Work in progress: Buses of Santa Fe. A collaboration with Canadian artist, Emma Fitzgerald and the wonderful, complex people of Santa Fe. Coming soon…

#Repost @emmafitz_art with @repostapp. ・・・ Buses of Santa Fe, a collaboration with @emmafitz_art @circa1957: bus as living room, bus as necessity. #bus#transit#publicservice#santafe @santafeartinstitute @chainbreakercollective @cityofsantafe

A photo posted by Circa 1957 (@circa1957) on Apr 7, 2016 at 11:02pm PDT

Inspirational Woolf exhibition at the NPG

A moving and insightful look at the life and influences of Virginia Woolf. The exhibition encompasses Woolf's family and upbringing, the Bloomsbury Group and the impact of the politics of the time on her work and thinking, London as inspiration and the creation of The Hogarth Press, and her lifelong battle against depression and ultimate suicide. A must-see. 

The National Portrait Gallery, London until 26 October, 2014.

Music and literature at The Hay Festival

The legendary Hugh Masekela

Hugh Masekela

Francisco Bettencourt

Francisco Bettencourt and Oscar Guardiola-Rivera

Anthony Giddens

The legendary Toni Morrison

The legendary Toni Morrison

An elegy for eastern Europe

Fado by Andrzej Stasiuk

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Although this book became a bit laboured towards the end, I gave it four stars because of Stasiuk's writing, which is flawless. In fact, Stasiuk's prose is so beautiful that it hurts, every sentence a fragment of an elegy to the protracted death of old Europe. Simply wonderful.



View all my reviews

Top of the shots

Me by Konrad Dwojak

This weekend, my colleague, the up-and-coming uber photographer, Konrad Dwojak took a couple of portrait shots of me to furnish my new website-in-the-works.

Here is a preview of one of Kon's concept shots, which I love! It was really important to get the books in the shot and the composition took a little time. While Kon was concerned that I should be the focus, he managed to achieve the right balance between me and the books and accurately but discreetly convey the message that I wanted.

This is a cropped version of the final image. The full photo is below. If you like Konrad's sophisticated camera work, you can follow him on Twitter @konradphoto.

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

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.

Going global

March-April 2012 issue of Brussels Airlines magazine

Yours Truly is featured in the current issue of Brussels Airlines magazine espousing the hidden treasures of Brussels in My City. Check it out here and feel free to agree or disagree with my picks.

Writer's Retreat

Nose to the grindstone, pedal on the metal, pen to paper... Voila!

Throwback post: The Tunisian revolution in Brussels

15 January, 2011. The morning after the night before. Almost two thousand miles north of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, bold expressions of solidarity are being made in support of the country’s people. Yesterday, the people succeeded in bringing down a president. Today, revolutionary fervour has erupted in Brussels.

A rowdy contingent is gathered outside Bourse, an historic symbol of Belgian capitalism. The old stock exchange and speaker’s corner is the scene of many a weekend protest. No point being at the Berlaymont when the Eurocrats are away for two days, probably off in their home countries or holed up in the suburbs. Bourse, behind Grand Place and at the heart of Brussels' tourist trade, is the perfect place to draw attention to your cause. And these demonstrators are here to be heard.

“One, Two, Three / Viva La Tunisie!” they intone in full-throated chorus, over and over again, about two hundred of them in unison. Their slogan may not be catchy but it’s powerful nonetheless and everyone on the busy shopping streets surrounding the popular landmark is stopping and taking notice.

***

This isn’t, strictly speaking, a protest. It’s a party. The people are here to celebrate the people’s uprising in their homeland, which has resulted in the downfall of Tunisia’s president of twenty-three years, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. They used to call him “Ben A Vie” meaning president for life, an ironic soubriquet for the man who claimed to have won three successive elections, each with over eighty per cent of the vote. Now they call him “Ben A Degagé”, Ben is out and they’re elated.

“I’m here because I’m happy,” beams Mohammed, a middle-aged father of three who’s come from the other side of town to be part of the action. “In the beginning I didn’t believe it, until now. I’m Tunisian and I’ve been in Belgium for thirty years. I saw some things on television that I didn’t like and I want to be here to say that we can be happy now. I hope for good things for Tunisia and Tunisians. Fiesta! Voila!”

