Writer Christopher Owens, had launched a video to celebrate his debut book, ‘A Vortex of Securocrats’ reaching the milestone of 100 sales.
A Vortex of Securocrats is a work that observes, through prose and poetry, the crushing conformity of a post war Northern Ireland, and how that has impacted on those who live there.
“The response to the book has been beyond my wildest dreams as we’ve sold 100 copies in spite of there being no press or media interest whatsoever,” Christopher explained. “Honestly, I was only expecting to have sold 10 copies at this point so thank you to everyone who picked up a copy as well as the good people at No Alibis Bookstore Belfast who kindly agreed to stock copies for me.”Â
The video trailer for the book was created by Zak Ferguson of UK publisher, Sweat Drenched Press and Christopher believes he has done “an exceptional job”.
A Vortex of Securocrats is a surrealistic exploration of post-conflict Northern Ireland.
“This is achieved by visualising an alternate Northern Ireland that has openly suppressed talk of the past, and so ‘terrorist’ organisations resort to distributing prose and poetry dealing with the past in order to wake up the populace,” he said. “As a child of the conflict, I want to examine the psychological impact this has had on my generation, as well as the subsequent suppression of voices through the Boston College project.
“With the recent murder of journalist Lyra McKee by the New IRA, there has been a lot of discussion regarding a ‘lost generation in Northern Ireland: people who have experienced a kind of peace but have not reaped the benefits. I believe A Vortex of Securocrats will add to the conversation by contextualising this voice into a dystopian setting.”
The book is published by Close to the Bone and is available online as well as in No Alibis.
You can watch the video trailer for the book below: