Featured Interview With Aviott John
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in south India. I moved to Austria after completing my university education and found a job at a fascinating research institute that studied many aspects of global change. I worked there for 37 years and became an Austrian citizen, retired last year and moved to an island in the South China Sea with my wife and two cats. My wife works as a teacher of creativity in Hong Kong, and I am a full-time writer now.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
An English text book in school called “The Romance of Reading” totally captivated me at the age of ten. It had snippets and chapters from many different books. I read an excerpt from “The Story of San Michele” by Axel Munthe, a Swedish author who wrote in English, and was totally captivated. After much searching, I found the book at a nearby library and read it from cover to cover. Dr. Axel Munthe lived from 1859 to 1949, was a great humanitarian and citizen of the world. I decided to become an author after reading this now-forgotten bestseller that was published in 1929. Take a look at dozens of 5-star reviews of the book on Amazon’s Axel Munthe page.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
After completing Axel Munthe’s work, I became a voracious reader and devoured everything on my father’s bedside reading pile. I read Somerset Maugham, Katherina Anne Porter, and Graham Greene, although they were far too grown-up for a 10 to 12 year old. My religious mother made me read the Bible and I thrilled to Jack London and Stevenson’s Treasure Island. I learned to touch type by copying Kipling’s entire Jungle Book cover to cover and knew most of the Mowgli stories by heart long before Disney’s more famous 1967 cartoon version appeared in 1967.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Ironwood Poacher and Other Stories is a collection of ten short stories. The title story takes place in India and is a tale of the violation of trust that women face on a daily basis throughout the world. In this particular case, a poor and relatively uneducated villager is pitted against a powerful police officer and has to use all his guile to rescue his beautiful wife from his clutches. One 5-star review on Amazon.com concludes: “The story shows the diverse human natures and reveals the weak would not remain weak if they are backed by intelligence. I loved this story along with the nine others and recommend them for the simple pleasure they generate.”
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles