Featured Interview With Vera Persiyanova
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I haven’t always been a writer. In fact, I’m an artist. But I wasn’t always an artist either. It’s quite a long story, but I’ll try to keep it brief.
I was born in a country that no longer exists, and for the past 10 years, I’ve been living in the Kingdom of Wonder. This isn’t a joke. I was born in the Soviet Union, in Siberia, and now I live in Cambodia, also known as the Kingdom of Wonder.
I spent the first half of my life dedicated to medicine. After graduating from medical school, I worked as a doctor in a small Siberian village. The nearest district center was 65 kilometers away – not very far by Siberian standards, but sometimes in winter, during blizzards when everything was buried in snow, this distance became absolutely impassable.
Then I returned to the city and entered graduate school, and the next 14 years of my life were devoted to science. I completed my Ph.D., though I won’t mention the title to avoid scaring you with microbiological terms. This part of my life gave me a specific view of the world – the perspective of a scientist and logician.
But as I approached 50, I radically changed my life. I moved to Cambodia and picked up a paintbrush, and that’s where I became an artist. This passion led me around the world, and now my paintings can be found in 20 countries.
Currently, I live in a small provincial town called Kampot, but it’s not my first city in Cambodia. The first was Sihanoukville, a city named after a king, but that’s another story.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Recently, after turning 55, I’ve been captivated by a new passion – writing. My life has accumulated so many incredible events, coincidences, travels, and encounters that I wanted to share them.
Currently, I have two book series, both unfinished. But I’m determined to complete them.
The first is about my journey as an artist, my travels, encounters, and paintings. At the moment, there are three books in this series, with a fourth one planned.
The second series is science fiction and adventure. So far, only the first book in this series has been published, and I’m working on the second. The third one exists too, but only in my mind for now.
What surprised me recently while editing the second book was the realization that it incorporates Kant’s philosophical paradigm of the “thing-in-itself” and some references to Schopenhauer’s “On the Basis of Morality.” These elements are naturally woven into the plot. I used to be seriously interested in philosophy, but I never consciously intended to include it in the book. It happened subtly and organically. Well, I suppose that’s how it’s meant to be.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Ah, here too, it turns out to be a strange cocktail with very different ingredients, but for me, it leaves a long, deep aftertaste, a sense of the beauty of the world and humanity.
The good old fantasy classic – Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” saga literally consumed me in its time. I don’t know if I’ll reread it, but it left something grand, unusual, warm, and heroic in my memory.
Erich Maria Remarque also made an indelible impression on me in his time.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – definitely. But not so much “The Little Prince,” although that fairy tale is wonderful in itself. Rather, “Wind, Sand and Stars” and “Night Flight.” The author was a pilot himself, and he opens up a world from above for the reader, where there are no unnecessary details, and everything comes together in a fascinating picture.
And lastly, I’ll mention “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky. At first glance, it’s just fanfiction. But since it was written not by a writer, but by a scientist who was at the forefront of AI, it turned out to be an absolutely amazing work. This book is not for children, unlike the original. You can reread it several times, and each time something new is revealed.
So, my favorite genres now are good science fiction with scientific and philosophical accents, and, oddly enough, adventures and detective stories. But as a writer, I’m still afraid to tackle detective stories, because I believe it’s a special genre where everything must be built perfectly – the mystery, the structure, and the solution. What’s even more surprising is that my former scientific supervisor, a Doctor of Medical Sciences, writes detective stories.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest published book is “Insomnia: Strange Faces and Lost Dreams.” I’m not sure if I can call it a full-fledged book; it’s more like an expanded chapter from the previous book, “Fate and Art: Bridging Time.” I wouldn’t say it was inspired, per se. After all, insomnia doesn’t just steal sleep, but dreams too… it changes one’s personality, and that’s dangerous, not just in a medical sense. This book is more about how insomnia is so exhausting and interferes with living a full life that I decided to write about it, to share my thoughts, feelings, and… paintings. Paintings that were brought to life by insomnia itself, attempts to live through, understand this state, and do something with it.
So, this book also came about on its own, as, in fact, does much of what I do.
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