Welcome Dianne A. Noble. Instead of our usual interview, Dianne talks
about her books…
OPPRESSION
The first time I saw Egypt I was seven years
old and sitting on the deck of the troopship Dunera with my head buried in Enid
Blyton’s Ring-o-Bells Mystery. I looked up when we docked in Port Said to see
the gully-gully man. He was an Egyptian magician who fascinated everyone, young
and old alike, and accentuated the other world atmosphere of this exotic
country. As we sailed down the Suez Canal—much narrower than expected—Lawrence
of Arabia figures seated on camels appeared on the desert banks. I can truly
say Egypt was the first place interesting enough to get my head out of a book.
Three years later, in December 1957, the Canal
had been closed, and we flew back from Singapore in an RAF Hermes plane. The
journey took almost three days, stopping in several countries to re-fuel and
de-ice the wings. This time there were no hot and vibrant sights and I didn’t
see Egypt again until I reached my early forties, when I travelled by train
from Cairo to Aswan, glued to the windows as we passed by villages which looked
like they’d come straight from the pages of the Bible. My lifelong love affair
with Egypt had begun, and I’ve been back many times. The last time, I visited
the City of the Dead in Cairo, a necropolis which features in Oppression and
houses many poor people.
This novel is the story of Beth who prevents
the abduction of a young girl in a North Yorkshire town, but is powerless to
stop her subsequent forced marriage. In time to come Beth travels to Egypt to
search for the girl, Layla, and finds her living in the City of the Dead.
Oppression is the tale of two very different women, both of whom are oppressed
in their lives, and how they triumph despite the odds.
Outcast and A Hundred Hands
Ten years ago I volunteered to spend a winter
teaching English to street children in Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, in India.
While there I realised what it is I love about the country—it’s the people.
Despite great deprivation they laugh and are joyful. This time in Kolkata
proved to be the hardest thing I have ever done. Broken, crumbling buildings
sit amid lakes of raw sewage; filthy children encrusted with sores are
homeless; families live on a patch of pavement so narrow they take it in turns
to lie down. They give birth—and die—there. Yet their indomitable spirit shines
through.
I feared I couldn’t do it, felt my resolve
dying daily amid the horrors and hardship, but I started writing a journal and
it saved me. Every night, no matter how dirty and exhausted I felt, I recorded
one child’s progress with the alphabet, another’s disappearance, how many times
I’d been hugged. It was a form of de-briefing but also cathartic. It got me
through and these diaries formed the basis for A Hundred Hands and Outcast.
India remains my favourite place in the world,
and I re-visit whenever I can afford it. I have often thought about living
there and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
rekindled that desire!
OPPRESSION
The Plot:
When she tries
preventing the abduction and forced marriage of 16-year-old Layla, Beth defies
her controlling husband, Duncan, and travels to Cairo where she finds the girl
now lives in the vast necropolis known as The City of the Dead. She’s hiding
from her abusive husband, and incites fellow Muslim women to rebel against the
oppression under which they live. Beth identifies with this and helps her.
Cairo is in a state
of political unrest, and Beth gets caught up in one of the many protests. She’s
rescued by Harry, who splits his working life between Egypt and England, and
they fall in love. When Harry returns home and Layla vanishes, someone stalks Beth,
and threatens her with violence. And then Duncan turns up...
Excerpt
She woke in a fretful
tangle of sheets, head thumping, hair plastered to her head, wet night shirt
moulded to her body. Where am I? Her
gaze moved from the window to the puddle of discarded clothing and she
remembered. Of course. Egypt. Leaning
over the side of the bed to retrieve her slippers, she held them at arm’s
length and shook them, then pulled them on and got out of bed.
Sitting on the toilet with
her feet in the air, she kept a watchful eye on the floor tiles but there were
no more insects to be seen.
The shower worked first
time. Maybe they turned the supply off at night because of water shortages. She
let it run over her, washing away the stale perspiration and dirt, rubbed
shampoo into her hair, rinsed it out and stood longer. How wonderful to be
clean again. With a sigh of pleasure she eventually turned off the water and
looked round for the towels. There were none.
She sighed. Looked like nothing was going to be simple. She dripped her way
into the bedroom and dried herself on a couple of T-shirts.
By the time she’d dressed,
sweat again bubbled out of every pore. Looked like she’d have to learn to live
with the noisy A/C as well as permanent electric light. Her clothes smelt of
mothballs after a night in the wardrobe. Pity they didn’t work for cockroaches.
She looked in the small mirror over the basin and ran a comb through her hair.
The lump on her temple had receded leaving a swirl of purple and yellow.
Right, almost ready for
breakfast. Her stomach rumbled in agreement as she walked to the window. The
shutters were stiff, the catch rusty, reluctant. Perhaps they weren’t meant to
be opened, but kept closed against the sun. With a small explosion of dust and
rust flakes, she pushed them free and felt heat on her face, smelt donkey dung
as she looked down on the heads of a hundred people milling round, women in
headscarves, men bareheaded, black hair gleaming in the sun.
She craned her neck to see
small wooden shop fronts looking like cabinets with shelves. The noise was
ferocious: people shouting, donkeys braying, a motorbike backfiring. Across the
alley, on the roof of a narrow ochre-coloured building a woman pegged out washing,
her small child playing perilously close to the unguarded edge. Beth’s arms
prickled with heat as she watched, until a triumphant bluebottle shot through a
hole in the insect mesh and she quickly pulled the shutters closed, remembering
just how many flies there were in Egypt. She’d have to buy a swat today.
Fastening on her
wristwatch, she checked the time. Ten to nine. She hoped that she wouldn’t be
too late for breakfast. It was going on for seven o’clock at home and she was
glad not to be there. Instead she was
happy to be starting out on her first day in Cairo.
Contact
Dianne At:
Website: http://www.dianneanoble.com
Twitter: @dianneanoble1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dianneanoble
Buy Links:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071KY8BJ8
