Tales and Stories of Dragons, Dervishes and Kissing Tribes

This is another early book I wrote at the age of 22 and which is now slightly embarrassing. It together after months of telling children stories on the beaches of Goa. Every day they came to my house, knocking on my door crying "Story! Story!"

Finally I had no choice but to start writing tales to feed their insatiable appetites. Then, lying in bed on night with an old friend, she asked me to tell her a story. It had never occurred to me that adults might also want to hear about dragons and flying carpets. I did the best I could and began to write stories after that for children but with grown up kids in mind.

I put together a whole bunch of tales as I hitchhiked around Spain and Morocco, finally choosing the best 27 of them for the book below. I decided to try and give them some more life by putting the tales into the words of 3 characters who come together for no apparent reason to tell each other stories all night in various places around the world. I fear I may not be a good enough writer to really conjure their characters on the page but the stories can be read separately and the intervening passages ignored if you like.

Click on the links to read the chapters: