Your real name and pen
name?
I use my real name. However, before
publishing The Road to London, both
Glastonbury Publishing/Mirador and myself had the half-idea of publishing her
(the novel is female) under a pen name, given its sensitive, at times very
personal content. Whether I also write under one or more pen names...well, that
will remain a mystery for posterity to sort out!
Please share some of
the best memories of your childhood
One
in particular, though I am not sure it is a memory, or a reconstruction,
meaning something I seem to remember, but in reality I saw in a family film.
I’m not sure because my very first memory, when I was less than one year old,
is an out-of-body experience, and I recall a few from my childhood. Anyway,
this memory, which I have from both an internal and an external perspective,
was myself and my family, including my Grandmother (ultra centenary real Lady I
love with all my heart) and my Grandfather (R.I.P.) walked in a shadowy
Mediterranean pine forest near a wonderful Italian city, the resting place of
the great Dante, Ravenna, and went to see a tiny little zoo inside it; it had
peacocks, pheasants, some goats, nothing huge, but it was as if we were one
soul, my family and I and almost reaching out to the animals and the trees.
It’s just a beautiful feeling I have from that day.
About your education?
I have a very classical secondary
education; Latin, Literature, Art, Philosophy, History, Physics etc... I then
went to university both in Italy, where I lost myself in the labyrinth of
Classical and Medieval Literature, Philology and languages, then studied
English Literature in the UK, as well as Linguistics and a few other things...
The thing is that despite being in formal education till I was twenty-eight
full time, returning to it for another post-graduate year afterwards, as well
as having a year of part-time education, all I have studied in these formal
settings is only the grounding of my education, the beginning... to
mistranslate Eduardo De Filippo, ‘Education never ends.’
What career did you
plan during your education days?
May I twist your question a bit to
give a piece of modest advice to young people who may be reading this? When I
was a child (about six) in Italy, there was a customary question from parents,
friends and Teachers: ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ Parents and
Teachers, please think about the huge, in my opinion positive, impact this had
on me and may have on the children you look after; it set me on a course of
discovery of who I wanted to be in my future, sparked in me aspirations,
invited me to plan my future... At six, I wanted to be a builder (because I
could then build my own house), by the age of fourteen, I wanted to be a
scientist, because I loved Einstein and wanted one day to be part of the first
contact with an alien civilisation, by sixteen, I had a plan A, B and C: plan A
was to become a pop/rock singer (I did record songs on the way, and sang in
concerts, but that world closes when you are in your twenties...think about
plan B and C, dear aspiring rap stars and footballers... you have a short
window to achieve it, and if you don’t?) Plan B was to become a writer, because
I love reading, I love Literature, I love Art, and some of my greatest idols
are writers, and the first door opened to me in 2005, with my very first
publication; now I am a full-time writer. Plan C, the easiest, most achievable
one, was to become a Teacher, with the twist that I wanted to teach English in
England, despite being Italian... That was a bit to give back to one of my
greatest idols, James Joyce, the gift he gave Italy, when he became a Teacher
in Trieste. My gift back to the UK for changing my life. I started that in
2008, and have had a glorious time as a Teacher and Lecturer in London... The
moral is, young people, keep a few doors open... some may shut, but you’ll
always have the next one ready... I still need to become a pop/rock star... who
knows?
What languages you can
speak and write?
Being a Classicist, we ‘read’
languages, as our languages are seldom spoken... Ancient languages? Latin,
Ancient Greek, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, langue d’oc et langue d’oil, any
language from Medieval Latin into Modern Italian via Medieval Italian. I also
dabbled a tiny bit in Sanskrit, and read The
Book of the Dead in the original, with translation underneath though, which
I think jeopardised my proper learning of hieroglyphs, but I have almost
forgotten everything of the last two. Modern Languages, English and Italian,
Spanish to a decent level (I went to an experimental primary school where we
learnt three languages, but I haven’t spoken Spanish in ages), I can read and
understand French easily, but don’t ask me to speak it, I even worked as a
translator from French into Italian, I understand written Portuguese, a tad of
German, only written... I think I use about nine or so languages in my poetic
opus.
