Born in Bucharest, Adina Tarry (nee Mironovici) completed a BA in Clinical Psychology at the University of Bucharest. After leaving Romania, she lived in Paris and London where she finished an MBA in international trade and an MSc in Business Psychology, and she worked mainly for international blue chip corporations. Adina also lived in Sydney, Dusseldorf and New York and travelled extensively around the world, driven by a great interest in people, cultures and languages.

 A great lover of the arts, she began writing without a practical purpose, motivated by her need to express herself creatively through the media she felt most comfortable with: language and words. Adina's great interest in psychology, social philosophy and life, are a permanent and rich source for reflection and inspiration.
She uses writing to analyse and explore specific subjects which interest her at a given point in time.

Between 1982 and 2002 she produced: Vitralii (Stained Glass) a novel written in Romanian (1982-85, London and New York), La fete ou propos croises (The party or across purposes) a novel written in French (1987-95, London and Sydney), An Accompanying Spouse, a novel written in English (1990-95, London and Sydney),  Alicia's Stories, a novel written in English (1995-02, Sydney  and London), For you,  a poetry  volume written in English ( Sydney 1997-98), Secrets of a Woman of Style, a self help guide (Sydney 1999), and Globalisation and You, also a self help guide (London 2002).  Some of her work has been published in Romanian translation and launched at the international Book Fair in Bucharest (1997 and 2000). Currently Adina lives in London, sharing her time between her work (management consultancy and lecturing) and her writing.

Diana: Why "An Accompanying Spouse"? Why did you choose this title?
Adina: For the title I was inspired by a category of USA temporary travel residence visa, granted to a spouse in conjunction with the partner's (male or female) working visa. This visa is an accompanying spouse visa.

D: Does the novel reflect your travel? Is it autobiographical?
A: The travel aspects of the book are indeed non fiction, based on my actual experience. I tried to capture my travels in writing, in an attempt to defeat the passing of time and hold on to memories. The style is free flowing but not a stream of consciousness, not fully autobiographical and not a travel journal either. 

D: Your novel is made out of fifteen stories (fifteen chapters, each named after a place); what would you say that strings your journeys together in a thread?
A: The novel is an evocative description of a journey, both emotional and physical, strung together by a story line describing the life of a couple, where the two are confronted by the simple truths of a life partly held together by permanent travel amongst different peoples, cultures and places. Is also becomes a chronicle of a relationship.

D: Shall we then see two narrative threads: a thread made of travel sequences joined by an overlaid emotional journey?
A: Yes, this is on the one hand a book about a relationship and companionship in life and the wisdom that can be gained from it. On the other, it is also about the emotional journey due to personal differences captured at times during travel when something new happens, when together they embark on a new beginning or just a brief exotic vacation.

D: Are these frequent moves what gives the novel its rapidly changing pace, lively style and what continuously brings novelty?
A: The book is set in many locations around the world, depicting experiential delights found in new countries and cultures but also the emotional twists and turns of a married life. It describes the beauty of travel as seen through the eyes of an unlikely couple, striving to bring harmony into a life disrupted by their differences and their frequent moves, which paradoxically is held together by these very changes. Perhaps this is why it seems that most people can find something satisfying in it.

D: How would you describe your writing style?
A: I use different style for different pieces of writing. In the case of this book the style is very much cinematographic, that of a "director manqué", quite pictorial, using strong visualisations, colourful, a bit like a display  of watercolours in an exhibition, following some narrative sense. The writing is also devoid of fake romanticism. Instead it is candid, humorous at times and intuitive.
But the key to this novel is really my attempt to capture the ephemeral and render it everlasting,

D: Adina, thanks very much taking the time to answer these questions and also for accepting the invite to read to our group on 15th November; I've read your novel a couple of times and I look forward to hearing you reading excerpts of it!