News and views
Sam Reviews 'All That I Am' by Anna Funder
Posted By: Sam Ruddock, 18 May 2012
All That I Am – Anna Funder
“When Hitler came to power I was in the bath. The wireless in the living room was turned up loud so Hans could hear it in the kitchen, but all that drifted down to me were waves of happy cheering, like a football match. It was Monday afternoon.”
All That I Am opens with history on a knife edge. The Golden Era of the Weimar Republic – artistic, progressive, intellectual, experimental, permissive, excessive, - is passing and a new one of extremes about to dawn. So well trodden is this history that we think we know what will follow, but one of the outstanding things about Anna Funder’s debut novel is that it reveals a side to the history hitherto largely uncovered: the early years of the Nazi’s terror, the persecution and expulsion of political opposition, the extent to which other countries were desperate not to antagonise Hitler, the long arm of the Gestapo reaching out further than anyone dared believe. As she did in Stasiland – a reportage collection of personal stories from behind the Berlin Wall that won the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction – Funder casts a fresh and vibrant eye on forgotten stories. All That I Am is another marvellous book.
The characters here belong to that Weimar generation: they are the World War One survivors who vowed that war could never be allowed to happen again, the political reformers who saw progressive social democracy as the antidote to imperialist conflict, the artists and journalists who captured the atmosphere of the 1920, the teenagers inspired by the language of the future.
All That I Am is narrated alternately by celebrated German playwright Ernst Toller in New York in 1939 as he seeks to re-write his memoirs, and an elderly Ruth Wesemann in 2001, who receives the recently rediscovered memoirs in the post. Reading these memoirs unlocks her memory and events come flooding back and soon overtake her. Between them, Ruth and Toller bring the unremembered – Hans Wesemann, Dora Fabian, Berthold Jacob, Mathilde Wurm (all whom existed though are here sometimes linked in ways they were not in life) – back to life. Their story is of bravery and conviction in the face of history, of desperate opposition to the reprisals that followed the Reichstag Fire and subsequent exile in London. There, powerless and with threats against their lives growing and the UK government turning a blind eye, they continue to struggle, desperate to warn the world against what is happening before it is too late.
The extent of Funder’s archival research is impressive, and her decision to novelise the events a wise one. It allows her to marry the personal stories of her characters with a broad brush stroke approach to history. Fact, interpretation and biography form the framework for All That I Am, but it is the fiction that makes it a great book. Funder imagines the characters back to life in vivid detail; readers will be quickly engrossed in their milieu, standing alongside them in terrified defiance.
This is white-knuckle storytelling. Through the personal narratives, Funder explores the experiences of the characters, the driving forces behind why and how people are able to be brave, and the results of that bravery on their lives and those around them. She adeptly explores the paradoxical mix of fragility and strength that can sometimes be the make-up of great people.
This is particularly the case with the heroine, Dora Fabian, a ‘sort of German de Beauvior: less sex, but more political”. She is driven by conviction in her cause, self-sufficient and no-nonsense. Ruth and Toller are each enthralled by her – ‘We were the two for whom she was the sun. We moved in her orbit and the force of her kept us going.’ – and so is Anna Funder. In an interview with The Scotsman, she describes the experience of coming across Dora’s story as leaving her ‘thunderstruck and irrational and besotted and intrigued.’ She is a compelling character and it is apparent that, for Funder as well as her characters, this book is a act of love, of recording her courage and self-sacrifice, celebrating and remembering her life.
The same desire to resurrect and testify to those past is apparent in the character of Ruth, whom Funder met in Ruth’s later years, and whose stories first turned her on to the possibility of this book. Ruth is the compassionate core of the novel, an unobtrusive observer of those around her. This personal sympathy could easily turn All That I Am into sycophantic fiction of the worst kind, but Funder impressively maintains a rounded warts-and-all view of her characters. Compassion is a constant theme and one feels that it is the challenge of doing justice to these figures that drove her to write. ‘Imagining the life of another is an act of compassion as holy as any’, says Ruth at one stage, ‘once you have imagined such suffering, how can you still do nothing?’
By presenting humanised stories, and enabling readers to experience these vicariously through the characters, fiction has amazing power to change our understanding of the world and compassion for others one person at a time. Funder and I appear to share this idealistic conviction. All That I Am is an exercise in proving the validity of this conviction. But more than this, it is a wonderful read.
The plot starts slowly, with more set-up than feels necessary, but builds and once the characters come into their own it swiftly becomes an involving, compassionate and wonderful novel of love, friendship, courage, espionage, and betrayal. It is both a page-turning thriller and a considered investigation of courage and conviction. The characters are tested at every step, and they respond in varying ways. Some turn, some break, none is perfect. In the end, as Wystan Auden notes to Toller: ‘All that we are not stares back at all that we are.’
Unmissable Events at Worlds Literature Festival 2012
Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 17 May 2012
Worlds Literature Festival happens every year towards the end of June in venues across Norwich. This year’s Worlds Festival is taking place from the 18th of June till the 22nd and features evening events from world-renowned authors Michael Ondaatje and J.M. Coetzee amongst others. The Afternoon Reading Sessions are open to the public and are completely free- giving you the opportunity to hear from brilliant writers in a more intimate environment.
Jeanette Winterson is returning to Norwich for an evening event with Jo Shapcott and Dame Gillian Beer. I was lucky enough to hear Jeanette Winterson read and discuss her latest book, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal last year, and I promise you her memoir is even better when read by the author herself! Jo Shapcott’s newest collection of poetry, Of Mutability, is incredibly moving and has been in great demand in the office. I'm sure that Of Mutability will attain even greater poignancy when Jo Shapcott discusses her motivation and writing processes.