What is your biggest
source of inspiration in life?
The Human Spirit and how it (it’s
more of a ‘he’ collectively at the moment, though I really wish it were more of
a ‘she’, but I sense it is getting slowly more in touch with its feminine side)
interacts with the Spirit of the Universe.
What hurts you most in
this world?
Any form of injustice, whether it be
that some people are starving and others are billionaires and still want more
(often, but not always at the expense of poorer people), or that some don’t
have the same opportunities as others. To talk about what I see every day and
hurts me is homeless people (I know there are people who are even worse off,
but I am influenced by what I experience personally a lot, charity begins at
home, but doesn’t stop there). I see so many here in London, and the thing that
really upsets me is how some people totally ignore them, as if they didn’t
exist... do they think they enjoy asking for money in the street? The other
thing is judgmentalism: it’s at the root of all discrimination and it’s an insult
to God (whatever is your definition of divinity, I don’t care, or, if you are
still an atheist, an insult to morals): we are not judges, we are not in this
world to judge others, we have no right to, that’s the job of God (or justice);
we are here to try to understand and strive to love.
What is the biggest
challenge you have faced? How did you overcome it?
It’s
fighting the evil inside me... I think I was born with quite a lot of evil in
me, and I spent most of my life trying to get rid of it. I have not overcome
it; I only know that even if I can’t see it at any given moment, a bit may
still be there, or may come back; the main thing I have learnt I must do is
never to lower the guard, and that’s a very difficult thing to do. I still fail
in that sometimes.
If you had to live a
day of your life as a living or dead personality, who would it be and why?
If
I have to choose one, maybe Plato, or Da Vinci... I just would love to know how
it feels to have the whole of human knowledge till now and beyond in your own
mind... It’s a bit of a Faustian thought, but I, like Faust, am a Renaissance
man deep inside.
What is your favorite
genre and why?
Here is a lovely video from Ade explaining his views on favorite genre...
When did you start
writing? What is the purpose of your writing?
You
do make me reminisce... I started writing when I still didn’t know the
alphabet... I must have been three; I remember I used to hide under the bed and
pretend to write sentences... they were just squiggly lines... then, the first
time I decided to write a novel (not a story for homework), it was in English;
I must have been about eight, and I realised my English was not good enough (of
course) to write a full novel, but I remember how it started... it could have
been an alternative start to The Road to
London: ‘There is a boy and he is on the street...’ How strange, looking
back, to think that it took me about thirty years to finish that original
novel... I first accomplished a text with a poem, in Italian, ‘Bordighera’. I
know for sure I was eleven; it was about the anguish of being in a beautiful
sea town on the Italian Riviera, but away from my parents. I gave it to my
Italian Teacher instead of an essay; she loved it, and asked me if I had more
as she had a friend who would like to publish my work. I didn’t have any
others, so I wrote a few without inspiration; then I never passed them on to
her: I was ashamed of their quality. I then started writing poetry in English,
and some of my earliest poems have now been published several times. I was
writing in English, though living in Italy, because I was hiding myself from
the world around me: I didn’t want other people to understand them; they were
my way of dealing with my atrocious angst, with my insecurity about myself, in
such a hermetic and coded way, that I wanted, and I think I managed, in a way,
my poems to be unreadable, and more difficult than The Waste Land: Eliot was talking about the Human condition; I was
talking about mine! The first series
of poems I wrote, when I was fifteen, was Ybo’;
I literally invented my own English in them; the spelling, the grammar, the
Philology do not exist anywhere else. With Heav’n
from Hell, I reached the height of hermeticism. I know that in a short
passage in the poem ‘Orphalese’, about ten lines in hendecasyllables, I
included two hundred and forty-four quotations... That was mad, so, I opened up
to myself and the world with my Flicker series.
