Inside a Pomegranate
Published on 7. June 2013
26 pages
978-1-86979-957-1 (ISBN)
Description
Newly-weds in Tangier experience the bitter sweetness of new encounters in this evocative short story.
As with the contrasting flavours of the 'garnet-coloured beads, packed in pith and membrane', Emily and Ari savour the surprises of the alleyways and locals. But can they trust the man who offers to be their guide? Can they believe his claims that he has a kebab stand near to where they come from? And what of his prediction that they will soon have a beautiful baby boy?
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Person
Sarah Laing is a fiction writer and graphic artist. Born in Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 1973, and raised in Palmerston North, she studied at Victoria University, and worked as a graphic designer in Wellington and New York City. She won the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Competition in 2006, and has since published a short story collection, Coming Up Roses, and a novel, Dead People's Music. Of the latter, a reviewer on Radio New Zealand National said, 'It's wonderful . . . fantastic . . . it's one of the best first New Zealand novels I have ever read. [The places are] very vividly drawn . . . it's a marvellous journey that [Rebecca] goes on . . . This is clever, clever writing, strong characters, wonderfully evoked setting and I highly recommend it.' Laing was a Michael King Writers Centre Writer in Residence in 2008, and was awarded the Buddle Findlay Fellowship in 2010.
The Press identified Laing as 'our next great short-story writer . . . a real talent . . . a writer of intelligence and wit', and in The New Zealand Listener, Paula Morris wrote 'the verve and clarity of the writing in Coming Up Roses, along with the wry, offside skewness of many of its stories, reminded me of reading Emily Perkins's first book'.
Maggie Rainey-Smith, reviewing Dead People's Music on Beattie's Blog, wrote, 'Think somewhere between Zoe Heller and Zadie Smith. It is a book that takes itself seriously while being witty and insightful, tender and scathing, smart and innocent, fast-paced and even a little bit disgusting ... The prose is utterly confident and never seems to falter.'
Laing is also a talented illustrator, and is acquiring a reputation as a graphic artist and cartoonist, publishing her quirky images in such publications as Metro, Book Notes and Little Treasures, and on her popular blog. She illustrated Paula Green's collection of poems for children, Macaroni Moon. The Fall of Light, publishing in 2013, is a traditional novel but with graphics.
