To this Northern Shore

review copies to be sent to Scottish and English newspapers and LRB; readings at Fringe by the Sea and other book festivals

A man born in Algiers, of French, Italian and Spanish origin, his early childhood in the midst of the Algerian War of Independence, his family moving to France and his adolescence spent there, at university in Paris caught up in the turbulence of May 68, then to England to teach and then a publishing director, now settled by the sea in Scotland.From a small Scottish seaside town a man looks back on his life, from a boyhood in Algiers, through provincial France and Paris to Brighton, London and Oxford. He acknowledges that he had to come to terms with being born and raised on the wrong side of history during the bloody tail-end of French colonialism. In so doing, he writes candidly about what it meant to be a pied-noir, exiled from Algeria, unwelcome in France, and about the indelible imprint a childhood in a time of war has left on him. As a student in Paris, he was eye-witness to, and participant in, the May 1968 protests that almost toppled President de Gaulle's government. He then moved to England, making it his home for almost half a century. This not-Algerian man from Algeria and not-quite-French man from France fell in love with Britain and its culture. He soon chose to take up British nationality. This puts him in a privileged position to make perspicacious observations about the much commented on, but in his view often misread, relationship between the British and the French. We follow his experiences as a teacher, to a long career in book publishing, from editor to director, ending up in the digital world as a Microsoft content provider, with life-affirming experiences as a volunteer psychotherapist along the way. Following Brexit, there is a final move to Scotland as a more congenial environment. He finds himself attracted to the positive aspect of the bid for independence, and a potential reconnection with Europe. The journey between what was then and what is now incorporates bitter-sweet coming-of-age stories, not a little hilarious humour, as well as tales of adventurous travel in Western Africa. The author touches on themes that will resonate with many: the sensual pleasures of cooking, the romance of wine, the place of music in our lives, the need for friendship...