Laurence Seidler

The bastard son of a casino boss and a courtesan, I grew up in Africa climbing trees and lolling in the paddling pool with Vanessa, my eight year old girlfriend. The shock of London followed before I was paroled to the fantasy world that is Cambridge University. There I studied History, drinking and the clumsy rudiments of seduction.

Not having the faintest idea of what I should do next, I put off making any decisions and went East to India and beyond with the invulnerability of youth and a change of underpants. When my money and intestinal fluid ran out I returned to London where I squatted, wrote poetry, an Arts Council financed play, was shortlisted by Penguin books as a young writer with talent and generally misbehaved for a decade.

But somehow the tentacles of the grown-up world snagged and ended my random adventures and without any encouragement from me, I found myself one of the others : those that “do” and who keep society working. Numerous professions followed including TV ad director, journalist, architect, robotics developer, scrap metal dealer and sex worker (with hindsight I realise I was just working in the family business.)

Time and time again I told myself I would return to my first love, writing, only for the phone to ring with an offer of work too tempting to refuse. I guess I was also addicted to the large sums of money people were willing to pay me. But then a miracle. I lost the lot. The fridge that once housed wild smoked salmon and rare cheeses, now held nothing more exotic than half a tomato. What to do? I had children who needed feeding and the roof was leaking. I had no seed capital and had done so many things in my life that I was too confusing for any potential employer to understand. Ah, but I had my mind, my memories, and time. I began writing one cold winter's night and have never stopped except to fix the roof. Busy Being Born is my first English novel and I now live as a recluse with my wife, son, and various reptiles in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Andalucía.