BBC Scotland – The Loop
Where my storytelling began.
‘Mara Menzies couldn’t find books with any of the stories of her Kenyan heritage she wanted to tell her daughter – so she wrote and published her own.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07mj367
BBC Scotland – The Loop
Where my storytelling began.
‘Mara Menzies couldn’t find books with any of the stories of her Kenyan heritage she wanted to tell her daughter – so she wrote and published her own.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07mj367
Recorded for the Scotsman live sessions No. 60
This is an excerpt from ‘Blood and Gold’. Inspired by the racist murder of Axmed Sheikh, a young Somali student, in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh in 1989. His killers have still not been brought to justice. Sound: Event Horizon by audionautix.com
Winner of The Stage Edinburgh Award for acting excellence 2022 and part of the Made in Scotland showcase 2019, Blood and Gold explores the legacy of colonialism and slavery through myth and fantasy. It was nominated for the Filipa Braganca award in 2019, was published as a young adult novel by Birlinn in 2021 and met with rave reviews.
https://www.madeinscotlandshowcase.com/shows/blood-gold/
An allegory for Africa, this colourful tale was inspired by a passage in a Ben Okri novel.
A hunter finds himself in a beautiful forest where he meets the enchanting Starbird. She naively embraces him but he traps her under a net and steals her children taking them to far away lands. But one little star baby is able to hide and tries to help free her mother from the weight of what is holding her down. How can she possibly succeed? There is only one way!
