When I learned that my debut adult novel, A Single Petal, had won the Local Legend Spiritual Writing Competition, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. And when I saw the review by Raymond Hume for The Writer (awaiting publication) I was deeply moved... even more so when learned he'd been inspired to complete a beautiful poem after reading the book:

'“There is beauty in everything, but a man may not always see it.” (Confucius/Kong Fuzi).

Since the success of Oliver’s Moon Rabbit, a story for children which celebrates Chinese culture, I’d been looking forward to this: his first novel for adult readers.

There’s an abundance of beauty in this book. Oliver won the Local Legend Spiritual Writing Competition Prize with it. I can understand why: it is a sensitive, poetic account of the faith, fears and irresistible forces within a community of peasant farmers, warriors, merchants, monks and noblemen, interacting with the central characters, a widowed village schoolteacher and his only daughter, and yet touching upon the future and fate of the Chinese Emperor and his Empire.

This novel is a fictitious account of lives in Tang Dynasty (7^th-10^th Century) China, but is a moral tale of much wider applicability to other times and places. It highlights tensions between an ethnic minority (the Miao people) and the majority Han Chinese, who have a different language, culture, and religion: animism versus Tao/Dao belief systems, the latter encompassing Chinese Buddhism. There is also the ubiquitous tension between rich and poor, both in terms of material wealth and wealth of opportunity and intellect.'

LOSS

A petal fell: it deafened me.

Its fading fragrance stifled me.

Shadows darkened, dazzling me.

Raindrops dripped, blistering me.

Senses sharpen, to fill the space

Of the lost-remembered loved-one’s place.

Seek forever, seek in vain,

A panacea for such pain.

Add a teardrop to the lake:

Bring its edge a little nearer.

Float a thought for the loved-one’s sake:

Make the petal’s progress clearer.

See, arising through the mist

In the breeze-blown petal’s same direction,

A blossoming the sun has kissed:

A lotus flower of pure perfection.

Raymond Hume.

Completed 22.11.12, inspired by a novel by Oliver Eade

called A Single Petal.

The story, set in Tang Dynasty China, was inspired by my love for my wife's motherland, as were my children's novels, Moon Rabbit and Monkey King's Revenge. Moon Rabbit was long-listed for the 2008 Waterstones Children's Book Prize and was one of the winners of the 2007 WAAYB New Novel Competition. My other children's books, Northwards (a dark eco-fantasy) and The Rainbow Animal (a fun fantasy) are set in North America where my eldest granddaughters live.

Back soon, but meanwhile some images of China: