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‘Writing is like removing your own appendix with a pair of rusty scissors’ – Mark Winkler chats about his new book Theo and Flora
More about the book!
Mark Winkler discusses his new novel, Theo & Flora, and why writing is like performing surgery on yourself.
Winkler sat down with Penguin Random House to chat about his writing life, and to share some (humorous) advice for those thinking of writing a book.
‘The benefit of being a South African writer of literary fiction is that I’m not going to get rich or retire on the income, and that gives me the freedom to write just what I want to write,’ Winkler says.
‘Theo & Flora is my fourth book, and all of them have been written mostly on weekends, late at night, waiting for flights, in the ten minutes it takes a meeting to start.
‘The most difficult part about writing is trying to find the time to do it, especially when you have a daytime job in the ad industry, which tends to sometimes be a nighttime job and and a weekend job as well.
‘People will often say to me, “I think I’ve got a book in me, I should sit down and write it.” My advice would be to leave it exactly where it is, because to get that book out of you is like removing your own appendix with a pair of rusty scissors.’
Click on the link above for more about the book.
Listen to what Winkler has to say about his new book:
When novelist Charlie Wasserman’s wife Sascha divorces him, he finds a box of letters among the belongings his investment-banker wife did not care to remove when she signed over their house and asked never to be contacted by him again. Written between 1940 and 1944, the letters expose a love affair between Sascha’s grandfather, Theo, a forty-something lawyer, and Flora, a much younger journalist. The letters spark an idea for a novel, even though Sascha had, via her lawyers, asked Charlie to destroy them. All the while the story of Theo and Flora’s lives unfurls, always against the backdrop of the 1940s and what it meant for Jewish people across the world. Theo & Flora is a delight to read: skilfully constructed, fluidly written, witty and entertaining, with, at the same time, a poignant undertow of sorrow and loss. The writer has a keen eye for detail and a droll way with language, creating a novel that is often laugh-out-loud funny, yet the humour is rooted in a humane, compassionate conception of character that deepens and complicates it.Theo & Flora by Mark Winkler Author is now available: http://bit.ly/2zvkhGK
Posted by Penguin Random House SA on Thursday, November 1, 2018
Categories Fiction South Africa
Tags Interviews Mark Winkler Penguin Random House SA Theo and Flora Umuzi Writing Writing Advice Writing Tips
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