This Southern Gothic classic novel helped Anthony De Sa better understand human behaviour
Novelist and short story writer Anthony De Sa is a past Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist whose previous books include Kicking the Sky and Barnacle Love.
His latest work, the novel Children of The Moon, is a story of love and fate set in Tanzania. Pó, born with albinism, and Ezequiel, an adoptee of Portuguese missionaries, find each other and fall in love during a violent civil war.
The book that he returns to, time and time again, is the 1930 classic novel by William Faulkner titled As I Lay Dying.
"A book that I keep going back to is William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. It's Gothic in its expression of these characters. Yet there is something about who these people are and what their individual journey is.
I always thinking about what motivates people to do the things that they do.- Anthony De Sa
"I'm always thinking about what motivates people to do the things that they do. I also read these characters and, in a strange way, I look at my family differently. I see them in a way that starts to make sense. That's why I love to read this classic by Faulkner."
Anthony De Sa's comments have been edited for length and clarity.