D’Angelo Gives GQ His First Interview in 12 Years

Thanks to Clutch for posting

Read the full interview at GQ here.

The social purpose of fiction versus non-fiction

Fiction versus nonfiction

“The imagination is in love with the feel of fact.” John Bailey

The other day, I was speaking with a colleague about great works of contemporary fiction. The conversation was sparked by my recent reading of Coetzee’s Disgrace. As I narrated the main points of the story, my colleague’s expression morphed from one of interest to one of antipathy, and she stopped me mid-flow saying, ‘I wouldn’t read a book like that. Life is hard enough without having to experience a more difficult existence in fiction.’

She is a journalist. She is more inclined to the hard facts of reality than the folly of fantasy. She argued that non-fiction has a value and purpose. Fiction is ultimately entertainment. ‘At least with fiction you can put the book down and console yourself with the fact that none of it is true,’ I reasoned. But she wasn’t buying that.

We talked about examples of non-fiction that were harrowing in their depiction of the depravity of real life, much more so than any fiction could be because of the fact that it's true. I raised Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah as an example (my colleague is Italian) which, from the opening passage, is a thoroughly disturbing yet utterly compelling description of the malignant force of the Italian mafia. So vivid is Saviano’s prose that reading Gomorrah is like watching a full colour documentary playing in the cinema of the mind:

Gomorrah, Ch. 1: The container swayed as the crane hoisted it onto the ship. The spreader, which hooks the container to the crane, was unable to control its movement, so it seemed to float in the air. The hatches, which had been improperly closed, suddenly sprang open, and dozens of bodies started raining down. They looked like mannequins. But when they hit the ground, their heads split open, as if their skulls were real. And they were. Men, women, even a few children, came tumbling out of the container. All dead. Frozen, stacked one on top of another, packed like sardines.

I also brought up Blaine Harden’s recently published Escape from Camp 14. The story of the first and only person to escape from a North Korean gulag is so distressing that a friend had to stop listening to the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week after the first transmission. 

Still, I could empathise with my co-worker’s position. I used to be of the same opinion. I’ve never been a great fan of fiction - until recently -for two reasons. 

One, selfishly, is that I feared the superiority of the writer and the power of his/her storytelling. For someone who has long dreamed of being a published author, it was hard to read other’s work without acknowledging the skill, craft and commitment required to deliver that level of output without fearing that I would never be able to write as well as the author in question. The art of fiction scared me.

Two, I’m a realist like my colleague. Why lose yourself in fiction when you can engage in the living, breathing world, in all its colour and complexity, equally intriguing, if not more so, than anything the human imagination could create.In the past, when reading fiction, there was always that nagging awareness at the back of my mind that none of what I was reading was real so why bother? Needless to say, I’ve never been a big movie fan either.

In regards to my first reason, I have now overcome that anxiety. Through the formal study of non-fiction, I have learnt to dissect the techniques that writers use that are essential to great storytelling – pace, tension, dialogue and plot. It has become clear to me that much contemporary non-fiction owes a debt to traditional fiction techniques, most of which can be learnt.Capote famously cross-fertilised genres and employed techniques from playwriting, reportage, short stories and novellas into his non-fiction. In fact, much of the best contemporary literature is genre-bending. With good fiction, you forget that you’re reading fantasy, perhaps because of the relevancy or urgency of the prose, or the way it manages to capture the zeitgeist (e.g. Teju Cole’s critically acclaimed Open City and Rabih Alameddine’s difficult and chaotic Koolaids). The same can be said of reading good non-fiction, written narratively and with such deep characterisation that it reads like fiction. Sonia Faleiro’s Beautiful Thing and Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land are good examples of  non-fiction that transcends its genre and completely transports the reader to another place, learning without knowing it. The best non-fiction is subtle in tone, observed and written with a good deal of authorial distance (excluding biography) and lets its “characters” speak for themselves thereby allowing the reader to make up his or her own mind without authorial intrusion. Conversely, the best fiction is often purposefully provocative and political, deftly weaving in analytical elements within the prose. Fiction has long had the power to catalyse social and political change. We see in books from across time and across continents that the pen is mightier than the sword. If this were not the case, there would be no fatwa on Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer’s books would not have been banned, Chinua Achebe would not be an icon and the great Russian writers would not be so lauded.

My second justification is also easily dealt with. The reason why a writer with the intellectual and literary ability of Orwell flitted between fiction and non-fiction is because it allowed him the freedom to espouse ideas more freely and creatively – artistically – in a way that non-fiction doesn’t.

Orwell, Why I write: “Animal Farm was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole.”

