-1801) began writing as a profession when he was 53 years old, and then wrote six novels in 15 years.  Hermsprong, or Man As He Is Not  is his last, and said to be his best, novel.   I found a second-hand softcopy of the novel in San Francisco Book Company, a bookstore established in 1997 in Paris.    The narrator is Gregory Glen, writing about Charles Hermsprong in the historical and politcal wake of the French Revolution.    In the community was the church rector Doctor Blick. The aristocrat Lord Grondale was ‘a tolerable complication of diseases’ who married a ‘lovely woman’ and had three daughters – one of whom was Caroline who lived with her aunt, Mrs Merrick. Mrs Merrick’s cousin was the opulent and respected married banker Mr. Sumelin. The younger of ...

  Dear Santa, How’s things with Mrs Claus and your helpers? Busier than usual, I imagine, given world events this year, so this email is just to let you know that a letter from me is on the way.   I’ll begin with my gratitude to you for putting a post box conveniently in my neighbourhood supermarket – and early too! You must know about the challenges I have with mail delivery. It was difficult writing to you from Afghanistan and Sudan, because, like you, I usually work over the festive season. What a surprise to see the post box! Red too, which, of course, is your colour! – not the typical French yellow post box.   Thank you also for having the intelligence to re-purpose the red post box. I see that the post box has EuR on the front (for Europe), instead of E II R after Elizabeth Regina the second – Queen Elizabeth – given the sad end to her long reign.    I’m writing to express my Christmas wish. I’d really like world peace this year, if you can manage it. More...

  ‘Sukarno, the Visionary’ is an exhibition in the Town Hall of the 6th arrondissement in Paris from 24 June to 11 July 2022.    Under the patronage of the Embassy of Indonesia in France, the Town Hall is displaying photographs of Sukarno (1901-1970) – born Koesno Sosrodihardjo – the first president of the Republic of Indonesia after the country’s independence on 17 August 1945.    Considered to be the ‘Builder of the Nation, he gave Indonesia a state identity and philosophy: PANCASILA (‘Five Principles’). Pancasila Day is observed in Indonesia on 1 June annually, commemorating President Sukarno’s 1945 speech known as ‘The Birth of the Pancasila.’    The exhibition retraces the key stages in the history of President Sukarno to make his legacy known to the French public.      MARTINA NICOLLS MartinaNicollsWebsite   Martinasblogs Publications Facebook Paris Website Animal Website Flower Website SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AN...

The Ardent Swarm (2021) is set in Tunisia from 2019.   Sidi lives in the quiet village Nawa in Tunisia, tending to his hives of 30,000 bees. One morning, all of them have been murdered, ripped to pieces. All of them. And not a drop of honey was left. The villagers believe that this is a curse. They are all affected – no honey to sweeten their tea.   Times were changing. The country was on the verge of its first free and fair elections, from the city to the rural villages. ‘The villagers were completely discombobulated. Most of them hadn’t even chosen their spouses, and now they were meant to choose who would govern them.’ Now, city politicians were visiting the  villagers, promising them electricity, free clothes, and even running water.     Sidi discovers his bee murderers: a mysterious squadron of vicious hornets. They knew the ‘barbarian art of war.’ Unlike bees that sting once, lose their stinger and die, hornets do not lose their stinger, so they...

Then the Fish Swallowed Him (2020) is set in Tehran, Iran, from April 2005 to 2009.   Forty-four year old Yunus Turabi has been a bus driver for 25 years, and in 2005 he is  accused of ‘acting against national security’ and detained in Evin correctional facility for political dissidents.    His mind returns to the 1979 revolution, the ousting of the Shah and the arrival of Khomeini, a year after the death of his own father. He reflects on the changing twenty-five years from freedom to repression: ‘Tehran deteriorated fast, right before my eyes.’ Even the last gardens of walnut and cherry trees are gone.    In the present time, the book is predominantly the conversations between Yunus Turabi and his personal interrogator Hajj Saeed, and the disturbing, interdependent relationship that binds them.    Saeed’s constant accusations are persistent in trying to break Turabi’s mind. Saeed goads Turabi by mentioning Turabi’s previous everyday routines...

  The Girl in the Tree (2020) is set in Istanbul, Turkey, from 2011 to 2015.   The narrator, a 17-year-old girl, climbs an old plane tree in  Gülhane Park to escape the violent protests and turmoil—after a suicide bombing. She hadn’t planned to; it just happened—she wanted to live, and not die on the streets. Now that she is in the tree, in a stork’s nest, alone and afraid, she plans to stay there until she dies.    A young boy, Yunus, who works at the nearby hotel, spots her. He asks her lots of questions, and wants her to come down, but she finds him annoying. He brings food, bandages, and books—and a fur coat. He tells her about his family. They begin to share views on democracy and try to make sense of their changing world.    From her tree-top home, her past haunts her, but she defiantly navigates social tension, loss, and love, while trying to survive in her chaotic new city.   There are peaks and troughs in this story, so it’s difficult to ...

MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of: Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the  author   of: Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).