The official history says Firecurl was a danger. But who controls the history?
And what happens to those who remember differently?
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People sometimes ask me, “What is this book really about?” And I wish I had an easy answer. Not because I don’t know — but because this story refuses to behave. It was never written to entertain. Not as a project. It was born the way fire often is: through friction.

I didn’t write Firecurl because I had a world I needed to share. I wrote it because the world I lived in wouldn’t leave me alone. Because memory doesn’t die — even when it’s deeply inconvenient. Because guilt often echoes louder than pride.

Just a child with red hair…
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So let’s start with what this story is not. It isn’t an adventure. It isn’t a hero’s journey — not even a symbolic or spiritual one. There are no swords — or at least, they’re not at the heart of the story. No prophecies. No “chosen one.” Just a girl with red hair and broken toys, trying to understand why everything around her feels like punishment.

People see the cover and expect something warm. A children’s book, maybe. Something magical. Something you’d use to lull a child to sleep. But Firecurl was never written to soothe. It was written to remember. And remembering means it hurts.

The girl at the centre — Anne — doesn’t slay monsters. She speaks to them. She stumbles. She breaks things. She explodes. And slowly, painfully, she begins to understand that the ghosts in this story aren’t here to be vanquished. They’re here because something was broken. And no one ever asked for forgiveness.

In Antazonia, even schoolbooks serve the regime. Truth is what gets printed last — and memorised fastest.
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Across the three books — The Forest, The Park, The Desert — she doesn’t travel through fantasy, but through forgetting. The Forest becomes a Park. The Park turns to Desert. And the girl becomes the only witness left standing.

By Book Two, the lies have become institutionalised. Anne is recast as a threat. A witch. The girl who once saved the Forest is now commemorated as its destroyer — in an amusement park built on its ruins. Heino — part showman, part dictator — has turned nostalgia into doctrine, into a weapon. And the ants march.

Yes — ants. The kind that salute. The kind that build not to live in, but to be seen in. The kind that call memory a crime. The ants are everywhere. Not because they’re charming. But because they’re efficient. And terrifying.

A girl rebranded as a witch…
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Firecurl isn’t satire — but it contains satire. It isn’t dystopia — but it walks through one. It doesn’t preach — but it never forgets. And in these books, remembering is dangerous. Sometimes even forbidden.

I never set out to write a warning. But somehow, without meaning to, Firecurl ended up anticipating things I didn’t yet fully understand — like the rise of showmen with dictatorial ambitions, and the way nostalgia can be twisted into obedience.

I never meant the trilogy to become political. But when you write honestly about things like power, guilt, or the longing to be forgiven — politics arrives on its own. Often wearing badges. Sometimes in uniform.

Not all dictators arrive shouting. Some come smiling, handing out medals.
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So then — what is Firecurl? A fairy tale? — No. A parable? — Perhaps. But above all: Firecurl is a reckoning. A story that refused to disappear. A question that took the shape of a child.

It’s the story of a girl who shouts too loud and refuses to be edited into silence. A girl who isn’t brave — but is too stubborn to give up. A girl who doesn’t want to rule the world — only to be forgiven by it.

If I had to summarise it in one line? Firecurl is not salvation. It’s a flame, cupped in two small hands — flickering, fragile, and determined not to die out.

After the war. After the Forest. Just a girl and her bear.
See the whole story at firecurl.com