I also can’t wait to hear Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee reading from his work. I’ve been a big fan of his work for years and this event is made all the more special because Coetzee rarely appears at public events. Anna Funder and Tim Parks are also appearing alongside J.M. Coetzee. Our other unmissable event stars Michael Ondaatje and Kamila Shamsie. Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient won the 1992 Booker Prize and was adapted into an Oscar winning film. Both of these events are available as part of our multi-buy deal (£20 or £15 concessions for both events).
Teju Cole, whose novel Open City won the Hemingway/Pen Award is visiting Norwich to participate in World Voices, an event which celebrates Refugee Week. Bestselling author Vesna Goldsworthy will also be reading at this event. The closing event of Worlds will celebrate the launch of Granta Britain. How better to commemorate the year of the Jubilee than with wonderful writing?
This over-arching theme of Worlds Literature Festival 2012 is ‘Fiction, Memoir and the Self’. Each of the events will be loosely focused on exploring the relationship between biographical truth and fictional representation.
Find out more about Worlds Literature Festival.
Words, Ideas and Graphic Novels- A Look at the Festival So Far
Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 16 May 2012
The Norfolk and Norwich festival collaborated with Writers’ Centre Norwich to create a series of events called Words & Ideas. The events so far have all been brilliant in dramatically different ways.
Friday kicked off with an evening event from Alain de Botton where he discussed his latest book
Religion for Atheists. I missed the event because I was at the Spiegletent watching Bourgeois and Maurice perform- a cabaret band with a scathingly brilliant repertoire of tunes, however I heard all about it from my colleagues at WCN. Leila Telford, our Resources Manager, says:
“What a spark of genius to programme Alain de Botton at the start of a cultural festival like NNF12. His premise in Religion for Atheists, which he so convincingly presented to a packed Norwich Playhouse on May 11, is that we can pick and mix symbolic and ceremonial religious experiences, and recreate them through other mediums, such as the arts. This set the stage for a fresh examination of all the upcoming NNF arts events, and a recognition of how we can artistically exploit religious architecture to add a soupcon of the sublime to secular choirs, art films, jazz and classical orchestras and contemporary circus acrobatics.”
Saturday brought two events; Singing the City: From Dawn till Dusk and Tribunal 12. Singing the City took place around Norwich at dawn, midday and dusk, and was an ethereally beautiful experience. Singers performed in Norwich Cathedral, and around the mediaeval streets of Norwich (Elm Hill, Princes Street etc) which added a historical frisson to the event. It was great to hear the words we’d commissioned from George Szirtes and Andrew McDonnell come to life. Anyone who’d like to relive them can have a read of Andrew McDonell’s ‘3 Songs’ and George Szirtes’ 'Frozen Music’ here.
Tribunal 12 at the Norwich Playhouse was concerned with more contemporary issues. Featuring live streaming from Stockholm the event explored human rights violations across Europe, with particular concern for immigration. In between the live streamed events theatre groups performed pieces based around immigrant experiences. The evening brought music and the judgement from the Jury that Europe systematically violates human rights with its immigration policies. I still feel haunted by the immigrants’ stories and know that Tribunal 12 was an event which continues to have great social significance. (More on this soon.)
Finally, Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair visited the Playhouse on Monday for the Writing and Protest event. Iain Sinclair kept the audience riveted with his stories of being banned from Hackney Libraries and of travelling from sea to London via the river in a swan pedalo. Alan Moore read from his never published libretto based on the intriguing life of the alchemist John Dee.
Sinclair and Moore followed their individual readings with discussion and questions from the audience. Both writers talked about finding material in the everyday world and being drawn to the outsider- both in literature and in reality. Alan Moore described his protest writing as being inevitable rather than motivated by anger and categorically stated that he was against violence. Sinclair emphasised the need to trust our own first-hand experiences rather than the digitally imposed and manipulated images which are presented to us.
Alan Moore said that his writing method was to use the ignored and abandoned sections of society for inspiration. He described this as using the bits of wasteland of society to develop something more interesting. The event left me cheering for the outsider and has converted me to the cult of graphic novels- my next book to read will be V for Vendetta.
It’s the end of a fabulous week of events, but there are still more to come! This Saturday Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library will be hosting A New World of Words; an event which explores Persian poetry next Saturday and Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will be visiting Norwich in a sold-out event on Thursday the 24th May.
Take a look at our upcoming events.
Visit our Flickr Page to see more images from the Festival.
Hip Hip! Norwich is England's First UNESCO City of Literature
Posted By: Katy Carr, 09 May 2012
We heard yesterday at about 4.30 pm that Norwich has become England's first UNESCO City of Literature, joining an elite international network comprising Edinburgh, Melbourne, Iowa City, Dublin and Reykjavik. We are absolutely delighted with this news and would like to thank all the many partners who have helped us all to this success.
The UNESCO City of Literature accreditation lends international recognition to Norwich’s literary heritage, contemporary strengths and future potential in the field of literature, creative writing, reading and the literary arts and we are very proud.
See below for some key quotes, and links to more info about what this all means.
