Edmund Said, Orientalism, and how writing has changed now writers use computers not paper

I was never a big fan of Edward Said's Orientalism, and the limited way it seemed to focus views of the east, but found this podcast very interesting. Great Lives, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01gvn2k

Straight after that I stumbled across this BBC documentary, which was also fascinating. Do writers write differently on paper? Fay Weldon thinks so. From April 2011. subscribe to the podcast http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r4choice Tales from the Digital Archive

Shieldwall: Top of the Paperbacks, Sunday Times April 22nd

Shieldwall picked as of the week's paperbacks:

'In the early 11th century, England is close to anarchy.... When Ethelred dies and the raiders from the north arrive, Edmund and Godwin become the standard-bearers of native resistance. With supple, intelligent prose, Hill not only succeeds in bringing this distant world to life but, in Godwin, has created a complex character whose struggles to be true to his ideas of duty and friendship are entirely convincing.'


Nick Rennison

Literary Festivals: the magic ingredients

Gatherings of writers can be odd events where egos and insecutirites make a toxic mix. But at their best they are creative and compelling meetings of minds and ideas.
How to nuture this mix?
Literary festivals have been on my mind recently, having just been to a few, and as we start to look forward to the 2012 Hong Kong International Literary Festival.
One question is who or what is the festival for? If it is for the audience then I think that they feel a little flat for the writers. They turn up and meet an audience, say the same old things about a book they finished possible one or two years before, at best, and then they 'come down' with a slice of cake and a cup of tea: and then head home.
If that's what you're offering the writers, then I think you're missing out. And certainly writers will pass on the lack of enthusiasm they have for that event.
One simple way festivals seem to approach this is in the name. Literary festivals tend towards the static interaction; 'writer's festivals' tend towards something more interactive and stimulating. This can be workshops; more informal gatherings; literary walks; and of course - hanging out in the pub with writers - which is probably the favourite part for most writers where their audience can talk back to them.
You see - writ

ing is a really odd art form - where, uniquely, the artist never meets their audience, and perhaps the creation is divided from the experience of that art by years or decades, and thousands of miles.
I sit alone in a room and write, and then after an unknown period of time and space, another person sits alone in a room and reads my books. And most of the time I have no idea what they liked or didn't like about the book. Or what questions and responses they had etc.


So what does make a literary festival?
Centralised locations: where people can hang out between and after events. Where there is a buzz, a unique place where story and the written word are for once taken out of the normal world and celebrated. This can be the tent square of Edinburgh or the bar/restaurent of the Beijing Bookworm.
The audience speaks back: breaking down the barriers, so that writers are not just talking to audiences. In Chengdu, for example, I visited a school for disadvantaged children, many of whom had lost parents in the earthquake. And although I was there to talk about writing and my experiences in China, it is impossible to talk to young adults who have come so far in their lives, and not be affected. That's an audience a writer does not forget.
Stimulating: everywhere that has a festival has something special about it. This should be brought into the festival. An obvious example is the Ubud Literary Festival in Bali, where the culture is brought into the festival in food, music and setting. But it's almost unimportant - as long as there is a conversation between place, writers and people.
Authors: interesting authors are a must. That's a duh!
And Audiences: harder to control of course, but places with interesting audiences make for much more stimulating places to visit. Because, we come back to the point, I think: that good literary festivals should be a conversation between writer, audience and place. And not a one way conversation.

Bookmarks

I like bookmarks. Being a nerd, I even have specific bookmarks for special books.

The obvious one is an embroidered silk bookmark i got to commemorate the pope's visit to England in the 1980s. What can I say: I was raised Catholic and I was an altar boy, and if you played Dungeons and Dragons despite a papal ban, you had to do something to mitigate your sins.

I got a set of sandalwood ones when I first went to China, and they mark favourite poems in my favourite anthology.

And then I was reading The Two Towers recently and I came across this. It's a plain piece of blue card, faded to brown across the top, where it has at some time stuck up from the top of the book. And it contains a list of names, written in my brother's handwriting with a sharp, probably a H or 2H pencil.

And it was written some time between 1981 and 1992.

I'm guessing at the reason why there is a list of names here. But I'd say it is my brother looking for the name of a character.

That's the basic information, but what seems more worthy of a blog post is the effect it had on me: I wanted to know who or what all these names described. If anyone knows please do let me know. I know they mean something....

Dorathon
Dorathan
Dargonath
Doranor
Doramir
Dorondil
Dorthondor
Dorongil
Dorthon

Look what arrived in the post this morning?! A dozen paperbacks of Shieldwall

Chengdu: City of Beautiful Girls, Spicy Food and of course, Poets

It's interesting, as an author, to turn up to China's festivals, and feel the difference in the respective audiences.

It's not just that the Chinese cities and provinces are different (they are - as different as London and Athens, for example) - but also that the foreigners attracted to the various places are different.

Shanghai attracts a high end audience. Well turned out, well educated, rich.
I was told Suzhou would be the wives of factory owners, and there were lots of those there, but I was there over St Patrick's Day, and all I saw was young people everywhere.

Beijing is probably my favourite, because it's full of Sinophiles.
But Chengdu is interesting, as it seems full of Old China Hands, Tibetologists, and Panda People. But what's striking about Chengdu is that Chengdu is a city of spicy food, beautiful girls and poets. And when you go to read there, the audience is going to be 2/3rds local Chinese.

Which is a little worrying when you're talking about Early Medieval English History. But there was no need to fear. A packed house, and a good half an hour afterwards answering extra questions and signing books.
Great to see old faces still there! And thanks for the photographs!

On Tour Again: Chengdu Book Worm Lit Fest

It was a grey day in Hong Kong: with low misty clouds, when i set off to Chengdu.

It's an odd feeling for me to fly into China. It feels in some ways like going back in time. It also feels like coming alive again, and when I landed the weather was pretty similar, though about 10 degrees colder.

I'm here for the Chengdu Bookworm Literary festival: one of my favourites. I was here last, four years ago, when Rob Gifford and I (apparently) argued spectacularly about the veracity of our stories. People are still talking about that night here.

The hotel is the same. The Kempinski: and you can tell how far china has moved on now in the quality of the hotel staff and hte reception you get at these places. Otherwise they're much the same. Pretty girls playing the piano in the lobby, men sipping tea, and men handing out hooker cards at the front door.



I spent the afternoon walking some back streets, and while much about china has changed, the back streets have not. The Chinese do cities well: they're cities that you walk around, they are cities on a human scale with all kinds of odd shops and activities happening on the pavement and in hte open doorways of shops, that double as houses, with people sitting in bed, with thick duvets pulled over their legs.



I was there for the launch night: a feast of speeches in Chinese and English, including a government spokesman, from the investment council of Sichuan province. Some things never change, and speeches are one of them. But I nipped out half way and went back to a little back street I found where there were on street restaurants: and sat on a rickety iron stool, and had yu xiang aubergine, pigs stomach and jia chang dofu.

The back to the Chengdu Bookworm and lit fests are best when the events are over and you get to talk to the people there. I like the folk at Chengdu: many of whom were the same and were kind enough to come along and say hi, and those who i had never met before.