Andree Roby

Regine spent thirty-five years in South London. Originally, from France, she currently lives in West Sussex, England. She writes under ‘Andrée Roby’—the pen name she picked up from her father, Andree, and her uncle, Roby as a tribute. She has been instructing languages privately for about twenty-five years in a Secondary School. As a language instructor, she is passionate about languages and the written words.

Her first novella, “Double Vision” – a creative crime drama, was published in January 2019 which later, was voted Book of the Month UK for April 2019 by the publisher, Tredition.

SangitaSwechcha from Sahitya Post talked to her about the literary journey and book publishing experience in the UK.

Sangita Swechcha (SS): When did you start writing? Tell us about your literary journey. 

Andrée Roby (AR): Studying Latin and philosophy at the Lycée in Paris, deep love of words nurtured inside me. As a very young adult, I wrote various articles while in France, usually on topics related to unfair happenings —as the culling of baby seals in the 70s. The hurt the ending of my first marriage brought to me in 2000 provoked me to write two poems that are included in my new book. Over the years, I wrote several poems and articles for magazines.

In 2018, I discovered flash fiction, writing under a thousand words, when I joined a Creative Writing Club. In October 2018, as encouraged by my daughter, I started writing my first crime drama, the ‘Double Vision’. My second book ‘A to Z of Original Poems, Flash Fiction and Short Stories‘, a mixed genre collection, was published during the lockdown in April 2020.

SS: Is English your first choice of language for fiction writing? Do you write in French as well?

AR: Having spent the last four decades in England, I imagine in English nowadays. The subtlety of writing comes to me more easily in English than in my native tongue, and I have not written a book in French yet. I think I would now struggle to convey the exact message in French. However, having been forced by my family and friends to publish a French version of my book, I have started translating the ‘Double Vision’ last summer. That has been painstakingly long. I am only a quarter to it since I am focused on writing my other books.

SS: I found your novel the ‘Double Vision’ fascinating. Tell us about its context and how you came up with the story.

AR: One weekend in October 2018, I went to my daughter’s, and during a dinner with her and her boyfriend, she persistently urged me to write. I had a storyline in my head, though I cannot remember vividly how it came into my mind. We brainstormed it that night, and once back home, I wrote two chapters within a week. After that I just wrote non-stop. I cannot divulge too much because of spoilers but the originality of the story of Vanessa, and what she has gone through, comes from my experience while living with someone who had the same tendencies as Vanessa. People who read the book will understand what I meant but I cannot spoil the plot for new readers. Then, once I had the core story written, I went back to it, adding plots and twists that came to me often when walking my dog.  The emotions expressed by the two main characters are truly based on my witness to similar emotions in the partner I lived with for four years.

SS: Tell us about your upcoming books and future projects.

AR: I am currently working on my third book ‘Failed Vision’, —a prequel to ‘Double Vision’ which I aim to launch this autumn. My fourth book will be of short stories.

I have learnt a lot as a writer in my writing process, and I think the ‘Double Vision’ would benefit from rewriting and making it into a bigger book. It is at the back of my mind to create a set of two stories.

My forte, I recognized, is to write flash fiction with a cliffhanger or a twist at the end. I thrive on that, as I believe.  Therefore, I want to write more. Researching most of the stories in my new book was very inspiring. For instance, the story ‘The Locksmith’ led me to learning about cunning people in 15^th century Britain.

SS: Tell us about your experience of publishing in the UK.

AR: I self-published my first book as I wanted it out on my father’s 89^th birthday. I did not want my book to be stuck with a publisher or an agent for months in the end. I finally chose a company called Tredition based in Germany. For I had seen the distribution was good and the printing costs were reasonable. Another important factor was that the formatting template of the book was easy to understand, and the cover designing software was simpler than on other sites. I designed the cover based on a photograph my daughter took for me. Again, it was a steep learning curve to get a cover that fits a crime book. Besides, Tredition distributes books through well-known online retailers without marketing.  However, they voted the ‘Double Vision’ as ‘Book of the Month, UK’ for April 2019, and advertised it on their website.

My second book ‘A to Z of Original Poems, Flash Fiction and Short Stories’ is exclusively available on Amazon as I published it through Kindle Direct Publishing. If you have little or no marketing budget, it takes a lot of time, creativity and resourcefulness to promote your book. However, I have been told that it would be easy to sell more once you have two or three books under your belt.

SS: How do you find reading translated literature? Any experience of it?

AR: I have recently read few Asian Translated Literature—some of the short stories and poetry from Nepal. Its charm comes from how different it is from the English style of writing. However, I felt that the translation of what I read did not do justify to the original writer. Some of them were too Americanized to enlarge the English market, and some words used were words that I had never heard before, or never seen in the huge volume of books that I have read during forty-two years. I have read all styles from Catherine Cookson to English classics, to novels and then crime fiction —my favourite of all. I have also read some books both originally written in English and translated into French. In this instance, most of the translated books I read were all right but often with lacking something. Translating my own work though has taught me that it is a delicate balance between staying true to what the author wants to express and the alternative language; using vocabulary, grammar and sentence construction in a way that is relevant.