The Taste of Dark Blue

by Vivienne Vermes and Tali Neeman Sabo

The spring of 2020: lockdown. All over the world cities, countries, continents fall quiet in the face of the Covid crisis.

In Paris, a poet discovers in the work of an artist, a reflection of her own deepest experiences.

In Israel, the artist finds resonance in the words of the poet.

The two women, Vivienne Vermes and Tali Neeman Sabo, decide to create a book together, finding the meeting point where words and images echo and enhance each other, sometimes in an uncannily close way.

Their joint creation expresses the joy and pain of a woman’s journey through life – with a special awareness of the vulnerability of women and girls during the lockdowns, when cases of domestic abuse soared.

It is with thoughts for the victims of violence and rape that profits from this book go to the Hasharon Rape Crisis Centre in Raanana, Israel, where Tali works as a volunteer.

The book is also dedicated to the imagination, which is the steppingstone, the means and the end, to unlocking whatever lockdowns have to be faced in life, whether from outside ourselves, or within.

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About the Author

Vivienne Vermes and Tali Neeman Sabo

Tali Neeman Sabo is an Israeli artist, illustrator, graphic designer, lecturer and group facilitator with the arts. As an artist she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Israel, USA and Australia. She creates digital art as well as working in more traditional mediums such as watercolor, pastel, and acrylic. Tali illustrated and produced a children's book on the prevention of childhood sexual abuse, Speak Out, Sky!, by Maya Bolzman, published in 2015. She currently teaches prevention of childhood sexual abuse to nursery school teacher training students in Tel Aviv. As a feminist and activist, she volunteers with women and sexual abuse prevention organizations in Israel. Through Corona lockdowns, Tali collaborated with Vivienne Vermes to produce "The Taste of Dark Blue". Website: www.talineemansabo.com

VIvienne Vermes is a British writer and actress of Irish and Hungarian origin who has lived in Paris for thirty years. She has published four collections of poetry and a novel set in Transylvania, "The Barefoot Road" (2018, Troubador, also available as an audiobook, Author's Republic, 2020). She has won several awards, including the Paragram Poetry Prize and Petite Prose Prize, Flash 500's Flash Fiction competition, and was co-winner of The Mail On Sunday's Best Opening of a Novel competition. She has performed her work all over Europe and has run creative writing courses in France, Greece and Romania. As an actress, she played Queen Elizabeth II in the blockbuster French comedy, "Les Profs 2" and opposite Natalie Portman as Judge Sarah Hughes in the film "Jackie".