What fiction does is to allow for the malleability and rationalisation of fact into a story with the kind of meaning and structure that real life doesn’t always allow for.The callous nature of life and its randomness means non-fiction doesn’t always have a rational ending; sometimes fiction does, restoring our belief in hope and the salvation of human nature. 

Not everyone can swallow the bitter pill of reality. And for those who can’t, reading fiction is a way of engaging with the real world through the hypothetical one. Even a purposefully political writer like Orwell, who committed himself to making political writing into an art form,chose the mode of fiction to communicate his ideas, perhaps for reasons of accessibility.

The social value of fiction is that offers:

• Escapism and a journey into the unknown
• Knowledge of other worlds, real and imagined
• Unpalatable truths in a palatable way.

In these difficult time, while some are jettisoning their love of the make-believe for the instruction of the real, I am finding that my understanding of the modern world is enriched and enlightened by my reading of classic fiction- Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and The Grapes of Wrath, Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin and Mr Norris Changes Trains and Sartre’s Roads to Freedom trilogy.It is impossible to read any of these great works without feeling that the characterisation and storytelling necessitates that, though fictional, they are plainly based on the authentic.

My colleague’s preferred choice of fiction is Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife. Fiction doesn’t have to be good (as in benevolent), it just has to tell the truth, regardless of whether it offends our sensibilities. If anything, fiction offers an opportunity to tell a truer version of the human condition in all its intricacies and with all its vagaries. As Isherwood said, “…a changeover from fact to fiction often begins with the weeding-out of superfluous details.”

This is Europe: dreams and deprivation

In Brussels, otherwise known as “the capital of Europe,” the destitution I see on a daily basis is unlike that I have seen anywhere else in the world. I’ve been to “Africa” and visited many parts of Europe and America but Brussels is the world in microcosm with all its associated poverty. In it, the complex convergence of people and politics, of individual hopes and communal dreams has created a city in which the recession’s collateral damage is concentrated in one, miniature place. With Europe’s combined wealth, even in these hard times, there is no excuse for the kind of poverty that has become an all too familiar sight on Brussels’ well-trodden streets.

In 2012 I bear witness to people who could have come straight out of a Walker Evans photograph. Four characters, in particular, stay in my mind:

• The kneeling youth: a man in his mid-twenties, tall and thin, genuflects in the middle of the busy Boulevard Anspach holding a sign that simply says: J’ai faim. He is jostled by shoppers and their overstuffed bags, overlooked as if he is not there, but he is. Every day the same man in the same street with the same troubles. Still, dignified, desperate for help.
• The polio-ravaged woman: she hobbles agonisingly down the length of the street dragging one leg in front of the other in a spectacle of suffering. She is stooped and without a cane. She relies on her arm held against her good leg for support. Mothers steer their children away from the old woman as she approaches passers-by, cup in free hand, soliciting financial aid.
• The horrifically burnt wheelchair-bound man: the grotesqueness of his injuries frightens small children who can’t help but stare at his disfigured visage. He is curiously bewitching. He is a vivid personality, animated and smiling, his face taut with deep scarring. He has a regular spot opposite the kebab shop, which does brisk trade but he doesn’t. People would rather give to the man with the cute dogs in sunglasses begging down the road.
• The human-shaped blanket heap beneath the post office awnings: it varies in size and shape but the form is always human. They take turns in securing the coveted spot between the post office and the bus station. It is dry and private compared to the place around the corner, where a group of roughsleepers reside, conducting their ablutions in full view of passing traffic.

Some will scoff at my characterisation of poverty in Brussels but I walk around with my eyes open. You need only stroll through Gare Centrale or around Anspach to see the levels of deprivation. The wilful blindness that many of us have adopted does not make the problem disappear; it is still there, we just choose not to see it. 

Could it possibly be worse than that of a megacity like London? The answer is one of scale. Because of its size, everything is concentrated in a small space making things more exaggerated, less subtle and more in-your-face than in the expansiveness of London. I’m particularly talking about homelessness and, in this context, roughsleepers and beggars. Brussels has a seething undercurrent, one that threatens to short-circuit at any moment.

In Brussels circles I hear Africa derided with stunning regularity. I have even heard it said that Europe’s problems are down to “Africans” not servicing “their debts.” I will point out that:

• In “Africa” there is no social security but there is family.
• In “Africa” there is unemployment but there is community.
• In “Africa” there is material poverty but there is hope and it springs eternal.
• In “Africa” there are myriad problems but there is faith in the ability to overcome them.

In Europe, we have all the opportunities but none of the corresponding responsibilities. Which of these – family, community, hope and faith - can Europe claim to have at this critical moment in our history?

