The story behind the novel

Like the hero of my novel, Gaston, I was born on an Indian Ocean island. But, while Gaston’s native island is fictitious, Mauritius is very real.

Mauritius was largely uninhabited until the early 1700s. The dodo bird roamed free on the 2040 square kilometre island (and the similar-sized, neighbouring Reunion Island) until the Dutch arrived in 1598. Their failed attempts to establish a colony had the unfortunate by-product of making the dodo extinct. The natives of Mauritius – a mongrel mix of European, Indian, Asian and African people – were trapped in a quasi-apartheid straight jacket during British colonial rule from the early 1800s, until independence in March,1968. During that time, your position in society was largely determined by the colour of your skin.

Instances of absurd, irrational human behaviour often materialise whenever human societies experience oppressive regimes (like in apartheid or a dictatorship), or a state of crisis (as in war). This, in turn, can provide writers with fertile ground for satire, and black humour. Think Catch 22, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Animal Farm.

My early childhood years living in a quasi-apartheid Mauritius, and many extended visits there and to Reunion Island since, provided me with rich satirical material for my novel.

My passion for books and storytelling drove me to seek out anecdotes about my huge extended family - one set of grandparents had 17 children, the other 5, ranging from black to white in skin colour. And it was no coincidence that the “whiter” kids in the families generally achieved more in life than their darker hued siblings.

The inspiration for Gaston Saves the World emerged from these anecdotes combined with my (perhaps naïve) desire to make the world a fairer place for all.

My aim in the central storyline is to have readers contemplate the injustices and misplaced priorities of a capitalist system where we seem to value and reward workers in entertainment industries above and beyond those who contribute to our progress and social wellbeing.

But the novel doesn’t dwell on these problems that’s promoting ever-greater economic and social “inequality” in our capitalist world. It offers a simple solution but one that unfortunately will never be realised until we eliminate the dominant “greed is good” capitalist ethos.

The novel will appeal to readers who like to mull over “dangerous” socio-political and economic ideas delivered with black comedy, not a sledgehammer.

My novel, I believe, is in tune with the zeitgeist of these post-COVID times. As a result of the pandemic, aren’t many of us now reassessing what really is important in our lives and who are our essential workers and their value to society?

Balancing the serious messages in the novel are romantic, darkly amusing, thought-provoking but always entertaining themes and supporting storylines that are summed up in my one paragraph pitch for the novel.

“At times farcical; always thought provoking and bristling with black humour and bawdy bits, Gaston Saves the World posits a formula for a better world where good triumphs over evil priests, greedy developers, and corrupt cops, while love conquers not all… but most."