Site: http://www.peterdaviesbooks.co.uk/
Title: Scatterlings of Africa
1. What prompted you to write this book? How did you come up with the idea?
Even as a young boy I wanted to write, I enjoyed writing and teachers commended my writing at school. But my parents were not able to afford further education for me, so I had to find paid employment in industry instead. My ambition to write was put on hold while I built a career in business. It was a good move for me, but all the while I was thinking about what to write when I had the opportunity. Many years later, in my late fifties, I was able to take early retirement and begin the process of learning a whole new trade – how to write creatively. Including this learning process, Scatterlings of Africa took me four years to write.
2. Does this book have a special link to something that happened to you in your life?
Oh, yes; I was born and raised in Africa. Although I now live on the south coast of England, Africa is still in my blood – my very bones. There’s an old saying; “you can take the man out of Africa, but you can’t take Africa out of the man.” Scatterlings of Africa is set in Rhodesia, south-central Africa, during the 1970s civil war that eventually led to the country being re-named Zimbabwe. I fought in that war, and the opening scene is typical of what it was like in the Zambezi Valley at that time. Animals were still wild and free – not like the semi-tame animals you see in African Game reserves today. I had many encounters with big game; lion, elephant, buffalo and the rest during that time so I have tried to build the feeling of Africa as it was into my book. Loosely based on my experiences, Scatterlings of Africa has been described as ‘ a gripping suspense filled story with everything from war, and carnage to love and romance’.
3. Who did you dedicate this book to and why?
Scatterlings of Africa is dedicated to Lynn, my wife of forty years. We lived through the civil war in Rhodesia together, and she had to cope with our two young children alone while I was away fighting for the survival of our country. Now she acts as my chief supporter, and helps edit my writing.
4. How many books have you written?
Although I did quite a lot of non-fiction work related to the industries I worked in before I retired, Scatterlings of Africa is my first novel.
5. If you could pick out anyone to read and comment on your book, whom would you pick and why?
I especially aspire to approval from other authors, and have been fortunate in that Scatterlings of Africa has been rated by the American Authors Association as a ‘ Compelling Novel that reads like Non-fiction’. Within my own genre, I admire Bernard Cornwell, Wilbur Smith and others who I consider to be masters of the art; those are among the authors that I hope might also read and comment on Scatterlings of Africa one day.
6. What would you like your readers to get from this book?
First and foremost, I hope readers will enjoy my book. Described by one critic as ‘part action adventure and part love story…’ Scatterlings of Africa is a work of fiction and I wrote it to entertain. I also hope readers will learn something; most people are ill-informed about Africa – especially Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe. How come the people there are now on the brink of starvation, when Rhodesia used to be known as the “breadbasket of Africa”? My book is based on what happened there during the 1970s. What is happening now – all the pain and suffering of the millions – can be partly attributed to miscalculations and mistakes made by Western politicians and the media during the 1960s and 1970s.
7. Is this book part of a series? Any plans?
Yes, I’m working on my second novel right now. There’s still research to be done; even though I lived there and know my subject, you forget details from thirty or more years ago. I want my novels to be authentic, so that veterans and other experts can say ‘yes, that’s how it was; this author knows what it was like…’
8. What is your favourite part of the book?
That’s a tough question to answer; I enjoyed writing it all, but I suppose taking my readers into the viewpoint, right inside the head of my chief antagonist – the terrorist leader Comrade Captain Gadziwa – was the part I enjoyed most. What makes a terrorist do what he does? During the war, I was involved in the capture and interrogation of insurgents, so I had the opportunity to gain an understanding of their thinking and motivation. Many of the lesser terrorists were persuaded to abandon their former comrades and fight alongside Rhodesian soldiers, but the leaders were a different story…
9. Where can you buy this book?
Scatterlings of Africa is on sale through all the usual internet sites, including Amazon.com in the USA and Amazon.co.uk in the UK. A number of specialist sites offer the book too, including Zimbabweans Worldwide, Books of Zimbabwe, etc. On my website http://www.peterdaviesbooks.com readers can see more about Scatterlings of Africa, and read the first few pages before ordering it through the links that are provided.
