On June 29 this year (2011) the paperback edition of The Hostage Handbook by Anthony Grey, will be formally launched by The Tagman Press with a series of events in Jersey in the Channel Islands, writes Robin Squire, one of Anthony's fellow authors at Tagman. (*Robin is author of the forthcoming Tagman reality novel Britflick)
Jersey was where Anthony lived for three years while recovering from his two-year hostage ordeal in China. A new 2011 edition of Anthony's first novel of eight to date, The Jersey Stratagem, which was written in and about Jersey, will also be simultaneously relaunched in the island at the same time.
The hardback edition of the The Hostage Handbook - verbatim extracts, with modern commenatary from the secret shorthand diaries Anthony somehow kept hidden from his Red Guard captors during his two years in solitary -- has already won deserved plaudits from distinguished individuals and fellow authors alike, including Sir John Weston, former British ambasador to the UN and NATO, who has said : "Tony came through his terrible and unjust ordeal with such dignity and largeness of soul ... and this real time journal gives a vivid picture of the afflictions he faced and the often mindless and inhumane behaviour of his captors "
John Weston was a junior diplomat at the Beijing embassy at the time and was himself along with his wife Sally and the rest of Britain's entire diplomatic corps in China, terrorised by 10,000 screaming Red Guards who burned their embassy down around their ears at midnight and subjected them to ruthless beatings and other indignities when they had to flee for their lives through the flames. "These diaries,' adds John Weston, 'reveal Tony's stubborn capacity for inventiveness and imagination during two years in solitary which created an inner space for his spirit's survival in spite of all."
"This is a remarkable publication,' says another Tagman writer, Paul Dickson, co-author with Illuminee Nganemariya of Miracle in Kigali, another extraordinary Tagman book describing how Illuminee, with a new born baby on her back, survived four horrific months at the heart of the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people were slaughtered -- and came afterwards to live in England, in Norwich, determined to tell her story in the hope it might prevent repetition of such terrible and outrageous carnage. "Anthony's survival,' says Paul, 'like Illuminee's, teaches us better to appreciate our freedom and the familiar rhythms of life we should never take for granted."
Paul and Illuminee and her son Roger, who also miraculouly and unknowingly survived the genocide unscathed when just weeks old, will likewise be in Jersey at the end of June talking about a new updated hardcover edition of Miracle in Kigali to be published soon. Roger who is now sixteen and still a schoolboy in Norwich, obviously has no recollection of those very first weeks and months of his life -- but remarkably he has recently starred in a new and very successful feature film entitled Africa United about Rwanadan youngesters who get caught up in a dramatic picaresque journey while seeking to visit to the World Cup Finals in South Africa.
* Robin Squire, screenwriter and author of the forthcoming Tagman Press reality novel Britflick
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