The North African sun has finally set on one of the region’s most repressive dictators. After days of protests, the autocrat has been pushed out of power by a surprise revolt that started almost a month ago and gradually gathered pace. It began with the deed of one man who, reduced to selling fruit on the street because there was no other job for him, set fire to himself when he was forbidden from doing even that by police. This incident ignited a series of events that led to the first successful Arab world uprising in thirty-one years. And that is why we’re here.

***

The red and white of the Tunisian standard adds colour to the austere grey of the Bourse. Young men straddle the giant lion sculptures on either side of the imposing neo-classical building, erecting flags. Rodin had a hand in this place. Now they do too.

A large crowd on the steps below excitedly pump placards high in to the air. The Tunisian flags fly alongside Algerian ones, the old enemies united in optimism, and there’s the odd Moroccan one thrown in for good measure. Banners expressing solidarity with the Ivory Coast are waved zealously beside Che Guevara motifs. The local socialists have also infiltrated the party, handing out leaflets proclaiming the imminent fall of capitalism. Revolution is in the air.

***

If this is supposed to be a party it doesn’t feel like it. Emotions are high yet, amid the jubilation, there’s a bristling tension. “Saudi government, shame on you! Fuck you and your oil. Bastards!” spits one man, aggressively jabbing his finger in the air. Along with their relief at Ben Ali’s exit, there’s resentment as to why they’ve had to endure years of despotic rule while the West stood idly by as the situation in Tunisia was allowed to deteriorate.

“L’Europe etait complice du dictateur,” reads a sign and its bearer is in no doubt as to who’s to blame for Tunisia’s agony. The man with the condemnatory placard is fulminating against the European and American governments: Ben Ali is guilty of murder, repression and corruption, he says, and the West is guilty of turning a blind eye to it. His invective is so boisterously impassioned that people begin to move away from him, creating a space for his imaginary soapbox as he expounds his theory using every part of his body. He charges the West with being complicit in the suffering of the Tunisian people for their own gain. It’s the same story, just a different state.

***

Because of Ben Ali’s support to the West as a bulwark against Islamic extremism, and his cosy relationship with various European leaders, his heavy-handed rule has long been tolerated. France, Tunisia’s former colonial power, even threatened to send troops to Tunis to help restore order. For the West, it’s been a case of better the devil you know. Not so for the Tunisian people, who’ve been sacrificed in the process, considered collateral damage in the war against terror, like the innocent Pakistanis killed while they slept in drone attacks or the Afghan civilians cut down on the street by misguided bombs.

“Memoir a nos martyrs de la liberté”. Those who have died, like Muhammad Bouazizi, the self-immolator, and the dozens of others killed in the days of rioting, are considered freedom fighters here. Their deeds have made them martyrs. “Power to the people”. “Ben Ali doit payer pour ses crimes”. “Arretez le massacre”. “Dignité, egalitié, paix pour la Tunisie”. The demands, declarations and accusations by way of banners and placards keep on coming. They’re written in French, Dutch, Arabic and English. This is, after all, an officially bilingual, international city, the capital of Europe, and they feel - they hope - that Europe, if not the world is watching. But, whatever the language, the message is the same: We’ve suffered enough. This is our time. Carpe diem.

***

Like their compatriots in Tunis and other towns and cities around Tunisia, most of those here celebrating are young men in their twenties, some Belgian-born-and-raised, others more recent arrivals. There are also a decent number of women and older people in the throng, whole families - fathers lift small children on their shoulders so they too can bear witness - as well as non-Tunisians of various backgrounds. They’ve all come to share in the moment, to watch history in the making.

“I live here in Belgium,” says Ali, a man in his late thirties, in strained but perfect English. “Unfortunately.”

He’s holding aloft a double-sided placard which reads: I call all Arab nations to get rid of their dictators on one side and Yes We Can Too on the other. Both sides declare: I’m proud and Tunisian so that no one is in any doubt. 

“Why unfortunately?” I ask.

“Because I wanted to be there,” he says. “This is my way of expressing solidarity.” And without missing a beat he insists: “And I’m ready to die for it.”

