ENTERTAINMENT NEWS - His first two novels were written almost fifty years ago, but were not published till 2008 and 2009. Sitting in his study in his house in Haarlem which he built himself, Peter J Earle talks about the process not only to get a book written, but also to have it published.
"I think writing a book might be easier than having it published and marketed."
As long as he can remember, Peter has been writing, but earning a living has always put writing on the back burner.
When he finally retired at the age of 60 in the village of Haarlem in 2006 he started editing the two books he had written in the seventies and then decided to publish them himself.
The two titles, Purgatory Road and The Barro's Pawns were printed and published in 2008 and 2009 respectively. With these two titles on the shelf, Peter put his head down and started on a crime novel set in Botswana where he spent many years. In Hunter's Venom an experienced and thorough detective, Dice Modise, made his appearance and Peter was so taken with him that he became the main character in the next book, Medicinal Purposes Only, which uses the illegal trafficking of body parts in Africa as the theme.
Presently Peter is working on the third Dice Modise novel, Children Apart, also set in Maun.
"I'm about halfway through and hope to have it published in April this year. In this book, Modise is faced with the cruel facts of illegal child labour and I did quite an amount of research for this book."
As far as his love for stories is concerned Peter says he was telling stories long before he was taught to write. "At high school, one English teacher gave me permission to write stories instead of school articles like the rest of the class."
He carried on writing while he was in the navy and always had a notebook with him. A notebook was also part of his daily pack when he started working as a foreman. If one looks at the things he had done it is easy to understand that he has a vast amount of stories to tell.
Apart from being an agricultural field technician, concrete foreman, salesman of stock feed, site surveyor and auctioneer he has also owned a construction company, built several houses, spent time in jail in Zambia, owned a boat on the Okavango Delta, hunted big game, sung in a band and parachuted out of planes more than sixty times.
At 70 Peter still lives in Haarlem where he interrupts his writing with building or renovating homes for city dwellers who are fed-up with the rat race and are relocating to Haarlem where property is still dirt cheap.
ARTICLE AND PHOTO: HANNES VISSER, OUDTSHOORN COURANT EDITOR
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