“I'm delighted by the news. Literature has deep roots in the beautiful city of Norwich and it was a natural first choice for UNESCO. I'm happy too for personal reasons - Norwich is where my own writing life began. Writers have known for centuries that Norwich is a dreamy city.” Ian McEwan, May 2012
“Congratulations on the success of Norwich’s bid. Thoroughly deserved.” Philip Pullman, May 2012
“This is recognition of the world wide reputation of Norwich as a centre for literary excellence, and acknowledgment that literature and literacy are powerful tools which can inspire people and help change lives." Councillor Brenda Arthur, Leader of Norwich City Council
Click below to read the full bid document:
Rowan Whiteside Blogs About Tribunal 12
Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 03 May 2012
Immigration and asylum will always be a contentious subject. Whether you yourself have experience of immigration first hand, or have gained knowledge on the subject from newspaper articles and other content, you are sure to have an opinion or stance. Tribunal 12 challenges our preconceptions and forces us to examine our responses to immigration. The day is taking place at Norwich Playhouse from 9am till 11pm and includes live streaming from Stockholm as well as a day long programme of events and music at The Norwich Playhouse Playroom for you to dip in and out of.
Inspired by the International War Crimes Tribunal formed by Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre in 1967, the live streaming of Tribunal 12 will feature testimonies, documentation, performances and input from acclaimed international artists and experts all beamed to you in your seat in the Norwich Playhouse. Find about more about the live streaming here.
The full day event at the Playhouse also gives you the opportunity to discuss and debate the role of immigration in our society. The day will have a real festival feel and will include several live performances from various theatre groups, including the newly commissioned Label Me Not; a ten minute short which examines the dehumanisation of asylum seekers. There will be DJ’s playing from 4-11pm in the Playhouse Bar, and World Music playing all day.
Tribunal 12 gives you the opportunity to meet like-minded people and discuss key issues in a relaxed atmosphere- and what better atmosphere then the charmingly quirky and fairy-lit Playhouse? There’s sure to be impassioned debate around the plight of immigrants, fiery political discussions and even some dancing.
For those of you who plan to stay the day there will be a Barbecue from 12pm in the Playhouse garden. For those of you who plan to stay all night you can enjoy performances from some of the best DJ’s around. And, for those of you who just want to pop in and out, that’s okay too.
Best of all, it’s only a fiver!
Buy your ticket online.
The Story Museum: Other Worlds
Posted By: Chris Gribble, 02 May 2012
I’ve just returned from the opening night of the Other Worlds exhibition at The Story Museum in Oxford. My mind is hopping between the images and fragments of other worlds opened up by this extraordinary collaboration between writers, artists and the Story Museum building itself: the science of capturing a story as expressed in the marks it leaves on a handkerchief after a sneeze, the Lost Property Office (spare sets of marbles available), the Time Travel Office (has anyone seen Nostrodamus and please, ladies, the Bullingdon Club tour is for gentlemen only, Mr Cameron will be along shortly) and the glorious, tumbling, vociferous angels garlanding the entrance to this magical building in the centre of Oxford.
But back to the beginning, where all good stories start (until the modernists came along, but we won’t get involved in that debate just yet…).
The Story Museum is space to capture the power, joy and importance of stories. A place that reminds and teaches us that without stories (narrative, imagination, difference, risk) we cannot understand, describe or enjoy the world we live in. It is a place that will head Oxford’s bid to be UNESCO World Book Capital in 2014 and a labour of love for all those involved. It is also, in the words of its Co-Director, ‘in the pumpkin phase’. That is, the building is there, the passion is there, the remit is there, but the magical transformation (i.e. the MONEY) is still to arrive in full. They have the building, the great idea, and a lot of backing from investors, volunteers, Arts Council England, Oxford City Council and others, but they’re still fundraising.
So what do they do? Why, they invite a magnificent collaboration between Dark Angels (http://www.dark-angels.org.uk/) and a set of artists (with the support of Arts Council England), to animate their fabulous building with intriguing ideas, fragments of stories, rooms of delight, audio, video, art, and the infinite promise of ‘Once upon a Time…’
The space is an old GPO building – suitably enough, designed for the transfer of stories, news, gossip and information. The artists range from fabulous painters to cunning conceptual types, master story tellers and tantalizing poets. The result is a wonderful exhibition that brings together the playful, comforting, disturbing, didactic and delightful in an amazing setting that is surely set to be a national treasure of a place when it opens fully in 2014.
Do try and call in over May to see the Other Worlds exhibition. If you can’t make it, join their mailing list to hear about the other treats in store. Support it financially with a gift large or small if you can, or perhaps with some time, if you live locally.
I hope they all live happily ever after. Or interestingly ever after, at least.
To find out more about the Other Worlds exhibition visit http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/the-story-museum/otherworlds
Get Out Before Dawn With The Voice Project
Posted By: Katy Carr, 18 April 2012
"We are making a piece which features the beauty of a single voice on a rooftop; the harmonic intrigue of a small ensemble in a crypt and the uplifting sound of massed voices in the cloisters and nave of Norwich Cathedral."
Sian Croose and Jon Baker from The Voice Project are well known in Norwich for their original and beautiful musical events. So Writers' Centre Norwich is delighted to support their 2012 Norfolk and Norwich Festival production Singing the City - From Dawn to Dusk, by sponsoring the original libretto created by Andrew McDonnell and George Szirtes. You can read that work soon on our NewWriting site, but for now, here’s a little more info from Sian and Jon about why you’ll want to be getting up before the sun rises in a few Saturday’s time in order to join in...
Singing the City – From Dawn to Dusk – Saturday 12th May
Singing the City is going to be a musical mystery tour animating the medieval streets and buildings from St Andrews Plain to Cathedral Close with exciting new music created specially for the Voice Project Choir by Jeremy Avis, Jonathan Baker,
Helen Chadwick and Orlando Gough.
We plan to stage three performances that make use of a whole variety of interesting and unusual acoustic spaces - interior and exterior: placing singers in squares and streets, crypts and alleys, dark corners and cloisters, courtyards and rooftops.
