Featured Interview With Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and brought up in London, England. My parents, who were refugees from Hitler’s Germany, had very little money and we lived in a very run-down part of the city, which anyway was partly destroyed due to bombing during WWII. I benefited from the education system and was able to go to university, where I acquired a B.A. in Sociology and Economics from the London School of Economics. I moved to Israel in order to study for an M.A. in my field, but the Six-Day-War and the birth of my first child (I married Yigal Shefer two years after moving to Israel) got in the way, though I did go back to university (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) to acquire an M.A. (in Communications) several years later. For most of my working life I have been a translator/editor (from Hebrew to English), both free-lance and in-house, but my passion has always been writing, and I’m glad that in the last few years I have been able to write and publish the novels that I have always felt were in me waiting to see the light of day.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
The moment I learned to read (aged five) I became a bookworm. I remember trying to write something of my own when I was quite small, nine or ten years old, I reckon, but I have essentially written throughout my adult life, though not for public consumption. In my childhood being without a book to read was a situation I dreaded, and my father obtained special permission from the public library to allow me to take out more books than the accepted norm for a child of my age. I also read the books on my parents’ bookshelves, not all of which were exactly suitable for children.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I like biographies and autobiographies, some historical novels (though not the Regency romance kind). Jane Austen has wonderful insights into the folly of human nature, and Virginia Woolf penetrates the depths of the human psyche. I also like George Eliot. It looks as if all my favorite authors are women, and there may be something in that, but I also like some male authors.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
‘Chasing Dreams and Flies; A Tragicomedy of Life in France’ (available as an ebook and paperback on Amazon) was intended to be a light-hearted romp about the folly of retiring to France if one is unacquainted with the language and culture of the place. To some extent it does achieve that aim, but the development and denouement became less and less light-hearted as I plunged deeper and deeper into the plot. The characters are based to some extent on people I have known during my visits to France (where I stay every summer), but of course there is no exact correspondence with any real person.
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