Authors Electric

                                                                                                                 Sailing to Chongqing*   Wednesday 29th August We are now looking out over the city from the big picture windows in the living room. We have just had the best Chinese meal ever at Xiheyaju - seven dishes in the centre and all dipping in with chopsticks, inexpertly in my case. Thursday 30 th  August   This is ever so slightly unreal – a life of sheer luxury, lazing in the gym and pool with the adjacent sauna and the hot and cold tubs. Today we wandered out for breakfast with Becky. She has quite an astonishing command of the language – this is a profound skill which she uses all the...

Several years ago I wrote a book set in an imaginary ex-USSR country, Karetsefia. It drew on my experiences in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. It was called Beware of Men with Moustaches . I had a lot of fun with it, and it was shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Prize in 2013. The story concerned a group of poets who have been invited on a cultural exchange, but it turns out there’s a hidden agenda. As the daughter of a Polish refugee I have always regarded Russia with suspicion – it’s in my blood. Nevertheless, I felt the time had come to see it for myself. I have O level Russian, but I got that fifty years ago, and was pretty sure I had forgotten it all! I booked the holiday some time ago, long before the events in Salisbury, and was bitterly regretting my decision. However, everyone was very nice, and seemed rather unaware that there was anything going on elsewhere. Moscow seemed friendlier than St Petersburg, although the cabin crew on the BA flight said it...