10. Have you received any special comments back from any of your readers and can you share them with us?
There have been several, but two of the latest spring to mind:
Simon Barrett of Blogger NewsBook Review says “ Scatterlings of Africa is very well written, and contains some very disturbing themes, themes that ring so true in the world today. There are two quotes in the book that I found very profound, “The terrorists won” and “They became the scatterlings of Africa”. This is not the usual ‘run of the mill’ novel; it is something that has a power behind it.” What impressed me with this review was how Simon has grasped that what happened in Rhodesia more than 30 years ago still has relevance to terrorism today. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
Bill McDonald of the American Authors Association says “The writing is absolutely top notch. Davies captures the reader with a well-constructed plot, great characters and with just enough dialogs to add to the great narrative. The book is riveting and shows all the hatred and anger of that time and place. The book may not be politically correct at times but it fits well with what the author is trying to convey to his readers. The book will keep you reading late into the night until you finish it. It is highly charged with lots of action but the issues about relationships and other personal things bring us a stronger and a more profound look at the people in his book. The story is easy to read physically but emotionally it may stay with you long after putting down this book.” Well, Bill identifies that Scatterlings of Africa ‘may not be politically correct at times’, and he’s right. I wrote the story from the viewpoint of the people who were there and lived through it… It is people who have never been at the sharp end who set the agenda for so-called political correctness. With the benefit of hindsight some things could have been done better in Rhodesia; that is the case with almost any endeavour. Could the Romans have ruled the world better and prevented the downfall of civilization that plunged Europe into the mediaeval ‘Dark Ages’ if they’d done things differently? Maybe Pearl Harbour wouldn’t have happened if the Americans had been more alert in December 1941? I don’t happen to go along with current thinking on political correctness. One day I think we will come to regret much of what has been and is being done under the guise of political correctness. Scatterlings of Africa reflects what I saw and believed when I lived through those times. I make no apology.
11. Can you give us a 2-minute commercial about yourself so our audience can connect with you?
I was lucky enough to have lived in what was once a wonderful country, with little crime and where most people were happy.
When I was a child in the 1940s and ‘50s, my family lived in the bush many miles from the nearest town and I had only black friends. I spoke the local African language, ‘Ndebele, as fluently as I spoke English – possibly better. But we moved to areas where other languages were spoken and I was sent away to attend school. So through lack of use, I’ve since forgotten all but the most basic greetings in ‘Ndebele… It was an exciting childhood: I clearly remember my mother’s anguish when a small herd of elephants came through one night and wreaked havoc with her flowerbeds. That was an unusual event. But I often lay awake, terrified by the distinctive grating snarl of a leopard outside my open bedroom window as he prowled close by looking for a tasty dog or cat – or maybe even me – as a snack; and the row when he broke into the chicken run. It was too hot to keep the windows closed. Snakes abounded – everything from the huge, deadly black ma mbas, notorious for their aggressive nature down to the smallest adders; almost as deadly. I remember seeing a cobra once and it looked all of twelve feet to me, but my father scoffed at that and said it was ‘only’ about eight feet! I lived and worked a regular civilian life in many parts of Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia – now Zambia.
Later, in the army, I served alongside black Africans who had even more to lose than I did. These are the people I care most about today now that their worst nightmares continue into real life. As a white African with strong British connections, it was comparatively easy for me to re-locate out of Africa when things got bad. It’s not so easy for all those decent black African people – my former workplace colleagues and soldier comrades, who fought against the terrorist insurgents and tried to keep Rhodesia civilised. In 1970s Rhodesia, life expectancy was the highest in Africa – well over 60 years. Now it is 37 years for men and 34 years for women (see the World Health Organization statistics on Zimbabwe). No wonder there’s civil unrest. The (mainly white)liberals and socialist agitators who called for, and financed “freedom” for Africa – many of whom had never actually lived in Africa – mostly now live safe, comfortable lives in Britain, the US and other civilized countries. What have they done? Are they not ashamed of themselves?
Part of my mission is trying to make sure the rest of the world knows what happened in Africa and help prevent it happening again in other parts of the world. That’s why I am not considered to be ‘politically correct’.
12. What message would you give anyone who may be thinking of buying this book?
Buy it if you enjoy action and adventure with a difference, to quote – “ This is not the usual ‘run of the mill’ novel; it is something that has a power behind it. ” Look up the reviews on Scatterlings of Africa; they’re published on several book-oriented websites, including Amazon.com, which has seven of them – see www.amazon.com/Scatterlings-Africa-Peter-Davies/dp/0955440904 I think that most of the reviews are fair and will give readers a good idea of what to expect. I’ve also summarised some of the reviews on my website http://www.peterdaviesbooks.com.
Born and raised in Africa, Peter Davies served as a territorial soldier in Rhodesia from 1963 to 1975. He saw action, and took part in captures and interrogation. This gave him insight into terrorist minds, many of which were successfully encouraged to 'turn' and fight alongside Rhodesia's soldiers against their former comrades.
Davies write his novel, Scatterlings of Africa, using his own recollections of how the war was fought, and how it affected Rhodesia and its people.
