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VOW is a novel about the struggle for democracy on a "South American"
island. South Chale is ruled by a military dictatorship that has divided
the country into four different racial groups, each strictly
segregated. On South Chale, Asians rule the nation, while whites and
blacks are treated as a subservient subclass.
Sheba is born into the most despised class of all, the mongrels, for
the mongrels blur the differences between the races. After seeing her
father persecuted by the State Security Police, Sheba vows to work for
the overthrow of the dictatorship
Their neighbouring island (Suntos) has become communist, but here
things are reversed, it is the blacks who rule over the whites and
Asians. When Sheba visits Suntos to investigated whether they should
seek the assistance of Soviet advisors, she finds a horror that is
beyond anything she could have imagined.
SHEBA'S VOW is a blend of fact and fiction. South Chale, where
the story takes place is largely an amalgam of Chile, Argentina, and
South Africa of the 1980s.
The novel is largely about a political and personal struggle to
find a way out of the despair and violence of dictatorships, a
reflection of world events during the period 1980-1995.
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I was born in the mid-1940s, and grew up in Sydney, since then I have lived in various cities in Australia.
I became interested in writing because I loved to read. I joined the local library when I was eight years old, and rarely stopped reading.
At the age of seventeen I was reading copiously, and at the same time I was wondering what career path I should take. I had already embarked on an apprenticeship as a telephone technician, but that was not where my head was. The work was okay, boring mostly, but many jobs are. It seemed mechanical, repetitive, and of little real value. In retrospect, I see that it was of value -- it was the hardware of the internet.
The problem for me was, that day to day, it was not connected with the greater world where my thoughts were. I was interested in the things that were shaping the world: history, ideas, philosophy, discoveries ... not just physical but mental discoveries, such as hypnosis, suggestion, psychology.
At 17 I had read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Brave New World, any number of books on the Occult/ Mysticism, and novels of all kinds. Unfortunately Ayn Rand and Occultism were never going to be reconciled to each other. Yet I could see value in both philosophies. (Just not at the same time!)
But in writing, it could all come together. I could explore ideas, and create characters who would be subjected to interacting with other characters. And I would be connected with books that I loved.
So that's why I wrote. That's why I still write. I write because I become passionate about contemporary history, about ideas, events, people.
As an example, back in the late 1970's I started reading newspaper reports about Vietnamese boat people who were fleeing the harsh regimes in Vietnam and Kampuchea, their boats were attacked by pirates as many as ten different times before they reached Malaysia. The women were raped, children thrown overboard, men murdered, they were robbed again and again, even their food and clothes were stolen by the pirates.
I began to gather information about the situation in Kampuchea and Vietnam. While Australian and American troops were in Vietnam, there were plenty of reporters, cameramen, and TV crews, but after 1975 their was little information getting out. But it did come out from the refugees fleeing.
And that became the basis of my book EXIT VISA.
There are literally more than a thousand books written about Vietnam in English. Unfortunately most of them were written by combat soldiers or journalists. They nearly all told the story from that perspective. Very few (in English) ever told the story from the Vietnamese point of view.
And that is what is different about my book Exit Visa. Although it is a novel, it was drawn from the lives of the oppressed. When it was being published (1989) the publisher asked me when I was in Vietnam. I said, I've never been there. He looked puzzled. But because I had never been there, I was able to write the novel not about my experiences, but about the Vietnamese experiences. It made a world of difference.
