Prickly Pears is a collection of short stories that walks the line between brutality and beauty and exposes the tenderness inside pain and the violence hidden in love with fearless, poetic precision. What inspired you to write this collection?

I have had such a rigid past, that Prickly Pears allowed me to delve into experience and observation and write about it in a non-linear manner: Break chronological moments, break patterns in time and place and make something new. On top of all that came the culture in which I grew up in, that I rejected somewhat but writing has become the mediator between past and present, two countries, two cultures. Funnily, I could only write about all this here in France away from the other two places. The journey has been both instructive and healing.

There’s a dreamlike rhythm to your language. Which writers or art forms influence that musicality?​

There have been many like Winslow Homer in the visual arts. In literature, you mentioned Clarice Lispector in the review and I said Wow. Yes. She’s a tough read but well worth it, Rosario Ferré, Oriana Fallaci’s Letter to a Child Never Born, prose poets like Francis Ponge and Giovanni Verga’s tales. All blending truth, history and magical realism.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

I wanted to explore universal themes, love, violence to self, to others to animals but show that acceptance, hope, resilience and determination can co-exist and move us to a different, healthier and happier path.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?

Prickly Pears was a collection of pieces that were first published in literary magazines or anthologies. With my next collection, which I’ve just completed, the short pieces haven’t been submitted or published anywhere yet. I hope they will be accepted by a traditional publisher. In these stories, I experiment more with structure and format.

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