A Clapton writer has just launched her first novel after it sat in a drawer for 20 years.

Like Harper Lee releasing her long-awaited sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, 60-year-old Emanuela Cooper realised it is never to late to follow a passion and has published Made in Nirvana – a book she started more than two decades ago.

The semi-autobiographical story, which she began penning at the age of 38, is loosely based on the author’s years as a young woman and her travels to India after a difficult period in her life with a girl she barely knows.

Emanuela said: “The novel was written to give values to people of all ages but basically I feel today’s society is not very happy. I think that is because people have rejected the values of the past and haven’t really replaced them with humanistic values.”

A successful businesswoman, Emaneula was running a teaching and translation company and first started working on her book as a creative outlet.

But after five years of writing, she became frustrated with the story and the insular world of publishing.

She returned to the novel just under a year ago, this time taking more risks with the storyline. Now she has self-published it in both Italian, her first language, and in English – available to buy on Amazon.

She said: “In these 20 years I had matured enough to believe in myself and believe what I was doing, as a common human being, was still something of value.

“Often we think because we are common what we do is mediocre, but we have a well of creativity inside of us that is fantastic.

“Over those 20 years I had understood it was possible and I did it. I had changed to became more myself and my own friend.

“At the time I revisited my book, I had projected my life forward 20 years, which would have made me 78 and I thought the thing that was missing was why I didn’t do something with my book? If I had been 78 it would have been really late but I thought, being 58, I was going to pick it up again.”

Emanuela said her daughter, who is fluent in Italian and English, edited the revised edition and this brought them closer together.

She said: “She helped me to make it clearer and to make it more of a human experience which helped enable me to bring it to life.

“We basically worked together for all of last year. Because she speaks Italian, she was very sharp and able to understand where my mistakes were coming from.

“It was a wonderful process, which brought us closer together – I know exactly what words and images came from her.”

Dividing her time between Ibiza and Hackney, Emanuela said that the cold climate of east London had helped her in realising the novel.

She said: “There is something about the stress of living in the city and about the rain. A friend of mine said all the best books have been written in the rain.

“Going home and closing the door behind you, going into a different world is much easier to do in England.”

She added: “People have also praised my descriptions of India, it makes you travel in a way with your body. Like a film it is very visual and also because the characters grow and change, people become very fond of them.

“With the book I want to get that message across that life is precious and each one of us is worthy of respect.”