The Voice Project Choir conducted by Sian Croose with Nik Bärtsch at the piano NNF May '11
The piece will have a more theatrical feel than previous projects and we will be working with a theatre director as part of our rehearsal process.
The libretto is being created by George Szirtes and Andrew McDonnell and will describe worlds of shadow and light and tell the stories of past and present. We are making a piece which features the beauty of a single voice on a rooftop; the harmonic intrigue of a small ensemble in a crypt and the uplifting sound of massed voices in the cloisters and nave of Norwich Cathedral.
To take part in Singing the City - From Dawn to Dusk on Saturday 12th May, please gather at
Norwich Cathedral. There are performances at sunrise (5.11am), 2pm & 10pm.
About The Voice Project
The Voice Project is the umbrella title covering the joint activities of singer/choral leader/composer partnership of Sian Croose and Jonathan Baker. Since 2003 we have been running large-scale vocal performance projects in the UK which bring together outstanding musicians and community choirs in events that combine the ethos of community music with cutting-edge creativity and high performance and production values. Working with partners from Norwich Arts Centre, Norfolk and Norwich Festival, the Sage Gateshead, Jazz Sous Les Pommiers, the Norwegian and Swiss Cultural Foundations, Writers' Centre Norwich and international music promoters Serious, we have premiered new works by Barbara Thompson, Karen Wimhurst, Richard Chew, Dennis Rollins, Andy Sheppard, Jon Hassell, Gwilym Simcock, Arve Henriksen, Jan Bang and Nik Bärtsch.
Best wishes
Sian & Jon
Words and Ideas - Our Norfolk and Norwich Festival Programme Launches
Posted By: Mitch Albert, 01 March 2012
I moved to Norwich in December 2011, and began working full-time in January 2012 as the Programme Director of Writers’ Centre Norwich – just in time to join the discussion about programming the literature component of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival.
Now, one of the joys of being the new kid on the block is, in no small measure, the pleasure of perpetual discovery: everything is new, fascinating, remarkable … Of course, such wide-eyed effusiveness can grow tiresome very quickly from the point of view of one’s new local acquaintances, jaded Old Norfolk Hands themselves; yet whenever I directed my breathless appreciation toward the general awesomeness of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, I was met with … more breathless appreciation.
That makes sense. The scope and ambition of the NNF are truly remarkable, no less so for thefestival’s having continued to sharpen its cutting edge even after two and a half centuries of existence.
It is within this context that the ‘Words and Ideas’ strand of the NNF, presented by Writers’ Centre Norwich, will offer the chance to hear great contemporary thinkers addressing some age-old themes. Over five days in May, Norwich will get down to some serious thinking with poets, philosophers, writers, and social activists holding forth on faith and doubt, revolution and quiescence, social exclusion and acceptance, and the life of the emotions.
On Friday 11 May,
Alain de Botton will address the moral utility of religious faith even for non-believers. De Botton can always be relied upon to bring reason, compassion, and clarity to such a complex topic; he’ll be drawing from his new book
Religion for Atheists, and is adept at engaging with enquiring audiences on philosophical questions that inspire and perplex us all.
The following day, Saturday 12 May, Europe will stand accused of violating human rights in itstreatment of asylum seekers:
Tribunal 12, organised by the Shahrazad project (an offshoot of the
International Cities of Refuge Network), has been convened to examine the hard evidence. The day-long proceedings will unfold onscreen at the Norwich Playhouse, live-streamed from the Kulturhuset in Stockholm. An impressive jury featuring luminaries from the worlds of literature, music, film, social activism and law will formulate the verdict later that evening. Tribunal 12 is modelled on the International War Crimes Tribunal organised in 1967 by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre, which focused attention on atrocities taking place during the US military intervention in Vietnam. This prescient Russell-Sartre project was largely ignored in the US, which was not yet prepared as a nation to examine its actions in Vietnam; will the European Union – that is, will we ourselves – listen any more carefully to the accusations of Tribunal 12?
The sessions (and hence the screenings) will be punctuated by four intervals of up to two hours, so audiences will have a chance to check out other events at the Playhouse that day, related to the themes of refugee issues and human rights. Do check WCN’s website for updates on who will be performing and offering information on the day!
Find out more the about Tribunal 12 event.
‘Legendary’ is an unfortunately abused descriptor, but if you’ve been plugged into the counter-culture at any point during the past couple of decades, you would have stumbled across the names of
Iain Sinclair and
Alan Moore. These two – yes, legendary – writers, psychogeographers, and social critics will appear on Monday 14 May to weigh in on the value of anger and action in the face of encroachment by authority – and the erosion of society’s sense of space, place and protest.
Find out more about the Sinclair & Moore event.Poetry is front and centre during this week as well, in a big way. On
Saturday 19 May three renowned Afghan poets and their esteemed translators will perform their work both in the original Dari (Persian) and English, respectively. If the sum total of your information about Afghanistan derives only from news reports of war and social conflict, be prepared to have your assumptions overturned: these poets are contemporary and electric, investing their language (which dates back millennia) with a fresh, modern energy.
Find out more about the Afghan poets event.
Poetry caps this fine series of events as well, with the Poet Laureate her own self, to boot, on Thursday 24 May.
Carol Ann Duffy will perform alongside the musician John Sampson, with whom she often collaborates, to enchanting, moving and thoughtful effect – and how could it be any other way …? Many thanks to the
Rialto magazine - our partners on this event.
