Author Interview with Izai Amorim

Author Interviews

October 22, 2016

Author Interview with Izai Amorim

I’m interviewing Izai Amorim today, author of literary fiction “On The Run”. Welcome to my blog!

When did you know you wanted to be an author?

I always liked to tell stories and jokes. One day I decided to write a book, just for fun, and I got hooked. I was still working as an architect at the time. I wrote literature for a while but didn’t publish anything. I changed jobs and started working in Branding and Communications. I cut my teeth writing copy for corporate communications. It’s a great training. A few years ago I decided to start writing literature again.

What inspired you to write On the Run?

I tried to answer a few “what if” questions that I had. If you had to start over, to create a new identity for you, who would you be? What would you believe in? How would you behave? Would you keep the same self-imposed limits or would you get rid of them? What would be your new idea of right and wrong?

What is your editing process like?

It’s an endless spiral, with dozens rounds of revisions until everything is right. First I look at the plot: if there is information missing, if there are contradictions, if the reader has the necessary information to understand what is going on. Sometimes that information comes too late or too early. So I have to move stuff around. I also try to identify unnecessary information that slows the plot down or distracts the reader, and delete it. Second, I move to the paragraph and sentence level, checking each sentence in each paragraph, moving them around, rewriting them, deleting words. When I’m eventually done, I know the text almost by heart. Then I send it to the proofreader and wait for the revisions. We normally do two or three rounds of revisions. For each round I read the manuscript a few times.

What was the most challenging thing about writing this book?

I wrote the first version of On the Run many years ago as a novella with only 40,000 words. When I decided to develop the story into a full-length novel, I had to choose what I had to leave behind, what I could still use, and how to change things so that they could have a place in the new story. Not an easy task.

Are you working on something now?

At the moment only in promoting the book. I’m just back form the Frankfurt Book Fair, where I went to try to sell the foreign rights. I’ll be busy now following up on the requests that I had. Besides that I’m still gathering reviews, setting up giveaways on Goodreads, finishing a book blog tour, etc. Gaining exposure as an indie author relies mostly on word-of-mouth and reviews. So thank you very much for spreading the words, Majanka. It was nice talking to you!

About the Book

Title: On The Run

Author: Izai Amorim

Genre: Literary Fiction

New York City, early 1990s: a young, rich, and well-educated Central American man on the run from the police and Colombian drug dealers. He is accused of crimes he didn’t commit. Ready to do what it takes to survive, Pablo ironically embraces the very drug trade that threatened his life in the first place. Who is he?

What is he really capable of? The question of identity is at the heart of On The Run. More than a

contemporary story of survival, it’s a journey of self-discovery.

Pablo’s voice is funny, sometimes mean and merciless. He moves with nightmarish ease from recounting his adventures to recollecting his early life. Not always politically correct, On The Run gives you an insightful, twisted, humorous, and often disturbing view of conflicting worlds and beliefs: North and Latin America; black, brown, and white; rich and poor; rational and esoteric—and shows how they mix, match, and clash.

Author Bio

“Make me think, make me laugh, make my day!”

That’s why Izai Amorim reads and writes books. He has great interest in the interplay of media, information, and politics in a globalized world and the quest for identity and borders in a worldwide cultural melting pot.

Izai was born and raised in Brazil but spent most of his adult life abroad, briefly in the USA, mostly in

Germany. He was trained as an architect and worked many years in this profession. But his real passion is story telling. At some point in his life he decided to mix storytelling with architecture, changed professions, and became a branding consultant, something that he loves and has been doing to this day.

His first novel, The Games (2013), is a humorous but dark, even mean, political thriller. This mother of all conspiracies shows how information is processed to create and spread the stories needed to establish power structures not accountable to anyone.

Majanka Verstraete