The
big difference between my poetry up to the flickers and my prose is, to go back
to why I write, the purpose: I wrote The
Road to London to share my experience, and not just mine, as, even if I
thought at first the novel was loosely based on my life, I then realised it was
about my Best Friend, Stephane, to whom she is dedicated; I only realised it
after he died, but it all suddenly made sense. It made sense why the novel came
to me so suddenly, while dancing with him, and how I started reciting the words
to him; it made sense how he seemed to understand every nuance of it as I kept
reciting every word as it kept coming to me, a chapter every Friday night while
clubbing; it made sense because she describes his, not my, version of the
universe. I didn’t know then, but my Muse, was listening to every word as I
‘wrote’ the novel. Steph was speaking to me from the future, from beyond the
grave. Believe me; I have tears coming down my cheeks right now, just thinking
about it. The Road to London is Steph
saying to the world that we ‘different’ people, we weirdoes, we scum of the
Earth have a beauty inside that shines like the Sun in the sky, just get rid of
your blinkers, and look for goodness’ sake!
And
if you can’t face the sun, at least look at his light on the skin of the Moon.
Which of your work has
been published so far? Would you like to share a synopsis of your work?
I
am so lucky with publishing; for me it’s more a matter of holding publishers
back or writing enough material. I don’t write much, you see; I only write when
there’s like a wave of energy that literally forces me, physically, almost
violently, to write. I am particularly lucky I am with Glastonbury
Publishing/Mirador, not a mere ‘business’, but really positive, open minded,
sunny people who give me such good vibes it’s like being at a rave party.
The
shortest synopsis of The Road to London is
‘A (gay, if it still really matters) boy’s quest to find who he is and for the
freedom to love.’
Ready
to jump out of a window, the boy remembers his life, how his games as a child
shaped his identity and his sexuality, how his formative years were pure angst,
how he had to hide from the looks, the words, the punches of his peers, and
build a world for himself, a world of dreams, then alcohol, drugs,
hallucinations till, maybe, if the reader wants... the boy will not fall from
the window, but fly to London, where he can finally live the story in the
‘letters’ to My Dear, coming from his future in a gay club in London, and
finally be proud to be different.
 |
| A picture of the manuscript, and yes, I still write by hand and with a fountain pen: I find no rhythm with a keyboard, but writing by hand...is like playing the violin. |
What are your
forthcoming writings?
What
I am working on at the moment is a collection of short poems and stories for a
book whose full copyrights will go to a very worthy Charity, Water.org, who
provide clean water to communities who, ironically, in a world that calls
itself ‘modern, advanced...civilised’ still don’t have access to it... I think
the title may be Words for Water. I
am actively seeking contributions from other writers for it; so if you have
written a beautiful story, poem, script and are reading this, famous or not,
please get in touch on Goodreads.
I
am also ‘pottering with poetry’ again; being deep inside a poet, I need to go
back to my cradle every now and then... I’m writing a collection Queer Poems, where ‘queer’ doesn’t just
mean LGBT, but any victim of bigotry and discrimination... Still, very much
indebted to Eliot, as I am walking down the structural and stylistic road he
opened with his ‘Preludes’.
The
next prose book, I feel, but this is not much more than a hunch, will be of
short stories. I’d never written short stories before Tales for the Free Mind
and Open Heart, and I found I love how you can play with different structures
and genres in such a short space. When I say short... I talk a lot, but only
write words if they are absolutely essential; I don’t dilute up to the word
count... so far these stories are more ‘the haikus of prose’ around one to two
thousand words, but that’s not a rule. As short as possible.
What are your future
plans?
Plans...
