Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have been writing since 2005. My first book was a collection of poetry entitled ‘Ybo’ and Other Lies’. It is now out in a new edition (I don’t recall how many editions it has had, Amazon say 13, I’ll go with that). I have also published a grammar book, a study on Dante and Coleridge, a collection of short stories and, most recently, my baby, ‘The Road to London’, a novel.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
‘The Road to London’, my novel, came to me in the strangest possible way: while dancing in a gay club in London, which I have now revealed to be Fitladz, where I am doing the first book signing. I used to go there every Friday; I was the first in and the last to leave. It was, and still is, the temple of ‘scally’ culture in London, possibly the world. Anyway, I always went with my best friend, my ‘sister’ as I used to call him, Stephane, to whom the novel is dedicated, and, suddenly, the first words of ‘The Road to London’ simply came to me. The whole novel wrote itself through me in that club, a chapter a night. I would then rush home and write it up.
Why did it come to me? It was a special time in my life, maybe one of the happiest, but also most painful periods in my existence. I was desperately in love, like I’d never been before (maybe with one exception) or have been since. It was a time when suddenly everything seemed to make sense: my whole life seemed to have a meaning, basically, I believed I had been put in this world to be with this guy I loved. It’s strange how love changes the perception you have of the whole world. ‘The Road to London’ is about that: how pain, suffering, bullying, life and even death make sense on a personal, but also cosmic level, if we see our life as a gift of love whose meaning is to meet one’s soul-mate and share love with him or her.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I do not write on command; I do not decide to write. Words tend to come to me, often at night, sometimes even during dreams (that’s why ‘The Road to London’ takes place partly in this world, partly in the world of dreams, and partly even in the after world, or, as I’d like to say, in our metaphysical dimension). That had always happened with poetry, but having short moments of elation when a poem comes to you is not the same as knowing for a long time that the Muse has decided to present you with a novel, and will be visiting you regularly and for many hours each time. When I write, I am in a trance. I don’t plan, I don’t organise, yet the structure of my work becomes clear to me, even if it is sometimes quite complex, while I am writing. I still write with a fountain pen, by the way, I don’t type. I find that writing by pen gives me a more visceral relationship with the words on the page. When I write, I hear the echoes of other writers in my head too: ‘The Road to London’ has many different voices from literature in it; I believe some readers are now looking for ‘hidden quotations’: well, they have hundreds to find out. But they are not hidden quotations, they are just the texts and authors who have influenced the texts I write who simply want to have their say. Having said this, you can read ‘The Road to London’ even if you don’t know these writers or you can’t spot their words. ‘The Road to London’ is easy to read: it has many layers of meaning, but it’s very reader-friendly.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I have read quite a lot, being an academic myself, and I would say that almost every book I read influences me. I’m not a writer, I’m a sponge, or a catalyst, Eliot would say. However, the deepest influence on ‘The Road to London’ is certainly ‘Wuthering Heights’. When I started it, the first voice that came to me was that of my great idol, and the King of Literature, James Joyce. I’ve always revered his genius, yet I noticed that the words that came to me had a feminine touch to them: they were in fact, Molly Bloom’s last words in ‘Ulysses’, ‘Yes, I will yes.’ I felt them coming with a feminine voice, so, although I feared I was about to write a sort of sequel to Joyce’s colossal novel, and I do mean it when I use the phrase ‘I feared’, slowly but steadily, like speaking through a veil, two other voices came to me: Virginia Woolf’s and Emily Bronte’s; I could hear the timbre of their voices, literally. Virginia Wolf started almost singing, I didn’t understand why at first, but once ‘The Road to London’ was finished I realised that she knows I am synaesthetic, and I see colours and shapes when I hear sounds, so, she took the lead in the rhythm and colours of ‘The Road to London’. Some readers have pointed out that there are paintings in the novel, and in fact there are, and every chapter has a specific palette. An art critic has told me on Goodreads that an Art magazine is doing a feature on how ‘The Road to London’ translates paintings into words. I owe that to the Queen of Literature, Virginia Woolf. Emile Bronte was whispering to me, with a very mellow and fluid voice; her words were not clear at the beginning, but grew with the novel, becoming louder and louder: ‘Stop looking at the mind, look at the soul…’ Eureka! Yes, of course, whatever subgenres we like to categorise novels into nowadays, there are two main genres in novels: realism and the gothic tradition, the former finalised with brittle and almost crystalline perfection by the Mother of the novel, Jane Austen, the second by the great rebel and ‘naughty’ Princess of Letters Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Yet, Emily Bronte has started a third great tradition, which Literature has not honoured: the spiritual novel. Certainly Virginia Woolf was influenced by this tradition (in her time consisting of only one author), yet hers was the time of psychology and psychiatry, and let’s be honest, Freud was not a great supporter of the idea of the soul (even if I see more Jung than Freud in Woolf), and his influence in those times was huge. When one reads ‘Wuthering Heights’ one can see the other side of the gothic tradition: we do not feel that the supernatural is alien to the human being, but its own essence: Katherine and Heathcliff share the same soul, they are one cosmic entity, despite having two different bodies. The gothic shows us the supernatural as opposed to the human, the spiritual novel says. ‘No. Humans are supernatural, and what we are fighting against is not the metaphysical, the supernatural, but our physical existence, its limitations, which stop us from being who we really are.’ This is the discourse that ‘The Road to London’ has reignited: the cover shows a picture of what is basically my face, yet transparent, and one can see the stars and the sky through it (if you look carefully, you can see the aura around the face). ‘The Road to London’ is, in fact, the story of a boy whose physical existence is his problem: he was born in a homophobic country, in a grey city, yet he becomes gay, and his dreams become part of his reality. He then takes to drugs, which we should not condone, but to the boy, they offer a vision into a world that is not the grey and soulless dimension of his reality. He then starts hearing letters he himself has written in a gay club in his future in London, all addressed to his great love, My Dear. These letters clearly do not exist, but they reflect the way ‘The Road to London’ was born, and also give the boy not only an insight into a possible future where he can be himself, both sexually and psychologically, but also the opportunity to ‘write his own future.’ The letters are very important in the novel: they are where the free will of the boy plays a crucial role in his life. The theme of flight, which may lead him into a world, represented by London, where he can be himself, has also links to a spiritual flight, a flight into the after world, which some readers have seen in relation to the dedication.
