A former Campbell River teacher is coming back to town to showcase her debut novel, Black Sunflowers, at the local library.
Cynthia LeBrun, who taught at Phillips Arm, Sayward, Discovery Passage, Oyster River, and Pinecrest in a 30-year span (she left Campbell River in 2008), started writing Black Sunflowers 20 years ago.
“It took such a long time because of the research involved to make sure it was historically accurate,” she says. “As a teacher, I was just very nervous about being called on something not being right, or I made a big mistake.”
The book is about her mother-in-law, Veronika Tomaszewksi. Tomaszewki’s father is also a main character in the book, focusing on their family’s fight to survive in Ukraine during the Soviet Occupied territory from the 1920s to the invasion of Nazi Germany in 1942. The book starts when Tomaszewksi is six years older until she is 19.
“This book vividly describes who these people are,” says LeBrun. “It’s also the story of the Holodomor Genocide. I was trying to make the book feel immediate and personal so the reader is immersed into the experience.”
LeBrun says she pleaded with her publisher to categorize her debut novel as non-fiction because she stuck to the facts. She heavily researched through multiple sources, including tape-recorded interviews with Tomaszewski, academic papers and books. However, the publisher held up their hand because LeBrun didn’t interview Tomaszewki’s father, who has long passed. Instead, LeBrun bases his dialogue and actions on what her mother-in-law told her.
As part of her research, a Polish and a Jewish professor critiqued the book for LeBrun, recommending changes, which LeBrun made.
The book, around 500 pages, has been out since April. The manuscript was selected as one of three winners of the Peterson Literary Fund Emerging Writers Grant in 2022. The grants are given to writers of fiction or non-fiction works written in English or Ukrainian relating to the Ukrainian experience. The grants carry a monetary value of $8,000.
The retired school teacher turned full-time author has already finished her second manuscript, a sequel to Black Sunflowers.
LeBrun will be at the Campbell River Library on Oct. 6 at 1:30 p.m. She will read a chapter from Black Sunflowers and lead a discussion on the novel and its relevance to the current Russo-Ukrainian War.
Other dates on the Island include Qualicum Beach Library, Oct. 4, 2 p.m., Courtenay Public Library, Oct. 5, 2 p.m., Victoria Ukrainian Cultural Society Library, Oct. 9, 7 p.m., Nanaimo Museum, Oct. 10, 1 p.m.
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