A Bird in the House by Bronwen Griffiths

A Bird in the House: international novel by local author

Bronwen Griffiths is a familiar name to regular readers of Hastings Online Times. Over the years she has contributed short stories and poems. Back in February 2011, she happened to be on holiday in Libya when civil war broke out, and she ended up being airlifted out of the country by the Italian army. Like all good writers, personal experience feeds in to the creative process, and Bronwen’s first published novel is set partially in a Sussex town not unlike Hastings, and partially in Libya. HOT’s Erica Smith met up with Bronwen to separate the fact from the fiction…

A Bird in the House is about Ahmed, an 11-year-old Libyan boy who is living in an East Sussex town with his father, Mohammed. They left Tripoli three years ago, after Ahmed’s mother died as a result of being imprisoned for speaking out against Gaddafi. They are befriended by an elderly woman, Betty, who is looking after a little girl over the summer. As they watch the TV coverage of the civil war, Mohammed decides he must return to Libya to find his politically active daughter who has disappeared. Ahmed agrees to stay with Betty and Savannah when his father flies back to Tripoli. Betty had spent time in Libya (in the pre-Gaddafi era). Meeting Mohammed and Ahmed sets her mind on Libya again, and awakens memories of her own daughter, Eva, who was also a political activist.

Bronwen has been writing for about 15 years – and has lived in Hastings for most of that time. “I love writing flash fiction – stories of 100 to 500 words. Some of these have been published by Hastings-based Early Works Press”. She also writes poetry, and has written a previous novel which hasn’t been published. She is currently working on a third novel.

I asked Bronwen about her trip to Libya and whether it had inspired her to write A Bird in the House. She said that before she visited Libya, she already knew that she wanted to write a novel which included a father and son from another country, and their experience of the UK, but nothing had been planned beyond that.

“I went to Libya as part of a walking and sight-seeing tour. Whilst we sensed from the behaviour and conversations of our guides that something was wrong, it was only when I received a text message from my partner back in Hastings that I realised civil war had broken out and that we were in a potentially life-threatening situation.”

As a result of what happened, she has become much more engaged with the political situation in Libya – and other countries, including Syria. However, A Bird in the House is as much about the lives of the characters in East Sussex as it is about Libya – both past and present. Mohammed and Ahmed’s experiences are an essential part of the plot, but the depiction of 73-year-old Betty, both as an older woman and through her memories of her younger life, are equally important.

Since returning from Libya to the relative normality of Hastings, Bronwen has kept in touch with one of the people from the sight-seeing tour and has made friends with a South African woman living in Libya. She is learning Arabic and plans a return trip later this year. “This time I hope to actually get to Leptis Magna, the ancient Roman city which was where we were headed when we had to be air-lifted home!”

Meet the author

A Bird in the House is published by Three Hares Publishing and is available in paperback from Amazon for £6.97 or on Kindle for £3.08. Better still, at 3pm on Saturday 24 May at BookBuster in Queens Road, Hastings, Bronwen will be reading from the book and signing copies. Musician John Merriman will also be playing guitar. Why not go along, meet the author, and support your local independent bookstore rather than buying through Amazon!

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