May’s looking good, then; can’t come quickly enough! I hope to meet many of you at NNF. I’ll be an Old Norfolk Hand myself by that time, showing signs of impatience at every gasp of delight by newcomers freshly inducted into this best-kept secret corner of England – many doubtless lured here by the festival itself …
Red in Tooth and Claw: Literary Death Match
Posted By: Sam Ruddock, 24 February 2012
“Literary Death Match is the unholy spawn of American Idol and the first reading of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ at the Six Gallery 50 years ago. Dangerous, edgy, yet very ready for prime time.”
Jane Ganahl, Director San Francisco’s Litquake Festival
In an era where books are desperate to evolve, Literary Death Match — a groundbreaking take on both the written and spoken word — is a crowd-luring, bright-minded spectacle.
Part literary reading, part comedy show, part game show, Literary Death Match brings together four talented writers to compete in an edge-of-your-seat read-off critiqued by three celebrity judges, and concluded by a slapstick showdown to decide the night’s ultimate champion.
Perhaps it sounds a bit out-there? Well it isn’t.
Literary Death Match has long been passionate about inspecting new and innovative ways to present text on the page and off of it. The most fascinating part of an evening is not the upbeat music, free-flowing drinks, or clubby atmosphere – though all make for great fun. It is how attentive the audience is during each reading. This is the great literary ruse: an audacious and inviting title, a harebrained finale, but in-between the judging creates a relationship with the viewer as a judge themselves. After the event, people don’t talk about if they liked a particular story, they talk about why. To put it bluntly, Literary Death Match keeps people’s smartphones in their pockets, their eyes on the stage, and their minds on literature.
If you love literature, it is the night for you.
Since the first event in New York City in 2006, Literary Death Match has grown rapidly and now travels the world delivering energetic and enjoyable events to packed out audiences. Norwich is the smallest city it has ever visited and we are delighted to be bringing it here.
I guarantee that, if you come along, it will be the most fun you have had at a literary event in your life.
Monday 12th March, 8pm, £5 advance, £6 on door, Norwich Arts Centre
Literary Death Match with Francesca Beard, Siddhartha Bose, Martin Figura and Ross Sutherland
Book your tickets for Literary Death Match now.
The Verb New Voices
Posted By: Laura Stimson, 26 August 2011
In an exciting project with BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, Writers’ Centre Norwich is working with two spoken word performers from our region, supporting them to produce a new piece for the show.
BBC Radio 3’s acclaimed weekly cabaret of the word The Verb is presented by poet Ian McMillan and features the best and most innovative offerings from the world of words.
There are three regions involved in the project; the North East, managed by Stockton Arts Centre (ARC), the West Midlands, managed by Midland’s Arts Centre (MAC) and the East, managed by Writers’ Centre Norwich and Norwich Arts Centre.
The artists chosen from the East are Deborah Stevenson from Ilford and John Osborne from Norwich. Between April and September Deborah and John are working with a mentor to develop a short performance piece for a live performance on The Verb.
Both artists have chosen local sites as their inspiration point. John is tracing the train journey from Norwich to seaside town Sheringham, to create an interactive audio piece that explores the idiosyncrasy and etiquette of train travel; unravelling stories about toasters and Christmas stockings and tractors. Deborah’s journey takes us south, to Ilford, the town where she grew up. Here, a particular, unsettling event forms the framework for a poem that gives voice to the sounds, smells and characters inhabiting this neighbourhood.
On Tuesday 11th October, Deborah and John will perform their work alongside other guests in a show presented by The Verb’s Ian McMillan, which is being held at Norwich Arts Centre. Come and see the show for free.
Some more about the artists and their mentors:
Dyslexic Deborah Debris Stevenson was followed by Channel four, hosted a festival in front of thousands, performed alongside the likes of John Agard and has been published in a bespoke book by Louis Vuitton with illustrations by Chris Ofili. She currently runs her own young poets collective called The Mouthy Poets: inspired by passion to empower young people through poetic creativity and practice. Currently in the top 5% in her class at The University of Nottingham, Debris stands for the things creative writing can achieve and conquer. A stance that is echoed in her students, 'if only the year 9s could meet people like Debris, then they'd all love English!'.
About Deborah's Mentor: Ross Sutherland was born in Edinburgh in 1979. He was included in The Times’s list of Top Ten Literary Stars of 2008. His debut poetry collection, Things To Do Before You Leave Town, is published by Penned In The Margins. Ross is also a member of the poetry collective Aisle16 with whom he runs Homework, an evening of literary miscellany in East London.
John Osborne is a writer and poet based in Norwich. His first book,
Radio Head, was published by Simon&Schuster in 2009 and broadcast as Radio 4's Book of the Week. His second,
The Newsagent's Window was published in 2010. He is a member of poetry collective Aisle16, and performed at festivals including Latitude, Glastonbury, Port Eliot and the Edinburgh fringe. He has had poetry published in
The Guardian, The Spectator and The Big Issue, and his first pamphlet,
What if men burst in wearing balaclavas? was published in 2010 by Nasty Little Press.
About John's Mentor: Abigail Conway graduated from Goldsmiths University in 2006 where she studied Drama and Theatre Arts. Since then she has led the development of the Home Sweet Home live art project by bringing it into different contexts including schools. She has devised, produced, and directed, spectator led performance at the Shunt Vault venue and been involved in producing youth theatre through the Battersea Arts Centre. In 2007 she put on a live art installation at the Toilet Gallery, Kingston in collaboration with Martin Delaney, the VJ. Abigail currently works as an Assistant Producer for The Battersea Arts Centre. Abigail's other ongoing projects include the development of an online interactive website
ilovepix.com.
Watch A.S. Byatt's reading from Granta Magazine's the F Word Launch at Worlds Literature Festival
Posted By: Edward Cottrell, 07 July 2011
On Monday 20th June Writers’ Centre Norwich held a collaborative event with Granta Magazine at the UEA. It was the launch event for Granta Magazine's The F Word edition, and an excellent kick-start to Worlds Literature Festival.