When someone looks you in the eye and tells you with complete conviction that they're ready to die for their country, you don’t flinch, so unnerved are you by their devotion. There are a million questions you want to ask but none make themselves available. You begin to see the person in a different light. All of a sudden, he becomes more real, not just another stranger but an actual human being with a past and a present. His future becomes questionable. He becomes vulnerable. So do you. You realise that he could be your brother or your cousin and you feel protective of him. You empathise with his wanting to be at home and yet having to be far from it, desperate to play a part in shaping his country's future. You feel it about Britain, in the wake of some of the severest cuts that the country has experienced in a generation, and I feel it about Ghana, always.

“I want to talk to the people of the Arab world because the Arab leaders are all stupid and dictators,” Ali says. “I want them to have a revolution and show all the leaders that we are stronger than them.”

There’s something completely sincere about Ali, and something wholly naive. He looks an anguished man. His lips speak of revolt and his eyes convey suffering. Though this is the first time I’ve met him, and it will probably be the last, he begins to mean something to me. Something in him reflects something in me. I feel I know his struggle. I identify with his frustration. Maybe it’s the Africa connection.

My mind wanders back to what it must have been like in Africa at the dawn of independence, when sweeping change was on the horizon and the anticipation was so high it was electric. There was no knowing what the future would bring but that was half the excitement, the unfolding of events. It makes you think about the cost of freedom and those willing to pay its price. Perhaps you would give your life for your family or even a good friend but for the men and women you don't know, many of whom are yet to be born? These are the revolutionaries, the sacrificial lambs. It’s in their hands that the future lies.

Most of the protestors know that, while they’ve come to the end of a long battle, they’re just at the beginning of another, one of uncertainty but not fear because this time, at least,  they’re in control of their own destiny. “Ben Ali has been the “president” of Tunisia but actually he’s a dictator and he’s been oppressing people for over three decades and now finally he’s gone,” says Ben, a twenty-year-old Belgian-born Tunisian while hastily handing me a sign to wave. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he admits. “The most important thing is that he’s gone.” He pauses briefly to think about what he’s said and, with more than a hint of caution, adds on reflection, “For now.”

And that’s all they have – “for now”. How long is now only time will tell. For the moment, there’s unbridled happiness that will soon be tempered by cautious optimism. But that, like all killjoys, can wait until the morning.

Reading is the best teacher

In my quest to become a serious writer, I’ve discovered somewhat late in life what every serious writer knew practically from birth - that reading is the best teacher. 

• Read out of your comfort zone. 
• Read omnivorously. 
• Read voraciously. 
• Read the classics. 
• Read the modern classics. 
• Read fiction.
• Read non-fiction. 
• Read poetry and plays.
• Read science and philosophy, anthropology and sociology.
• Listen to the written word.

The poet, Nikki Giovanni recently said that the US education system needs a rethink:

I’m really just so against grades. …We now are in a fight for grades which means that … a kid like me today would not take a class in physics because I would not do well and it would bother my GPA. That’s crazy. …I’m a poet, I should be taking physics, I should be taking astronomy,… chemistry for sure.  I should be taking things that I know I can’t get an A in but that will enhance my learning.  So if we can move ahead into the 21^st or actually 22^nd Century and say okay, grades are going to be different. [Source]

This is true. Education should be wide-ranging and holistic. Children should be encouraged to learn for the sake of expanding their store of knowledge and opening their eyes to the world rather than learning by rote with the aim of passing exams. 

In a culture where the practice of reading comes second to video games, television and the internet, statistics show that many children no longer own books let alone read them. Which is why libraries remain an absolute essential, a non-negotiable part of our cultural offer. Libraries are a lifeline for those who can't afford to spend £20 on  new release, or wouldn't otherwise be inclined to do so.


I've just ordered this:

It may be in danger of preaching to the converted but we all, even the bibliophiles amongst us, need a reminder that there's no substitute for the practice and simple pleasure of opening a book and becoming lost in its words/worlds.

Writing tips from Christopher Isherwood

Please bear with me while I continue to indulge my Isherwood obsession... Having read and re-read the Berlin Stories (Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin) and Christopher & His Kind here, condensed, are some words of wisdom regarding the practice of writing as gleaned from Isherwood himself:

• Be honest
• Write from experience
• Write from the heart
• Expose yourself / lay yourself bare on the page
• Feel the fear and do it anyway
• Use real characters as the basis for fictional ones
• Take a brain dump – shame yourself and give yourself something to work with
• Write in public
• Take inspiration from the everyday practice of life
• Make the mundane interesting, make the interesting mundane
• Revel in the company of other writers

More to come on a new subsite soon.