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The Bogside Artists of Derry, N.Ireland recently published a book entitled TRAVELS WITH LI PO. Information about the book can be got at . The story also appeared in several blogs notably, The book written in 1990 and sent to many publishers from that date on until the mid-nineties concerns the peregrinations of a young fifteen-year-old in a parallel world and his search for The Philosopher's Stone. Li Po is a Puffin spirit bird who is actually the boy's mentor and a reincarnated Alchemist. Its obvious association with Harry Potter has got Rowlings lawyers to demand The Derry News to issue an apology over a front page article they wrote about the book. This they did in the December 15th/2008 edition. The author William Kelly who is one of the artists says "the book came directly out of the Northern Irish experience of the Troubles 1968-1998 as they affected the inhabitants of The Bogside area of Derry. I conceived of an orphaned boy forced to stand on his own two feet to convey the collective sense of abandonment we, as a community, felt at the time. My book existed in 1990 and precedes Rowling's published first volume by six years or thereabouts. End of story. And it is now made available for the first time exactly as it was then. If anybody should be lodging objections it should be The Bogside Artists against the Rowling camp. Anybody wanting to think explore the connections need only read my book and draw their own conclusions."
" The book is available from and gives, in the words of its author, "a unique glimpse into the soul of a tortured world and the perennial yearning for personal empowerment, particularly on the part of the young, to transcend it." A familiar theme no doubt to Harry Potter fans.
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