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Authors on Characters

Penmore Press authors offer a rich and entertaining array of short reflections on characters and how they were created in the novels. READ

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Robert Leslie

Robert was born in Johannesburg. His father, Andrew Rose Brown, a Scot, was a brilliant accountant and artist. Unfortunately, Andrew passed away before Robert had the chance to get to know him.
On her own, his mother, Doreen, moved them to Durban, where, a few years later, she met John William Turner, Roberts’ stepfather. John was involved in the hotel industry; he and Doreen managed hotels for the South African Brewing Company.
As a young man, Robert became interested in long-distance running and, over three decades, competed in many half-marathons, full marathons, and several ultra-marathons, the most notable being Comrades, a ninety-kilometer run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. A run he finished in eight and a half hours.
Upon completing his education, he set his sights north. Over the next decade or so, he lived and worked in Northern and Southern Rhodesia. While in Northern Rhodesia, he worked for a major construction company on the Copper Belt.
Leaving them, he joined AMCO, a South African shaft sinking company, as a rigger. AMCO had the contract to develop new mines on the copper belt.
When Northern Rhodesia gained its independence in October 1964 and became known as Zambia, he, like many South Africans, returned to the Republic. A year or so later, he traveled north to Southern Rhodesia, where he met and married Prudence, his wife of nearly fifty years.
It was events that occurred in Southern Rhodesia that inspired him to write ‘Song of the Butterflies.’
This novel is the first book of a trilogy with Sion Michael as the hero.
Returning to South Africa, his employment history was varied. He worked for Evelyn and Haddon, printing trade suppliers, and then with L’Oréal as a representative. He then joined Merck Sharp and Dohme as a pharmaceutical representative.
He and his wife, together with her family, migrated to Sydney, Australia. In the late ’70s, Robert joined Boots Health Care as a representative. He remained with them until he retired, and they moved to Bowral, a quiet country town nestled between verdant hills in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.

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Song of The Butterflies

1973, the Rhodesian Bush War raged as hot as the deserts and jungles where it took place. Many African factions wanted to take control of Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe from the European colonialists. But one man was willing to do whatever it took to drive the whites from his country, no matter how brutal or atrocious. He had the support of the people and the ability to cross borders at will. And his chances of becoming the president of Zimbabwe grew every day. He called himself iLunga, in Zulu, the name a species Shrike or more commonly known as a Jackie Hangman or Butcher Bird.
Sion Michael a South African, fighting for Rhodesia was a member of the Selous Scouts, an elite group of soldiers considered the most lethal and efficient counter terrorist specialists in Africa. Sion was the leader of an elite group of Zulu trackers who took on the guise of the enemy. He and his team called themselves Uvemvane, which means Butterflies in Zulu; the reason was their uncanny ability to move through the bush and the forests and leave no trace behind.
Authorized to operate outside Rhodesian borders, their primary objective was to locate iLunga and prevent him from arming thousands of followers waiting in camps in Mozambique and Zambia.
Sion, a man who came to Rhodesia to fight someone else’s war, could not have anticipated how deeply personal his fight with iLunga would become. Little did he know their paths were destined to cross in a way that would change the course of the war and their lives forever.