Petra Kamula recently wrote an excellent overview of the evening (
read it here!) - and we’ve now got a video of AS Byatt’s reading from the event to add to that.
A.S. Byatt is reading from The Children's Book.
Video produced and edited by Digital Media Officer Edward Cottrell - this position was made possible by the DCMS Jerwood Creative Bursary Scheme.
Sam Ruddock reviews The Good Angel of Death, by Andrey Kurkov
Posted By: Sam Ruddock, 04 July 2011
The Good Angel of Death is probably the most bizarre of Andrey Kurkov’s novels yet translated into English. It’s a rambling, episodic narrative, difficult to pin down and even more so to summarise. Indeed, the blurb on the back gives a long-winded synopsis that, it turns out on reading, covers only the first fifty pages! Like the best Kurkov, it also defies easy categorising. Reminiscent of Gogol and part satire, part surreal adventure, part heartfelt romance, part bibliophilic investigation, it juxtaposes the surreal with the mundane, satirising the dichotomy between Ukrainian nationalism and Russian chauvinism in an entertaining yet illuminating manner.
When Kolya moves into a new flat in Kiev, he discovers a small book covered in annotations hidden inside a volume of War and Peace. Intrigued, and curious to discover the identity of the scribbler, he sets out on a typically absurd Kurkovian adventure that soon comes to involve grave-robbing, hallucinogenic baby milk, mysterious criminal gangs, a chameleon, and a quest to recover an item of great national importance.
Kurkov uses this rampaging plot as a foreground for more pertinent considerations, particularly issues of nationalism and identity in post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia. Kurkov is Russian born, Ukrainian adopted, multilingual but writes in Russian. There has been significant criticism of him in Ukraine for doing so, and The Good Angel of Death is his response. It’s written in a polyglot blend of the two languages, mostly Russian but featuring Ukrainian nationalists who speak only in Ukrainian and who are determined to prevent the mysterious item of national importance falling into Kolya’s hands at any cost. And what starts off as an adventure soon progresses towards romance and a very different sort of ending.
It’s a strange and wonderful tale, unlike anything else you will read. What I love most about Andrey Kurkov is that his fiction presents an undistorted view of a society I know nothing about. Reading his work is like being dropped in the middle of a foreign city, lost and alone, and having to discover the world around for yourself. He makes no attempt to explain or simplify for the outsider. There are illusions here that never make sense – the link between the smell of cinnamon and Ukrainian nationalism, for instance, or what exactly happens with the sand – and because of this you come away from it feeling that you’ve learned something about a part of the world you otherwise wouldn’t have.
There’s a sense of unease that travels with the book, too, a wildness that accepts that death could be just around the corner so you might as well sit down and brew a cup of tea. The Good Angel of Death was first published in Russian back in the late 1990’s, in the midst of the post-Soviet era when the mafia stepped in to fill all the roles once occupied by the state. As in much of Kurkov’s fiction, at least those that have been translated into English, lawlessness, and corrupt mafia involvement in every aspect of life, are prominent features. What once was KGB, is now mafia, what once was state run enterprise, is now run by mafia. Former Soviet officials have found power through new channels, and everything has a price. As usual, Kurkov has a joke for it:
“It wouldn’t have been logical to link the presence of the car with the murderer of the photographer. It was clearly just the times that we lived in. Tense times, with lots of murders.”
Andrey Kurkov is a writer for whom no situation is too ugly for humour to cut through. He’s a joy to read, amusing as much with the strange counterpoints he smashes together as the words he uses. In
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer wrote that “humour is the only truthful way to tell a sad story” and that rather seems to fit Kurkov’s approach perfectly.
There’s mythology here too, in the story of the good angel of death, an angel that accompanies solitary travellers and sometimes appears to them in the form of a scorpion (if she doesn’t like them) and sometimes as a chameleon (if she does.) Through it all, as with Misha the penguin in
Death and the Penguin, the chameleon wanders in and out of the plot like some benevolent God, invisibly guiding Kolya through his adventures.
The Good Angel of Death is possibly not the most engaging of Kurkov’s fiction. At times it feels messy and a little long. However, in return it gives a unique, interesting, and enjoyable insight into post-Soviet Ukraine and it’s relationships with neighbouring countries. Well worth a read, particularly if you haven’t read any Kurkov before. You’re in for a great experience.
The Good Angel of Death was first published in Russia in 2000. The first English translation appeared by Harvill Secker in trade paperback in 2009. Edition shown is the first paperback edition, published by Vintage in 2010. Pp 376, ISBN: 9780099513490
More Than a Lit Fest: What's going on at Worlds 2011
Posted By: Katy Carr, 22 June 2011
The Worlds whirlwind started this Sunday evening as this years participating writers all gathered together for a meal at UEA. Having flown in from all corners of the world there were various stories of travel dilemmas and lost connections, but these were soon drowned out by the enthusiastic salutations of old friends or the to-ing and fro-ing of shared backgrounds as new connections began to form.
Worlds has been running for seven years, and is a hard beast to describe; literary festival doesn’t quite cover it. It is partly a literature festival featuring great events yes, but what is often harder to convey publically is really what’s at its soul - the discussion and sharing of ideas at the three round-table morning sessions called the Salon as well as the insights the writers gain into various writing cultures through listening to and discussing each others writing both formally during the daily sessions and informally into the evening.
