Do you like to read? Most humans don’t. It’s strange that even this primary advantage we have – the capacity of reading – is relegated to the elites. Those who can buy books, go to school and above all, have time to sit in a comfortable place and immerse themselves in another world are less than should be.
I have read since I was four. My mother was too busy to control my hunger for books. So, when I was ten, I already had read Victor Hugo, Cervantes, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain, among many others. I was a girl with a book in her hands and a headphone isolating the world, a world of pain, from herself.
Moving from a reader to a writer was natural. At fifteen, I wrote my first book of poetry – my mother threw it in the garbage – and I felt my destiny was on another shore. Finally, when I was almost 50, I found space, courage, and all those years keeping everything inside just blew up in my first book Asif (it was divided in two by the publisher). Since then, I have been battling against time, obstacles, and support.
The world hadn’t changed suddenly from published male writers’ dominance to female writers. The market is dominated by male publishers who avoid risks and prefer to negotiate with their pair. We women are left with the crumbles. And please, don’t talk about J. K. Rowling or any other successful women; they are the exception, not the rule.
Another point that makes it difficult for a woman writer to achieve some space is the other female successful author who prefers pampered themselves – point out how great they are – and forget the others trying a place in the sun. It’s like the woman CEO who prefer not to open the door for their counterpart because, you know, competitiveness is complicated.
None of that stopped me from trying. I write, photograph, illustrate, and do it all by myself to share ideas with people like me. Who criticise the world around them or want a way to escape. Dreamers and builders.
There are ideas in each word, and hope and despair. Literature is like miscellaneous human collections exposed in a captive or defiant way. I have many writers I admire, and many are hidden in small rooms, hitting the keyboard, hoping to find someone somewhere to help them blossom in the garden of literature.
H. S. Campoy 