Anna Perera tells Michelle Pauli why she’s written a novel about Guantánamo Bay for teenagers.
‘There were times when I didn't want to write it but had no choice,’ says Perera. ‘I wasn't in a state of fury – each day, before I wrote a single word, I meditated and detached from the subject I was writing about. It worked for me because it opened me up. Writers inhabit a space between two worlds; in order to write well you have to go into that space between those two worlds, not always writing consciously. You're opening your mind and allowing words to arrive and that's how I worked on this book. It was the only way I could write about this subject and be at peace.’ – from "Guantánamo for Kinds," by Michelle Pauli, The Guardian