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I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Mark Behr - Author of 'Smell of Apples' and 'Embrace'
https://forum.iomfats.org/./mv/msg/8776/70896/#msg_70896
Mark's novels describe life growing up young and gay (or possibly bisexual) in South Africa in the dying days of the Apartheid regime, as someone who was born in Arusha Tanzania of mixed Irish-Afrikaans ancestry, Mark was conflicted in his loyalties, something that came to a head at Stellenbosch University where he ended up spying on his fellow students for the regime. That episode left him pondering his true identity, something that comes over in all his books.
In Embrace, Mark describes his affair with a school teacher and with a fellow pupil at the exclusive Drakkensberg Choir School. It was the school he went to as a boy, and a small school it is, with just 120 pupils, so to use the school, not re-identified was a brave move, especially since there are photos of him at the school. There is nothing to say that what he wrote was all fiction, but it is certainly intriguing!
I have written a little bit about him on my blog (see link below), do pop in and take a look, I have put Mark in with other authors like Edmund Marlowe, Henry de Monthelant and Roger Peyrefitte all authors of the schoolboy romance genre.
Ian]]>Ian John Copeland2016-01-22T09:42:45-00:00Re: Mark Behr - Author of 'Smell of Apples' and 'Embrace'
https://forum.iomfats.org/./mv/msg/8776/70897/#msg_70897
timmy2016-01-22T10:22:58-00:00Re: Mark Behr - Author of 'Smell of Apples' and 'Embrace'
https://forum.iomfats.org/./mv/msg/8776/70913/#msg_70913
Unusually, although I view the genre of 'schoolboy' romance as mostly one of tragedy and loss, Embrace ends on an almost upbeat note as the central character accepts the situation even though the usual terrible things have happened. In this respect, the melodramatic endings, so common in this genre have been avoided.
And there is a postscript too!
Ian
]]>Ian John Copeland2016-01-23T09:57:59-00:00Re: Mark Behr - Author of 'Smell of Apples' and 'Embrace'
https://forum.iomfats.org/./mv/msg/8776/70914/#msg_70914
The Drakensberg Choir School, or Drakies, is one of the great boys choirs outside Europe. The school is multicultural and that is reflected in their repertoire, a mix of English, Dutch (Afrikaans) and Zulu music and western songs sung with an African rhythm and enthusiasm, a Zulu impi's dance.
Here is a link to a playlist of their more recent work.
]]>solsticeman2016-01-23T10:23:36-00:00Re: Mark Behr - Author of 'Smell of Apples' and 'Embrace'
https://forum.iomfats.org/./mv/msg/8776/70927/#msg_70927
JaredDreamer2016-01-24T08:29:19-00:00