This novel was written because of a red letter I received from Madolyn (yes, a real letter, on red paper, in a stamped envelope), sent all the way to Cape Town from a school in New Hampshire, USA. Madolyn had read Now Is the Time for Running and wanted to know more about the world I created in that novel, and asked me to write another book.
When I told Pam Gruber, my editor and publisher at Little, Brown, about Madolyn’s letter and how it inspired me, she suggested that I write a companion piece to Now Is the Time for Running. I had never done this before, so, looking for a way in, I returned to the story of Deo and Innocent and rediscovered Patson. He was the one-legged boy who played soccer with Deo and joined them as they crossed the Limpopo River and the game park into South Africa. I couldn’t remember why I wrote Patson into that novel, and I had no idea where he came from or what happened to him after he was arrested by the police. He just disappeared from the story. I do remember, however, once seeing a group of one-legged boys playing soccer, and thinking how brave they were and how difficult that must be.
In researching how Patson might have lost his leg, I discovered the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe, and learned that the army’s Operation No Return happened at the same time as Deo and Innocent’s odyssey to South Africa. After reading more about what happened in Marange, how families from all over Zimbabwe traveled to the diamond fields to find their fortunes, I realized I had found my companion story. (I also read how miners would cut their bodies with razor blades and hide small diamonds in their wounds to get them off the mines.)
In Diamond Boy I have brought back to life some of the characters from Now Is the Time for Running and discovered what Innocent contributed to Patson’s journey.
So, dear reader, Diamond Boy exists because someone like you wrote me a letter. I hope that reading this novel will inspire not only your interest in what is happening in southern Africa, but also that a similar interest in something you read may someday inspire another author. And if you see a little of yourself in Patson’s story, then that’s what this reading and writing thing is all about. Thank you, Madolyn.
Michael Williams
November 2014