GU-Q student writes a book full of suspense
Jane Eyre has left Charlotte Bronte’s pages and is on the run for a new life as a vigilante. Crime is rampant like never before on London’s streets and it isn’t a typical murder mystery and only she can stop it. Not because she’s powerful, but because the mastermind behind it all is a little too close to home.
Jane Eyre: Reimagined would qualify as a mystery novel, a thriller. Written by Amr Abbas, a freshman at Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), the novel revolves around Charlotte Bronte’s famous protagonist Jane Eyre and her transformation into a masked vigilante.
In a recent interview with Gulf Times, the young writer talked about his interest in creative writing and storytelling.
“My job is to make up random crazy people and have them do crazy things. I write poetry, skits, scripts, and sometimes music. Public speaking is my jam, so Model United Nations has been very dear to me during the two years I spent doing it as a delegate,” said Amr while talking about his interests.
Being an introverted child, the young novelist started taking interest in fiction from the very early age. “My first interaction with literature was the Mickey Mouse comic books my parents used to get me when I was a kid in elementary school and that later taught me how to draw comic books. I examined how the panels looked like, how the characters were fitted to each panel, drawing different perspectives of each character and different facial expressions, and then it was simply a matter of imitation.
“I was an introverted child. My first stories were all written on a lonely bench during recess. I then graduated to short stories and by Grade 9 I was rapping. My whole life is just one big experiment of perfecting my writing style in different fields of creative writing and picking up as much books as my energy allows me to. I doubt that I will ever settle down in one area. For instance, I doubt that I will only be a novelist or only be a playwright. I like tasting different things.”
Talking about his book, Amr said: Jane Eyre: Reimagined would qualify as a mystery novel, a thriller. It revolves around Bronte’s Jane Eyre and her transformation into a masked vigilante with her aim to find a crime boss that is causing an unprecedented crime wave in Victorian London. She collaborates with several other famous literary characters, such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood, to investigate London’s criminal underworld to find the criminal mastermind behind it all. The crime ring she is fighting is in fact composed of literature’s greatest villains, such as Frankenstein and Dracula.”
When asked what propelled him to start writing the book, Amr said: “During the junior year of high school, I thought my teachers hated teaching the book, but I might have mixed up Jane Eyre for Jane Austen. In addition, Jane Eyre was not very well received by a lot of senior classmen back in my high school and it was not a well-liked story either.
“So, I raced to the Internet to dig up as much information as possible about Jane Eyre and I thought it would be interesting to mix her up with some other literary characters, also, what better way to portray Jane Eyre than a masked vigilante. I realised that when I was assigned the book during my senior year of high school that Jane was in fact the perfect pick. As I read through Jane’s traumatic childhood it all clicked in my head that she was superhero material.
“I felt that she wanted to go above and beyond to improve herself as a person and to even be a symbol of great character and proper morals. I also added some references from the novel in the book, but you do not have to have read the Charlotte Bronte classic to understand ‘Jane Eyre: Reimagined’.”
The young writer intends to pursue fiction writing as a profession. “I hope to write thrillers for directors like Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg. I particularly would like to excel in the genre of mystery and thriller since I love how one can experiment with suspense and add a philosophical aspect to the story to make it more three-dimensional and full-fledged.
“I also love how characters can be manipulated psychologically to amp up the excitement. I have gained such inspiration from Batman, specifically YouTube videos analysing his psychological depth and how deep the stories really are.
“Unlike a lot of Marvel’s and Detective Comics’ superheroes, Batman relies on his intellect and extensive knowledge of fighting styles and detective work to capture criminals rather than simply using brute force.”