Selakhi

Selakhi is an adventure story. A coral island, castaways, ghosts, the treasures of Solomon. It is a wrestling with the angel of language. No holds barred, and perhaps a few new ones invented. To make this story, Seán Virgo gave up writing poetry, turned his back on short stories, went off and caught malaria, and bewildered everyone he cares about.

When he finished, one evening at Kaiya, on Lesbos, he went down and recited the last two pages to the sea. Half-expecting the sharks to come and carry him off. He’d kept his side of a five-year compact. After all, the story’s about sharks —and treasure— seeking, and rage and love and corruption and betrayal. And writing poetry. And the hundred different ways you can tell stories. The eleven different ways you can bring characters to life. And the tribe we’ve lost and the herd we’ve replaced it with. Behind it all, of course, the halt and exemplary shade of Arthur Rimbaud. When the sharks didn’t come for him, he felt bereft because all these characters had walked away. These characters now belong to Virgo’s readers.