Brussels, like Europe, is coming apart at the seams. The fabric of a patchwork society is under intense strain, not just from the economic crisis but from a fundamental crisis of belief in politics to change things, and in self. The sooner we own up to this and do something about it, the better for everyone, especially the most poor.

Baratunde Thurston at the SXSW Interactive Festival

Timeless books from a modern brand

Granta books are like D’Angelo LPs: I would buy one without having heard a single track or, in this context, without having read a single word. Brands in publishing are a dying breed. The days of the Penguin paperbacks belong to a bygone age. Yes, there is the Modern Classics series and the Vintage Classics but for contemporary literature i.e. in the last ten to fifteen years, guaranteed to stand the test of time – fiction and non-fiction –you can’t beat a Granta release. Recently, I’ve bought three for no other reason than they were published by Granta and my faith in the brand was handsomely rewarded. 

In the last month, Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land, Sven Lindqvist’s Saharan Journey and Noo Saro-Wiwa’s Looking for Transwonderland have educated, entertained and enchanted me. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed has enraged me and Craig Taylor’s Londoners has made me see my home city in a whole new light. What more could you ask from a publishing house and its authors?

This was the first time I had read any of these writers. Thanks to Granta, it won’t be the last.

At last! New literature from Ghana

Finally, a book out of Ghana that’s eliciting the kind of excitement usually reserved for Nigerian writers! I’m so looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of John Dramani Mahama’s new collection of autobiographical essays, My First Coup d’Etat:And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa. Published by Bloomsbury in July, the book is said to tell Ghana’s post-colonial history through the prism of Dramani’s life and experience using traditional African storytelling techniques in the form of fables. 

With a foreword by Chinua Achebe, My First Coup d’Etat will hopefully become a welcome addition to the African literary cannon. My one reservation is not about the book itself. It’s about the fact that Ghana still has yet to bring forward a young literary voice to stand next to the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and others who are writing about the African conditions now as opposed to fifty years ago. I fear that our culture of deference to our elders may play a part in stifling this voice but I continue to live in hope that Ghana will produce a new literary talent of world renown. 

In the meantime, read the blurb below for a taste of what’s to come from Dramani Mahama:

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2012

 

My First Coup d’Etat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama in Ghana during the dismal post-independence "lost decades" of Africa. He was seven years old when rumors of a coup reached his boarding school in Accra. His father, a minister of state, was suddenly missing, then imprisoned for more than a year.

My First Coup d’Etat offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africa’s success story. This is a one-of-a-kind book: Mahama’s is a rare literary voice from a political leader, and his personal stories work on many levels—as fables, as history, as cultural and political analyses, and, of course, as the memoir of a young man who, unbeknownst to him or anyone else, would grow up to be vice president of his nation. Though nonfiction, these are stories that rise above their specific settings and transport the reader—much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Nadine Gordimer—into a world all their own, one which straddles a time lost and explores the universal human emotions of love, fear, faith, despair, loss, longing, and hope despite all else.

Review

"With crisp yet sweeping prose, John Mahama’s memoir, My First Coup d’Etat, provides insights into Ghana’s, and by extension, Africa’s struggle to weather its historical burden and engage with a world much removed from her dilemma. Without sentimentality or condescension, he exposes homegrown African pathologies and helps us understand several contradictions of our postcolonial condition. His is a much welcome work of immense relevance to African studies and deserves serious critical attention." —Chinua Achebe

"These stories reminded me of Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose memories of a vanished world feel half like memoir and half like fairy tale. Readers will be charmed by them. They brim with humanity." —Andrew Solomon, author of the National Book Award–winning The Noonday Demon

"Mahama’s stories lure the reader into an unforgettable journey in which he interacts with history as a living tissue. The characters and the episodes are part of the everyday but one imbued with magic and suggestive power that go beyond the concrete and the palpable to hint at history in motion." —Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, author of Weep Not, Child

"Warm and engaging. The view of a complex world in microcosm." —Aminatta Forna, author of the Commonwealth Book Prize–winning The Memory of Love

"In fluid, unpretentious style, Mahama unspools Ghana’s recent history via entertaining and enlightening personal anecdotes."—Publishers Weekly

 

"Sensitive, honest autobiographical essays… A wonderfully intimate look at the convulsive changes, and deep scarring, in post-colonial Africa."—Kirkus Reviews

Pure Class: Robert Glasper Experiment

Robert Glasper

I’ve reviewed Robert Glasper before so I won’t say much. Except that his latest album, Black Radio is the best new release to come out since his last one (2009’s Double Booked). It’s testament to the pianist and his three-man band that they managed to fill the soulless Barbican Hall with such a complete sound that you could almost forget that you were in the cavernous space. Playing for close to three hours, it was such an intimate and transcendent experience that RCDC (or RCDM, in this case) could have played for another three and no one would have minded. The show was recorded for BBC Radio 3 so check it out when it airs in early June.

