At an age when many people are relaxing and reading books, Irene Martyn, 90, is writing them. This week her third novel, Brief the Sun of Summer, was released in Britain and will be on sale in South Africa soon.
But Irene is not basking in the success of getting her third novel published – she is busy completing a sequel.
“I have a couple of chapters to write – and then I’ll take computer lessons,” says the novelist who writes, on a manual typewriter, under the nom de plume Irene Hunter Steiner.
Brief the Sun of Summer is set in Lancashire in 1940. The heroine, Maggie Wilson, has three great loves in her life and as events unfold she is faced with some agonising choices. It is sweet, sometimes heartbreaking, with an explosive ending, says Irene, who admits there is plenty of her own life in the story.
Lancashire-born Irene’s interest in writing began when she won an essay-writing competition in the UK’s Daily Mail at 13.
During World War II while working in the shipping intelligence branch of War Transport, she met and married Czechoslovakian fighter pilot Franta Steiner. They immigrated to South Africa and had a son, Karol.
One day while reading a library book, Irene said: “This book is badly written, I could do better,” to which Franta replied: “Why don’t you?”
She headed off to the study, started to write and in two months submitted the manuscript of The Gentle Intruder to a publisher. Hutchinson publishers bought the hardback rights and Bantam Press took the paperback rights, to the delight of Irene – who was asked to write a second novel.
Despite an initial rejection, The Year Growing Ancient (St Martin’s Press, 1980) turned out to be a winner, being shortlisted for the Best Romantic Novel of the Year by the Romantic Novelists Association in the UK. .
Franta died and Irene married Dr David Martyn. Her writing took a back seat during a time she describes as “a social whirl”. When he died seven years ago, she started to write again. “Writing became my therapy,” she says. “But I came into conflict with the computer age. I typed my third novel, Brief the Sun of Summer, submitted it to my literary agent who said: “But it is TYPED! We need it in digital form.”
Irene now has a computer in her cottage in Winston Park. Her fourth novel is almost complete and who knows if a fifth is in the pipeline? Always up for a challenge, she could well be tapping away at another literary success – this time in Microsoft Word.