EVADEEN BRICKWOOD
About Evadeen
I grew up in Germany with 2 sisters and studied languages and cultural sciences. South Africa is my second home now and I love being part of this new, vibrant society.
As a teenager and in my teens and in my twenties, I travelled extensively and some of my books were inspired by such travel experiences. I had to travel on a shoestring budget and often relied on friends to get by. During my studies, I often had jobs, such as cleaning hotel rooms, washing dishes in a restaurant, tutoring school children and sometimes, I was even a street musician.
Feeling adventurous and with a new qualification as a translator under my belt, I moved to Africa in 1988. I worked in Gaborone, Botswana as a secretary and in Palapye as a language teacher. After 2 years I contemplated returning to Europe, but South Africa seemed to be the better option. So I moved to Johannesburg and
my South African life began.
Here I met and married my German husband and we raised 2 daughters. I studied computers and management of training, worked as a corporate software trainer, opened a training college and was active in business committees. Times were tough and I decided to go back to translating professionally.
In 2003, I began to write novels on the side and loved it. Today, we still live in Johannesburg and now my daughters are doing the studying and travelling, while I - still happily married - work at home and write my books (which I don’t really consider work).
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When I started writing my journal in Africa in 1988, I was a young professional from Berlin in Germany and full of beans. It's a habit of mine - to write journals when I travel or move to another place. I guess, writing down what I experience makes it a bit easier.
Little did I know that this particular journal would one day be used to write my book "Singing Lizards". It was an important source for place names and how things actually happened. A large part of the novel is - of course - pure fiction, but I couldn't resist working my own experiences into the mix. Africa was wonderful when I first arrived, but also wild and challenging, and it's where I chose to stay.
You can see me on the right, as a young woman in Botswana.
