Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Renowned Scholar And Author Ruth Finnegan Announces New Release, 'Black Inked Pearl'

Ruth Finnegan OBE is a renowned scholar and celebrated writer who is Emeritus Professor, the Open University, a Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College Oxford

Author Ruth Finnegan has announced the release of her latest epic romance novel, 'Black Inked Pearl'.

'Black Inked Pearl' tells the story of a naive Irish girl Kate and her mysterious lover, whom she rejects in panic and then spends her life seeking. After the opening rejection, Kate recalls her Irish upbringing, her convent education, and her coolly-controlled professional success, before her tsunami-like realisation beside an African river of the emotions she had concealed from herself and that she passionately and consumingly loved the man she had rejected.

The novel, born in dreams, is interlaced with the ambiguity between this world and another, and increasingly becomes more poetic, riddling and dreamlike as the story unfolds. The epilogue alludes to the key themes of the novel – the eternity of love and the ambiguity between dream and reality.

Ruth Finnegan is the author of hundreds of highly praised works, academic publications, articles and books and is currently in production on a number of film scripts.

‘Black Inked Pearl’ has received three international prizes and rave reviews from readers and reviewers alike. Scott Neuffer of Forward Reviews stated, "If James Joyce's dream-like opuses were written from a more feminist perspective, they might look something like Ruth Finnegan's Black Inked Pearl, a rapturous fantasia of words and images set somewhere between ancient myth and the green shores of modern Ireland." Chris Fischer, in a Readers Favorite review stated "I just finished reading 'Black Inked Pearl: A Girl's Quest' by author Ruth Finnegan, and all I can say is 'Wow!' It's written in a unique and creative style, one that at times blends poetry with prose ... enviable and beautiful at the same time ... any reader who enjoys a lovely, unique and interesting work of fiction should absolutely read Black Inked Pearl. I will be eagerly awaiting the next offering by author Ruth Finnegan. If it is anything like her debut novel, it will be simply magical!" Kirkus Reviews said, "Kate's romantic quest calls to mind Paradise Lost and Greek mythology as it weaves together biblical allusions, fantasy, and details of the modern day." Like other classic and unusual literary works,  the book has given rise  to many  interpretations and, as Christiana Fatoki perceptively put it,  like its more recent prequel ‘Pearl of the Seas,’ it “sinks into your unconscious .”

'Black Inked Pearl' was published by Garn Press. As stated on the Garn Press website, their mission "is to seek out the great thinkers of the 20th century and the original thinkers and writers of conscience of the 21st century to create remarkable books that inspire people to act."

Ruth Finnegan is available for media interviews and can be reached using the information below or by email at r.h.finnegan@open.ac.uk. More information is available at her website at http://garnpress.com/authors/ruth-finnegan/.

About Ruth Finnegan:

Ruth Finnegan OBE is a renowned scholar and celebrated writer who is Emeritus Professor, the Open University, a Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College Oxford. She was born in Derry (on the last day of December 1933) and grew up  there and in the remote  countryside of Donegal where, as poetically recalled in the second chapter of her novel, ‘Black Inked Pearl’,  she spent the war years; went to a literature-imbued Quaker school in York where, a fellow-student with the actress  Judi Dench, she learned to read the resonant poetry of Yeats and Shakespeare and to repeat texts that, with others, she had to learn, aloud (a good training for the sonic style of her novels); earned top degrees in classics and anthropology at Oxford; and carried out fieldwork on story-telling in Africa – a revelation of the multi-sensory nature of performance that has affected her all her life, and constantly comes through in her writing. From 1969, apart from three years in the South Pacific island of Fiji,  she taught and researched at the pioneering Open University. She is the author of over twenty academic books, several of them prize-winning. She has three daughters (two of them born in Nigeria), five grandchildren (one in New Zealand), and now lives in Old Bletchley, England, with her husband of over 50 years and two loving, impetuous, lovable cairn terriers.

Contact:

Ruth Finnegan
r.h.finnegan@open.ac.uk
www.open.ac.uk/people/rhf2