Worlds cements ideas, friendships and working relationships between the 40 odd writers that attend, even if at the beginning, as one writer said, it initially appears a bit like a school trip. Polish your apple! someone quipped on twitter. Yet, this school trip has no particular school teacher in charge and no hecklers at the back of the bus; so far.
And whilst hard to measure formally, the fruits of this particular outing always turn out to be rich, unexpected and various. At the very least the writers emerge with a reading list and a buzzing head. But normally they’ll come out with much more than that – an enlarged understanding of new ways of thinking; new working connections, and endless fizzing trails leading into the future that will lead to who knows what.
Going back to Sunday evening - as the group settled themselves at two long tables for dinner the chatter settled down to an attentive silence as American poet
C.K. Williams stood up to read.
Charlie has been to Worlds before and was enthusiastic about returning. He read a few poems, the final one ‘Whack’, relating being ‘whacked’ again and again by the brilliance of other writers. It was the perfect introduction to the week’s theme of Influence:
“Every morning of my life I sit at my desk getting whacked by some great poet or other.
Some Yeats, some Auden, some Herbert or Larkin, and lately a whole tribe of others—
oy!—younger than me. Whack!”
And as
Xu Xi stood up to read from an enticing novel, she thanked Jill Dawson for her help with the text; evidence of a former worlds connection that moved into friendship and a strong working relationship.
Then the evening got on its way, as did Worlds. So far it’s been intense, stimulating and exhausting. When asked how it was going on Tuesday, Gwyneth Lewis said "I couldn’t sleep last night. So many ideas going round my head."
I feel the same trying to write this blog. There’s too much to say and I haven’t yet mentioned the events or the afternoon readings, all of which have been corkers. We just need a bit more time to digest them, but soon we’ll get blogs, podcasts, and clips up from these events as well as content from the Salon sessions.
For now Hisham Matar’s just been asking when he’s to be picked up
for tonight’s Refugee Week event up at the Playhouse with Tahmima Anam and Philo Ikonya. If you’re around then please beat the rain back and come and join us; I sure it’s going to be another thought-provoking and lively evening.
Sam Ruddock reviews Ghost Light by Joseph O'Connor
Posted By: Sam Ruddock, 14 June 2011
“Ghost light. An Ancient superstition among people of the stage.
One lamp must always be left burning when the theatre is dark,
so the ghosts can perform their own plays.”
There are some books that would be better not reviewed, for they are so self-aware that they review themselves.
Ghost Light is such a book. Its title, with analogies to plot, atmosphere, and some of the longing melancholy that a reader will take away, is just the start of a stunning novel in which no words are wasted and all imagery and metaphors reflect back on the central ambiance. It’s a book that is most clearly defined by its atmosphere, its feeling, rather than what happens, and as a piece of sustained atmospheric writing, it succeeds on every level. Hauntingly sad, yet packed with wit and invention, reading
Ghost Light is a little bit like gazing through a microscope at the petal of a flower or the intricacy of an animal skeleton: awe-inspiring in it’s apparently simple complexity.
O’Connor takes as his subject the romance of leading Irish playwright JM Synge and his muse Molly Allgood (stage name Maire O’Neill). His letters to her survived, hers to him do not. So what O’Connor does is use this gap to invent Molly as an almost entirely fictional character and to present their relationship through her eyes. “Certain biographers will want to beat me with a turf shovel,” O’Connor notes in his Afterword, but the liberties he takes with accepted historical truth are common in fiction. This is a retelling in spirit rather than fact, and the author makes a stunning performance of it. Like much good fiction, it uses the spectre of what we already know will happen to add poignancy to events on the page.
We meet Molly Allgood as an elderly actress living alone in a lodging house in London. Two failed marriages and the death of her son in the war have left her alone and poor, living a shoddy life in run-down post-war England. Yet she’s unfettered in attitude, a tough old girl with a spark of life that cannot be extinguished. “She is the kind of woman who persists in the face of hard evidence. It has caused her much grief, this trait.”
As she walks the streets of 1950s London, passing time before heading to the BBC for a now rare casting in a radio play, she reflects on her past, on the dazzling career that has faded, and the ghosts of the life she might have lived. Her journey calls to mind both Woolf’s
Mrs Dalloway and her namesake Molly Bloom, and she certainly owes something to Bloom’s capricious lust for life.
The narration switches back and forth between this 1950s London and Dublin in 1907, when a young Molly is engaged in an affair with JM Synge. He’s older, serious, a troubled genius with ‘martyr-sad eyes’ from a wealthy protestant family who is, in his own words, “slowly roasted on the flames of [his mother’s] widowhood”. She’s forthright and flirtatious, a Catholic girl from the Dublin slums dreaming of stardom in America. He is her ‘Tramp’, she his ‘Changeling’. Their affair is uncertain, opposed on all sides, tender and affectionate. He is often distant; she can be impetuous. They have much in common and yet everything – an age gap of sixteen years, social, religious and economic disparities, the opposition of their families and colleagues, Synge’s ill health – works to keep them apart. At one point Molly reads a rhyme that they find in an old book: “She reads the final couple aloud. He chuckles at her pronunciation. In his accent, it rhymes. In hers, it does not. For less have millions starved.” They are the classic impossible couple, part Romeo and Juliet, part Pygmalion and the Statue, their relationship demonstrates some of the divisions in Ireland at the time. An Ireland where riots accompany the premier of Synge’s latest play,
The Playboy of the Western World, for its supposed slight on Irish womanhood, “libel on the peasantry,” and vulgarity.