Aspirations? I can’t plan because I never know if I will ever again have the
inspiration to write... Well, the basic concept for a novel has come to me
today, so that may be after the short stories... It won’t be a sequel to The Road to London, sorry, that’s not
me... I don’t do encores; it’s either innovative or I don’t write it. I see no
point in not exploring new styles and structures. The big dream... to write the
epic poem of the Twenty-first Century. Wish me good luck.
What four top most
things you take care of while writing a book?
Sincerity,
meaning that the book must come from real feelings, not just be written to make
some money. A book has to give to the reader... Style, there are only two types
of books, well-written ones and badly written ones, to quote Wilde; without
style, there is no enjoyment for the reader. Structure, this includes
characters, plot and setting; the books I write are my books, not the copy of someone else’s; they may take lessons and
inspiration from other writers and books, but they don’t copy; they develop,
they change what I have learnt, and go down new paths. Personally, the themes
are important; it is linked to the first, but exploring a theme in a yet unseen
direction is another essential feature for me.
How much real life
goes into fiction writing?
It’s
hard for me to make a clear distinction. We can’t write reality as it is; even
the fact that we have to choose words makes that impossible. On the other hand,
in my personal case, I can’t write about something I have not experienced
first-hand. I would say one hundred percent real and one hundred percent
fictional. Blame my skipping Maths lessons, but that’s how it works for me.
It’s where the real becomes fictional, that hazy, uncertain and beautiful area
in between that really gets my creative juices going.
Is high level of
imagination important to have for an Author?
I
can’t speak for everybody, but for myself, yes. I must say that I understand
imagination as Coleridge did, inclusive of, not opposed to, reason. Imagination
is the holonym, it encompasses reason, and that, despite the fact that I
suppose most people believe the opposite, or that they are mutually exclusive
(we live in a masculine society, what do you expect?), seems so obvious to me.
We can’t even think without imagining the words we use to think, or their
signified, so how could we possibly reason?
Your dream destination
on Earth?
The
heart of every human being.
What is the current
book you are reading?
I
am reading Willy, by Robert Dunbar
and I am loving it! I had worked out that man has a wonderful way with words,
is super intelligent, experimental, creative, deep from the very first few
words. I read a few pages to taste it a couple of months ago, then had to do
other things, but have been waiting to start it ever since. I’ve just started
it, but the way it explores what one could call a ‘learning disability’ from
the very depth of the protagonist’s brain and how he does it through literally
building the language of the character, which of course, we know, language is
thought, and at the same time conveys an atmosphere that is borderline gothic,
I’d say Dickensian, in this ‘school’ as the boy calls it...superb!
Your favorite
celebrity and why?
Madonna,
even if celebrity is a bit of an understatement. Why? I could go on for days,
but I’ll give you three key reasons. I wouldn’t be the person I am without her,
possibly, I wouldn’t be in this world now (selfish reason). She invented modern
music: the world of pop is doing the music she invented in
nineteen-ninety-eight, and no one has yet equalled Ray of Light (musical reason). She has single-handedly done more
against discrimination than any other person in living memory, whether it be
women’s rights, campaigns against wars, LGBT rights, ageism, you name it
(cosmic reason). I rest my case.
Some quickies: Sun or
Moon, Laughter or Smile, Morning or Evening, Coffee or Tea, Mountain or Sea,
Long Drive or Short Drive, Silence or Conversation, Water or Fire, Air or
Earth, Mars or Jupiter, Tulip or Rose, Red or Blue, Left or Right, Glance or
Stare
Moon,
smile, evening, tea, sea, long drive, silence, water, air, Jupiter, rose, blue,
left (did you need to ask?), glance. I know you’ll psychoanalyse me now... too
late.. I’ve sent many a psychiatrist crazy already...
The last line of your
autobiography would be…
Can
I say what I want on my tombstone instead? Be right back!
Links:
Twitter handle:@Bulla_Adriano
Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadToLondon
Goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7209201.Adriano_Bulla
Amazon link:
http://myBook.to/TheRoadToLondon
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