What are you working on now?
Well, I have a few projects going… I’ve gone back to my roots as a poet, and working on a collection of poems inspired by Art, some are already available, ‘Shadow Whisper’ for example. I am also about to publish a simple guide to the Romantic Poets, and I’m writing quirky short stories. Of course, deep beneath, there is my great dream of writing an epic poem.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I think the best method of promoting a book starts when one puts pen to paper. However, my favourite method is to let readers discuss them freely: they see many things in my books, some of them are of course, their own experience and creative perspective of them. But the books belong to them. There are some very interesting discussions on Goodreads: it looks like readers have had very different experiences of ‘The Road to London’: some like the fact that it deals with sex and fetish, others like the fact that it has a poetic style at times, others are talking about how it relates to Art or Music. My favourite comments are by those readers who say that ‘The Road to London’ has been a life-changing experience, lots of the readers seem to go back and re-read it, often soon after the first read. It is in many Goodreads ‘lists’ or charts voted by readers, and one that has really pleased me, though all do, is that readers have voted it number 20 in ‘books that are good enough to read twice’, that for me, shows that many readers have loved it quite intensely.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Be courageous; write something new. I mean, we know that it’s easier to ‘make it’ if you write a book that is similar to a best-selling book; but that’s like, let’s say, in music: anyone can write a cheesy pop song and be instantly recognised, make a few bob, then forgotten as soon as the next cheesy pop comes along. But who do we remember? Those artists who are in it for long run, those who dare to change, to invent new forms, new styles. You need to ask yourself why you are a writer; if the answer is to make money, then, be my guest, but if you really want to contribute to Literature, then be original.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I must say, this will sound cryptic, and it was to me at the time. Well, when I was a young lad, I of course, had a massive crush, well, let’s be honest, that was love, big time, on a school mate. It ended in tragedy, of course. I didn’t even understand that was love, I just thought the world had changed, I thought I was no longer myself. After a week of crying my eyes out, I went back to school; my Latin Teacher at the time stopped me on the stairs, I remember he was carrying an umbrella, yet is was June and in Italy, and he said, ‘There are things you cannot understand now, but one day you will.’ I found it very odd, very out of place given the situation. Only many years later his words came back to me and they made sense: don’t try to understand the whole of the universe, Fate moves in mysterious way, and his ways only become clear once all the intended consequences of a painful moment have come into being. I am not saying that the future is inscrutable, but that if we try to see it, it simply moves further and further in the distance.
What are you reading now?
I’m reading ‘Seelie’ by Sarah Luddington. I’ve just started it. I loved her Lancelot series as it always played with ambiguity, especially sexual ambiguity, and I love the Middle Ages and historical novels. Now she has written a gay urban romance, ‘Seelie’, I think this is a courageous move, going back to what I was saying before. I also re-read many of the classics on a regular basis; Dante is a daily read for me, in fact, I have the best edition of ‘La Commedia’ (in Italian) always on my bedside; I also have a copy of the very first edition of Carey’s translation of ‘Inferno’ on my bedside, and always Milton’s work and a few others.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I don’t know. I don’t decide. I hope Calliope will call upon me again to write. Certainly, I am not one who writes sequels. I know for sure though, that if she does, it will be to write something original and new yet again. What? I do not know; I am not trying to read the future, I’ll let the future speak to me.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Hard choice, but certainly ‘The Odyssey, ‘Dante’s ‘Commedia’ ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Ulysses’.. May I break the rules and add ‘Hamlet’, ‘Mrs Dalloway’ and ‘The Aeneid’? Just to remind me of the major steps towards becoming a human being…
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