Her first recently published full-length novel is yet to hit the market, but this very unassuming teenager has already secured contracts for her next two novels. This is the astounding achievement of 18-year-old Tamika Bullen, whose passion for the written and spoken word has opened the way for what certainly promises to be a bright future in the literary world. This drive has resulted in her initial work-Trials Between Love and War-to be launched in the coming weeks.
The typically shy and soft-spoken teenager explained one of the motivating factors behind the novel: "Well, I like to read romance novels because of their almost happy endings and after reading so many books I wondered if I write one if anybody would read my work. "So, after thinking it over for some time, the idea for the book came to me and I started to write it." Trials Between Love and War was published by Raider Publishing International with offices in South Africa, London and New York. She confesses that the work is complete fiction and had no bearing on what might have transpired in her real life.
The daughter of Warren and Marsha Bullen, business people of Casselton Gardens, Trincity, are extremely proud of their daughter's accomplishment. Bullen, who attended St Theresa's RC School in Woodbrook, South East Port-of-Spain Secondary and is an undergrad student at the University of the Southern Caribbean at Maracas Valley, St Joseph, reading for a degree in Psychology, was a slow learner at prep school but caught up at the primary level. While most teenagers would be pursuing the usual activities associated with children that age, she chose to read and write poems, literally day and night.
Her mother recalls: "Many were the nights when I would wake up and see the lights on in the living room only to discover it was Tamika reading or writing. She had no time for the normal things teenagers get themselves involved in." The amazing thing is that when Bullen was writing Trials Between Love and War she was also writing the manuscripts for two other novels for which she has received advance contracts. "I wrote all three simultaneously, which took me one year to complete," she said, with a chuckle. Without wanting to give away too much of the book, Bullen said it dealt with six friends who grew up together in hard times and ended up in one place where they faced all kinds of trials and tribulations-including vampires.
Surprisingly, there is one "good vampire" which makes the novel intriguing reading and, of course, its message is that love would always trump conflict and hatred. It was also a personal challenge for Bullen in that one of her male friends, whom she told she was undertaking the project, replied that a black person, particularly a black girl, could never achieve such a feat...and especially at her age. "I showed him it could be done," Bullen said with a grin. Bullen was born in Guyana and came to Trinidad at age one. Since then, she has never left her adopted homeland. The novel is to be launched in Port-of-Spain and later in Guyana in the next few weeks.
Bullen's mother noted there was no history of writers in their family: "I don't know where she got that talent from. All hours of the night this child is writing; it is amazing to see the hours she would be up pursuing her dream of becoming the best writer she can be. All I could do is to fully support her." Bullen is the second of five children. Her mother is expecting a sixth child.
Bullen's mother added: "I am all excited because she is a very determined young person, very self-motivated and she already has her life all planned out, as strange as that might sound. "I am quite happy with that, quite comfortable and she gives no problem, not even boyfriend problems," she said as she bursts into a laugh. And the basic message in her book? "I want to let my readers know that in spite of all life's ups and downs, love will triumph in the end. There is hope when love is present in all that we do," Bullen said.
