Featured Interview With Anna Faktorovich
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m frequently asked where I’m from, usually because people can’t place my accent. I was born in Moscow, spent some time in Ukraine, then lived in Brooklyn, then in Boston’s suburbs, then in LA, Nashville, Columbia (SC), and a long list of over 20 other US states, visiting Canada, Mexico, Israel, Italy, and even teaching college ESL in China for a semester, among many other adventures. I currently live in Tucson, AZ, but will move out of this region on July 31. My top 2 choices for a new place to live are Florida near a beach, or somewhere near New York City, the latter because I should be more active with selling my publishing business, Anaphora Literary Press (http://anaphoraliterary.com), and my books; the first for the obvious reasons.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I clearly recall becoming interested in books in kindergarten when I read a Soviet propaganda abridged version of Lenin’s works and Mayakovskiy’s poetry. I started writing descriptive diary entries soon after this, and have always been interested in writing both fiction and non-fiction, becoming an Arts Editor in high school during an AP English class.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I’ve published a couple of academic books about popular and classical genres: “Rebellion as Fiction in the Novels of Scott, Dickens and Stevenson” (McFarland, 2013), and “Formulas of Popular Fiction” (McFarland, 2014). I enjoy writing in the historical genre the most because I believe that literature should be researched and grounded in the realism of actual history. But, I have experimented in various other genres, and have enjoyed reading French romances, mysteries, and science fiction with equal interest. My favorite authors, currently, are George Sand and Sir Walter Scott. I’m inspired by powerful female historical figures that allow me to talk about issues that concern modern women through the prism of history.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Romances of George Sand takes the heroine from a childhood in the aristocracy amidst the Napoleonic Wars, to an unhappy early marriage and eventual divorce, to her careers as a country doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, and most successfully as a romance novelist. This is a story about the revolutions in a woman’s heart as she goes through dozens of love affairs. It is also about George’s involvement in violent, political revolutions of her time, including the July and June Revolutions and the 1848 Revolution; in the latter, she served as the unofficial Minister of Propaganda. The story is full of military battles, coup d’etat maneuvers, duels, malevolent plots, infidelity, artistic discussions, monumental legal cases, and reflections on the nature of love, family, romance, rebellion, and femininity. The history behind each of the events depicted is researched with biographical precision, but liberty is taken with some events that have been contested by historians, including the lesbian affair George had with Marie Dorval and the identity of the real father of her second child. Students of literature and history will recognize many of the central characters, as George befriended Napoleon I and III, Alexander Dumas pere and fils, Frederic Chopin, Alfred de Musset, and a long list of other notables.
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