Ghost Light is a novel about, and inspired by, Dublin. Ulysses runs in and out of much of it, WB Yeates is a character and the Abbey Theatre its setting. It is an Ireland that is filled with life and excitement, the land of Molly’s youth and exuberance, where everything was possible and romance blossomed. This raucous land is contrasted with the dreary London landscape of Molly’s present, where, she reflects that A Streetcar Named Desire would have been named “A Bus Called Passing Interest” were it by an English author, bomb scarred buildings loom grey and empty, and vagrancy is rife. At one point Molly sees an advert in a laundrette window which reads:
CLEAN ROOM TO RENT
SUIT COUPLE (MARRIEDS ONLY)
NO BLACKS
NO IRISH
NO DOGS
It’s only the BBC, that great beacon of art, that seems to rise from the ashes of the war, only the BBC that offers all the glamour and stature of the Abbey Theatre back home.
Ghost Light is inherently a sombre novel, illuminated by moments of bleak humour and a romance to root for. Those who enjoy second person narration will love the use O’Connor puts it to here, employing it to convey all of the mental turmoil and self accusation that Molly puts herself through in much the same way as David Peace used it to convey the psychological troubles of Brian Clough in
The Damned Utd. The meandering passages in the 1950s drift in and out of this second person, as though a ghostly apparition is talking to Molly. There are passages that take one’s breath away: an unsent letter from Molly to Synge, a comic one-act play that sends up Synge’s pretentions to being the playwright of the common man, an elucidation of the fragile process of writing:
“And at some point he realises he has twenty strong pages. Then what becomes important is bravery. To go on might yield nothing – everything can die. Anyone can make a beginning; to embark on a second act takes the courage. It is like building a house, he says. The smallest error is fatal. Every course of brick-work must be angled correctly or the whole will collapse in the end. But fifty pages, sixty, he knows if the impossible is happening. The people summoned into being by the old power of words might begin to unfurl, to walk about and love, to say things he himself would never dream of uttering, in voices not his but theirs. It is like watching the muzzle-flash of a gun through fog yet wanting the billets to hit you, he says. Essential to hold your nerve, not to let the excitement of the alchemy throw you into crowd-pleasing stupidities or grandiosities. Who can say where they come from, these people who never lived? But he is one of the intermediaries they come to. He seems to think of himself in the third person, as perhaps all do from time to time. Is it possible he sees himself as a character?”
Ghost Light is an intense read, driven by the power of the writing and the compelling narration, rather than plot. It is a book to read slowly, to revisit regularly and not to worry if at first one does not engage with the characters. At times, O’Connor’s turn of phrase is jaw-droppingly good. There are pages one could read over and over again and not grow tired of. Lovers of lyrical prose will love
Ghost Light. It has a feel to it, a feel that is replicated in every phrase and word, an empty stage with a single light burning, and an audience full of people longing for those ghosts to turn up and play for them.
“Does the body remember? When the mind has forgotten?...And if dreams unmask our longings, as the wise have claimed since the Greeks, why is it that the dead are so often silent when we dream them? Don’t we want them to speak? What would they say?”
If reading is just the start…then what comes next?
Posted By: Sam Ruddock, 09 June 2011
Summer Reads is in full swing. We’ve got six wonderful books that each featured in the top ten titles loaned at the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library in May - with Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor top. We’re already closing in on 1000 loans across Norfolk and hopeful of making 2500 by the end of July. All of which means that the most important part of Summer Reads is going well and people are reading the books.
The big question now, however, is what comes next? If reading these books is just the start then what else can the readers of Norfolk look forward to? The answer: LOTS! We’ve already had two fantastic Book Club meetings, a Flash Mob, Read-in Café (the second of which is this Thursday) and book-lovers quiz. These will continue through the summer so if you’re looking for opportunities to get involved in Summer Reads, or just want to see what other readers think, then there is plenty for you to choose from.
Perhaps most exciting of all are the readings that each of the authors will be giving in Norwich. As Petra Kamula noted on this blog a few weeks ago, listening to literature read live can provide a fresh way of experiencing words on a page and hearing an author talk about their inspirations and the wider context of a piece can bring it to life. Back in May we hosted a sold-out evening as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival with Simon Armitage and we still have five more readings to look forward to.
First up we have Katie Kitamura, Andrey Kurkov, and Evie Wyld reading at the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library on Tuesday 21st June. On first view their books are dramatically different – Kitamura’s a hard hitting and sparse tail of a fighter building up to the mixed martial arts fight of his life; Kurkov’s a playful and irreverent satire of nationalism in the former Soviet Union; Wyld’s a tale of damage passed between the generations in rural Australia – yet that can often be one of the highlights of readings. Books tend to find ways of making strange connections between each other, and I’m particularly looking forward to uncovering some of these here. I’ve been a fan of Andrey Kurkov for many years but never had the opportunity of hearing him read, so that will also be a great pleasure.
Later that week, on Thursday 23rd June, Joseph O’Connor makes a flying visit to read from Ghost Light as part of an event that sees him partnered with fellow Dubliner John Boyne, (author of bestselling The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) whose latest book The Absolutionist is partly set in Norwich. Dublin was the most recent addition to the UNESCO Cities of Literature Network that Norwich hopes to join shortly and Ghost Light is full of colloquial Dublin voices and language. It has that lilting atmosphere, too, that Joseph O’Connor captures when reading and I can’t wait to hear him do so live. This is sure to be an absolutely fantastic event with two leading authors.
And then in July, Robin Bayley visits Norfolk to read in Dereham and Norwich. I’ll write more about these soon. In the meantime, don’t forget to book your tickets for the above events, and join us at the Read-in Café on Thursday and the Ghost Light Book Club next Tuesday.
Happy reading, and remember, when it comes to Summer Reads, reading really is just the start.
