Last November my photos served as inspiration for the Stromness Writers Group on Orkney where I was having an exhibition. My friend Gill Tennant came up with the idea of using my work as writing prompts, and this image of the Sahara in Southern Morocco was one of the possible options. Here is a quotation from her response, a work called The Barbary Coast. To date, it consists of two chapters replete with corsairs and an escaped galley slave/scholar, who has been snatched from the West of Ireland. I particularly love this description:
“I kept putting one foot in front of the other and scaling the dune ahead. It was a steep one, and the sand kept slipping as my feet dug in. I finally reached the top in a lather of sweat, although my hands and feet now felt cold and my legs shook with this unaccustomed activity. I threw myself flat on the sand, and looked out over the landscape before me. All I saw ahead was sand, dune after dune rising like waves in the sea. I felt a dizziness, tiredness and hunger overwhelming me. Would I ever get out of this sea, where I seemed to be the only thing moving in this vast monotonous landscape? I had exchanged one hopeless situation for another, and the possibility of escape or ever regaining my homeland seemed a desolate and impossible goal.”
