Confessions of an Author

'   "I came to the city when I was a girl," said Rashi, folding her thin hands in her lap. Her voice was quiet but clear, her words sure. She had told her story many times, you could tell; the emotion was gone out of it, but the sentences were easier to say. Below us, in the street, someone was laughing.' Rashi was bought, for £100, by a man who promised she would be educated. Instead, she found herself forced to work in a brothel in the slums of India. She was trapped, with no means to escape, and nowhere to go. You can read more of her story in CLARA - A Good Psychopath? Can Clara, born with all the traits of a psychopathic disorder, help Rashi? She is selfish, glib, lies easily and manipulates situations to suit herself. But can those traits also be a strength?    All the characters are fictitious, all the situations are very real. The compelling new novel from Anne E. Thompson is uncompromising, sometimes uncomfortable, always exciting. An ea...

Writing About a Different Culture 2 It was with some trepidation that I began to write CLARA. I had recently returned from a visit to see the work of ActionAid in the slums of India. I had visited women who have incredibly tough lives, sat in their homes, listened to their stories, and it affected me. I wanted to tell the world what I had seen and heard, and weaving it into a story seemed the best way for me to do this. Over the next 18 months, I visited India several times. I contacted Tearfund, and they showed me the work they are doing amongst women in the Red Light District. I met women who had been trafficked, I chatted to sex workers, I wandered through slums. My eyes were hungry, as I absorbed what I was seeing. However, how does one write about a culture that is vastly different to ones own? Does an author even have the right to try and describe things that they have never experienced? Well, yes, obviously – otherwise all crime writers would be convicted crimi...