Novel dedication

Following Fr Norbert Ellul Vincenti's review of my novel Ora (The Sunday Times, October 22), I have decided formally to withdraw the dedication made in that book!

Yes, Fr Ellul Vincenti was right: the dedication is not polite at all. So I have decided that the book would be better without it. Readers of my novel Ora are to ignore the dedication, as if it were not written.

Just skip that page, ignore it, let your eyes overlook it, do not your brains register it. Just pretend it had not been written there in the very first place.

In that way, although I would be sacrificing the original aim of showing the reader what he or she is to expect in the novel - a story full of misguided passion, the eternal conflict between fidelity and infidelity, sexual self-discovery -I would be appeasing the person to whom the novel was dedicated... who actually got offended, very much like Fr Ellul Vincenti predicted!