Richard Sorapure

Richard Sorapure is a marine geologist and geophysicist who has worked all over the world, mainly on short-term projects for civil engineering, government and oil and gas companies. From 1983 to 1994, he was based in Singapore where four of his five children were born. During this time most of his projects were in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, with occasional forays further afield to India, the Middle East , Taiwan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. ‘Hostage to Freedom: The Search for the Siren’ is Richard’s first published novel, released in June 2021. It took 10 years to complete and is based on his experiences in Singapore and the Philippines and, with artistic licence, it has weaved in a dramatic attack on his survey vessel, MV Askelad, offshore Nigeria by an armed gang of twenty pirates. Two of the survey team were taken hostage. Nowadays he is happy to concentrate on writing a second novel and concentrating on gardening back home in his home in Somerset.