An adult writing game
In the chapter “Acknoledgements”, the author gives the following information about the novel’s genesis: “The idea for the story originates in a writing game which the author enjoyed playing in collaboration with certain gentlemen she met on Tinder, an internet platform for coming into contact with similarly minded people. The partners in that game were asked by Marion to choose a region of the world, a century and a social position for their virtual self, to be further developed in a literary role play. Even though the main aim of the game was to have virtual sex in a sophisticated way, some of these collaborative writing projects developed their own agenda.
In the case of this book, Marion took over at an early stage and became the main and only writer, thus gaining the freedom to rewrite the hitherto-generated text and provide the male hero with characteristics that most people would not enjoy to be attributed with, not even regarding their alter ego. The start of the project is owed to an English-speaking Romanian partner from the writing game who not only chose ‘Transylvania – 17th century – squire’, but also co-developed the setting, checked the historical and local details, and organised the author’s 2018 research trip to the beautiful forested historic landscapes of Transylvania. […]”
The author
The author Marion Terenko prefers to stay in the shade of the deep dark Transylvanian forest. As an author, she is mainly interested in the multifaceted relations between men and women, both animalistic and moulded by culture and customs, and in historic landscapes like Siebenbürgen or Masuria that were home to fruitful multi-ethnic communities over centuries until turned into an ethnic monoculture by brutal forces.
