Conversations with Leopard

Conversations with Leopard is a meditative account of living with chronic illness, portrayed through a delicate interweaving of memoir and magic realism. Writing from within the confines of her bedroom the author recalls the moment in time when she began to take on the persona of a hunted leopard - a strange metamorphosis of gender and identity that takes place in the weeks leading up to her becoming sick. The story has been written in real time over a period of twenty three years (the life span of a leopard in captivity). The author s garden (an ever-present backdrop) is the doorway to a magical space inhabited by Sun and Moon (characterised as jealous sisters) and a Spirit Child (the narrator s lost childhood self). The story takes the reader on an inner journey of spiritual development and explores the tension that exists between the comforts and sorrows of enforced solitude. With insightful humour, and a lightness of touch, the author evokes the perennial big questions of life culminating in the realisation that the answer to all of our uncertainties and doubts is nearer and simpler than we allow.