Category: General

I started writing Kith at the very end of November 2018. I hadn’t particularly been thinking of writing a novel, though I had always enjoyed writing and had made many attempts at ‘novels’ as a teenager (now kept under lock and key and not allowed to see the light of day!). For the past twenty or more years all my writing had either been academic or verse. But early one morning I woke up with an idea in my head.

The initial idea centred around the thought that there must have been many people throughout history and throughout the world today who are somehow forced into a position of working for someone they cannot respect. Although slavery is still a very real problem in today’s world, it is not the only way in which someone might be trapped: financial or cultural considerations might come into play or other lack of opportunity. As I pondered this, the idea of Brinin was born, and he was born with the essential personality that developed throughout the novel. He is introverted, stubborn, intelligent, unable to suffer fools gladly and particularly unsuited to being under the authority of a man like Aculf.