Today we talk about Drift, The Awakening, a book by Iria Enahoro published with our publishing house Europe Books.
Europe Books had the pleasure of interviewing the author Iria Enahoro, to get to know her better, what are the crucial themes of her book Drift, The Awakening, as well as how she sees herself in the protagonist of her story.
Below you can find our interview. Take a seat and enjoy your reading!!!
- What are the crucial themes of this novel?
There are few critical political themes that come to the forefront when reading this novel but diving deeper beyond the surface, the crucial themes described, relate to interpersonal dynamics between the characters as a result of living in a world post war. Other themes include love and everything that flows from it, such as forgiveness, hope and redemption. I tried to bring forth different forms of love within friendships, intimate relationships, and comradery, — what it means to be loyal and steadfast in one’s own convictions without betraying others. I chose a broken society to show how much impact the pressure of the external world can have on how the character of a person is formed. If the world is broken, so are the people. At times I use poetry to convey other central themes that are more sensitive to talk about. In that way, the reader can extract meaning out of them for personal use without portraying a solution set in stone, as everyone deals with similar traumas differently. From the first few pages of the book, the reader is confronted with the main theme that connects all others, which is the search for identity. However, before I start to write an essay about my own novel, I’d suggest to the reader to discover those themes by themselves.
- What do you want to communicate to readers with this work?
This book is specifically targeted at my generation, the Millennials. I wrote this book initially because it is a book that I wanted to read myself, where people of my age group are accurately represented. What I mean by that, is to show the struggles of our generation to fit into society as it stands today. Other struggles include drug use, the journey of finding out who you are, how to form your identity amidst world crisis’, how to deal with traumas and engage in intimate relationships even through many of us can relate to feeling broken and lost. What I want to communicate to the readers is that despite external troubles we can find strength by loving others as we love ourselves and that no matter where life takes us or on what journey we are on, there is hope for redemption, healing, and reconciliation passed our pain.
- How much of you is there in the protagonist of the novel?
I share a few characteristics with Carmen Aicher. She is fun, impulsive, loud-mouthed, with a sassy temperament, and although at times over-exaggerated, my own personality has cooled down a bit over the years. What I love most about this character is how much of my own cultural experiences I get to write about when I dive deep into the psychology of all characters in general, not just Carmen. Theo is another protagonist that I really enjoyed writing from the male perspective. I had a lot of help from my male friends who share similar characteristics to bring this protagonist to life. Theo’s personality shows a slight contrast to Carmen in the way he perceives the world from a Christian standpoint even though he falls short as we all do. Most, if not all characters’ personalities have aspects of existing people I know, but for the sake of keeping the mystery alive, I leave it up to the reader to distinguish between fact or fiction.
- How was your publishing experience?
To be honest; a rollercoaster of emotions. I have dreamed about this moment for a long time as it took me a decade to figure out my creative voice to tell this story. It is still surreal to me that I finally arrived at this moment to bathe in this achievement. It still hasn’t fully hit me that this is truly happening, but I am glad it has. I am excited to continue collaborating with my Publisher and grow in the publishing experience. Of course, there still a few things I would like to improve once my next manuscript is ready for publishing, but all in all, it has been a pleasant if not nerve-wracking experience.
- Are you planning to write more books?
Yes, absolutely! This debut novel is book one in a trilogy. I am also working on a few other projects, including a tv-show and a collection of poetry pieces. There are a few shelved manuscripts collecting dust, which I intend to polish over the next few years, but as for Drift, book two is already in development. I enjoy mashing up genres the most! Especially when it comes to intuitive crossovers to enhance the storytelling techniques, and to bring about the depth of emotions so that the reader is taken along with the characters on a rollercoaster journey throughout their lives. There are a few projects which are already halfway done, some of which I am highly contemplating on finishing. Those titles include “Republic of the Dead”, a post-apocalyptic zombie horror, thriller, comedy, love story from a Christian lens. Another title in the works named “New Babylon”, is also another post-apocalyptic, science fiction adventure that I had a lot of joy creating. Perhaps one day you will see these titles in the bookstore, but for now my priority is Drift and the continual development of my TV-show “The Collectors”, which I am extremely passionate about and driven to bring to your screens at home.
Europe Books thanks the author Iria Enahoro once again for taking the time and answering our questions. We are really pleased to have walked alongside her on the editorial path that led to the publication of her book Drift, The Awakening. We wish her the best of luck for her future works.
To you, my dear reader, I wish that this book about the Millennials arouses strong interest not only in people who belong to this age group but also, and above all, in those who do not know this generation, which has its ideas, its dilemmas, its struggles, its desire to discover and succeed despite the problems that are faced every day. I hope your curiosity to learn more will keep you glued to this book, page after page.
So, my dear reader, all I have to say is to enjoy this very interesting reading!
Your editor!