1.) Can you give me a short biography about yourself and how did you get into writing?
Hi folks, my name is Samir Karimo. I’ve a degree in Translation and in Modern Languages and Literature from the School of Letters. I’ve also an Italian language course held in Istituto Italiano di Cultura and besides of being translator, I’m also a writer. This book SOBRENATURAL is my first English book which was written almost at the same time that in Portuguese and Spanish also. I usually write in Portuguese to BABELICUS EM PORTUGUÊS and in Spanish and English to MINATURA. I also collaborate with DEMENCIA magazine and WAX MAGAZINE, both in Spanish . And I’m also a comic screenwriter to a comic magazine called H-ALT where by October it will publish my stories.
My first stories appeared at FENIZ FANZINE in Spanish in 2013. But I published my first Portuguese poems in late 1998.
I started writing mostly in high school, together with my friends we used to write pieces. But mostly I begun writing at College, for me writing is to create and specially create different worlds, namely strange and surrealistic ones with known characters which I try to attract the audience. I like to create strange situations with strange characters…. like Kafka
2.) Can you give an expanded description of your book, the characters and the world that it is set in?
In “SOBRENATURAL” by using characters well known to the reader you have to imagine that you are having a dream, or nightmare, in which nothing is normal, rather is “out of natural”. Although the stories are mostly of the flash type, there are two bigger ones and which are “Valkyrie” in which I make a kind of tribute to ancient Indian, Greek stories. It’s a story about a man who buys a damned house in which lives a she-demon, an Iblisia, who wants to get his body, soul and aura in order to get younger. But to fight her, his aura will search from sorcerers and will try to get a special pill to revert the “statueing” process. The main character calls Vikramodisseus who is a tribute to Vikram, from Vikram and the vampire and Odysseus from Odyssey. The other big story is dedicated to D.Juan whose name is “Seducer’s Journal” in which the reader will find the origin of D.Juan’s Myth. He was a young man who sold his soul to a devil and so he had to sacrifice beautiful young women whose blood he has to drink to feed a special parasite which lived in his brain. Other flash stories are The unbearable lightness of being… in which a person has personality disorders and an HYDIAN (from Mr. Hyde) virus will try to make him more crazier. In Dulcinea, what a hell of a girl imagine this girl having a flirt with a snake and living in a grave.In Imagine a day… the final sentence of the text corresponds to the final sentence of the title and that’s why is an “overlapped” story , a real surrealistically one in which you will find Oscar Wilde as D.Juan’s attorney and literature’s undertakers and other strange characters searching for the true about what is Literature.
In Sideral santa claus and Christmas golden drop, based on jason’s golden fleece, Santa Claus will search for the golden drop to restore the Christmas spirit. To do it he has to speak with the three Kings’ cousins who have the special Christmas ingredients.
In Harlequin Carnavalin you will find the Mardi Gras Alien God who lands in Venice to better know our traditions, but in this special day he will find a special robotic woman who will seduce him.
About the pre texts, “a neologism specially created to this book” there are several ones.
The first is “damned words”, a tribute to kafka stories in which Words are chasing people.
In Shadows, the Umbrae (alien shadows) are searching recipients for their body.
In Destination we find a strange talk between Life and Death.
In Pain an alien species will try to invade us through our kidney.
In Vetala we will find out the true story about the dinosaur’s extinction and how it’s related to vampyres (vetala, sanscrit word to vampire) and count’s Dracula armor.
in little red riding wood and Frankenstein finally those characters will reveal who actually they are, one is descendent of a werewolf and other will travel through dimensions to get his body parts back.
In killing nose, an ancient alien king will ally to Jack the ripper to try to invade our dimension.
In killing selfies Death himself appears and criticizes our way of living and “shining ” in social networks
Finally in Divine Musick dedicated to my muse Reyam we find a young lady, a “musick” who travels around the cosmos in searching for the ideal music and people. Besides by October at H-ALT you’ll find the comic version of this flash story.
And I was almost forgotten there’s a character called Introduction which reminds us Fernando Pessoa, Pirandello and Unamuno’s characters. Those three are one of the source of my inspiration to this book.
3.) What can you tell us about the characters that we will read about?
As I say, I like to put my characters in very weird situations. In this book I’ve tried to pay a tribute to different characters. For instance, imagine D.Juan as a vampire and son of a Egyptian god. In Valkyrie, you’ll find a wicked witch who punishes humanity for its conduct amongst other things. . Imagine also Frankenstein travelling through dimensions in order to get his body back. Never take selfies with death because we don’t know how it will react. And if a day the god of joy landed on earth, especially in Venice what it will be as you can see at Harlequin Carnavalin. About divine mushick it’s a tribute to a young lady called Reyam who likes pianos and so I try to create a story which will fit her.
And how could I forget Dulcinea where you see the Quixote’s “bride” in a very different way.
4.) How did you come up with the front cover of the book?
Well, first of all, I have to thanks to ESFS Awards winner JUAN MIGUEL AGUILERA. He always backed me and introduce me in this world of fantasy. He designed the cover.
5.) What can you tell us about the theme of the book, the deeper subjects, questions, or issues that you develop with the book, of course without giving away any spoilers.
Although it deals with supernatural stuff, I pretend in a funny way to introduce and “plunge” the reader in a “chaotic ” brain where nothing is normal. The reader will see some horror, terror, paranormal stuff but also a little bit of sarcasm and lots of humor. Besides I’ve tried to develop some pirandellian, pessoan and unamunian subjects about being and not-being and our place in society and how can we see others.
6.) Can you give a favorite paragraph or page to show your writing style (hopefully this doesn’t give away to much) ?
Divine music
After my last troubled relationship, I knew a new mushick , e.g , a muse who is a great chick, who comes from a faraway land, talks a exotic language, and her name is Reyam, she plays a cosmic instrument, KAMANCHA which allows us to travel through Cosmos and uses a jersey which absorbs human features: it was a white shirt which becomes black according to the people’s deep inside…
7.) If someone were to start writing, what advice would you give them and what obstacles did you face when you first started and how did you overcome them?
First of all, chase your dreams, whatever they are and try to have a certain writing style. People will always criticize the way you write but it’s important to create your own style with your features. When I begun I wanted to write grammatically well but now I want to have a style of my own .
8.) What helpful tips for marketing would you give to someone who has completed their first book that you have learned so far?
Try to use social networks in order to promote the book, but also try to reach the best bloggers, youtubers and so on and people who are the best and always opened to other kind of books. It’s a matter of luck.
9.) Please provide any links to where someone can purchase your book, any personal blogs or websites for your book.
Links
samirkarimo@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/samir.karimo
https://www.facebook.com/sksobrenatural/
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