SV 1 59577) Arrivals & departures , Sonja Besford , drawings by John Besford , ASWA ( The Association of Serbian Writers Abroad ) London 2001 , Sonja Batinić-Besford was born in Belgrade (Yugoslavia), with the Sun in Pisces, the Moon in Virgo and the Ascendant in Scorpio. Sonja spoke fluently on her first birthday, which she remembers well because the celebration lasted for several days and she received many presents, most memorably a little wooden chair and a red handbag. Shortly after, she discovered the mysterious beauty of life under the dining-room table covered with a lace cloth full of trees and birds. Her world of listening to the conversations above was interrupted only by her grand-mother Ana passing down sandwiches. Sonja was blissfully happy until (much earlier than usual, since her parents considered her chosen life-style weird) she was dispatched to school where she was very unhappy. This lasted until, at the age of eight, she started to write: reading and writing were natural extensions of her universe under the table and all was well again. Sonja has five books paperback, size 12,5 x 20 cm , 96 pages