What’s so disturbing about Coetzee’s Disgrace?

A couple of weeks ago, over a lobbyist-like lunch in a Commission-crowded coffee shop, my companion remarked: “Every time I tell friends to read Disgrace, and they go away and read it, they suddenly stop returning my calls. It’s one of my favourite books. You’re a literary person. Give it a go.”

So I did and I soon began to wonder whether I would take said friend’s calls again. Disgrace is indeed a disturbing read - and relentlessly so - but the way in which Coetzee crafts a taut and compelling narrative makes for an affecting novel that’s ultimately a work of art.

In just over 200 pages, Disgrace grapples with the big political issues of race, sex and power in post-apartheid South Africa but not gratuitously so and not without diffusing the blame. The protagonist, David Lurie is a repulsive man with few redeeming qualities, a respectable misogynist who sees women in exclusively sexual terms, including his own daughter. When the university professor has a relationship with a student, “an affair” which, to my mind, was begun by rape, he is forced out of his job in disgrace and goes to stay with his daughter on her smallholding in the veld. The father and daughter are attacked on the farm and it has devastating consequences that change both their lives forever.

Coetzee has mastered the art of saying so much while saying very little. This is how he manages to cram a great deal into a relatively thin volume. While economical with his prose, he doesn’t hold back on the moral questions, which are controversial and wide-ranging and where the uneasiness with Lurie’s character begins for the reader.  

Coetzee’s prose is stiflingly tight and subtle with no room for air. Not a spare word makes it on to the page which forces the reader to read between the lines and draw his or her own conclusions about the characters’ motivations. 

Which is what makes Disgrace such a challenging read. By giving the reader just enough (rope), Coetzee challenges him to make assumptions in the literary world that s/he would not feel comfortable making in the real world. Consequently, the reader feels complicit in the depravity of Coetzee’s fictional realm, so engaged is s/he with the true-to-life characters and situations that they take an emotional toll. He makes us question our norms, allegiances and values. He makes us question ourselves.

Well-structured and deftly executed, Disgrace is a classic, but it’s not without its flaws. Lurie’s failed obsession with Byron and Teresa is sometimes an unnecessary and intrusive distraction as is the tendency to rely on the reader to know a little too much to propel the book along. That said, Disgrace is so deep with dark layers that on a second reading new interpretations are bound to come to light.

Disgrace is a book that manages to polarise opinion but that is, undoubtedly, one of its strengths. A couple of weeks later, while extolling the virtues of the book to another friend, I mentioned how it made me see South Africa with new eyes.

“Don’t let the views of a white South African living in Australia put you off going to South Africa,” she said. “Go and see for yourself.”

End of discussion. I wonder if she’ll take my calls?

Reading other’s work

In the last few months, I’ve been privileged to read the work of three writers who are aspiring to publication or performance, a playwright and two non-fiction authors. Each of the works was deeply affecting with a social conscience and a political message. Long after I had read the last page I was still thinking about the stories and the issues they raised. 

It’s exciting to be there at the birth of nascent but assured talent, to be in at the beginning of a career. And it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. 

They get:

• constructive criticism that they can use (or not) to improve their work;
• an impartial eye and an honest tongue;
• someone to bounce ideas off who understands the all-consuming nature of the creative process.

I get:

• great pleasure from reading their work and watching it develop.
• to learn about the world and see things from a new perspective.
• to sharpen my criticism skills and to develop my own network of potential readers of my work.

I know what a huge deal it is to hand over your work - your baby - for criticism, the manuscript that you’ve spent months, sometimes years, slaving over, and I feel truly honoured to have been asked for my opinion. Needless to say, all three writers have now become friends. Over the last three months, I’ve learned so much from them and about them, and myself, and I look forward to seeing their work in print and on stage.

Knowledge and entertainment for the price of a burger and a beer

Here is a pic of this weekend’s booty:

• Robert Harris, The Fear Index
• Mirza Waheed, The Collaborator
• Richard Wright, Black Boy
• Athol Fugard, Tsotsi
• Amin Maalouf, The Rock of Tanios
• Chris Abani, The Virgin of Flames
• Diana Evans, 26a
• Dawn Powell, A Time To Be Born
• E. Lynn Harris, And This Too Shall Pass
• E.Lynn Harris, Not A Day Goes By
• Lisa Rogak, Michelle Obama In Her Own Words

A diverse and entertaining haul. And all for the grand total of €14.75 (or just over €2 a book); roughly £12 or $19.50.

I feel an Orwellian Books vs. Cigarettes essay coming on…