Festival Books
Back in 1979, Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis was ‘for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears, and to speculate about the consequences of our own presence here.’ The updated version is for those
who would just like to be here. He will tell Edinburgh that we should be planning for continents submerged by floods and wasted by drought, a tide of refugees, scarce resources and slim chances of survival on an irreversibly hotter planet. There’s no more time for standing and staring, Lovelock warns:
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TOP5 AUTHORS WITH 3 NAMES
For some writers, a middle initial just isn’t enough to get across their need for a slightly longer name than is the norm. Here’s a quintet of triple- monikered authors George Dawes Green Two events from the tri-titled New York chap, firstly celebrating Ravens, his first novel in a mere 13 years, and secondly the storytelling night phenomenon called The Moth which he launched pretty much in his own front room. 21 Aug, 8.30pm, £9 (£7); 22 Aug, 7pm, £9 (£7). Yasmin Alibhai Brown The popular broadcaster and journalist is here to explore her East African Indian culinary roots with The Settler’s Cookbook. 21 Aug, 3pm, £9 (£7). Nii Ayikwei Parkes The Ghanaian writer and performer delivered his debut, Tail of the Blue Bird, an analysis about the old and the new in his homeland. 21 Aug, 6pm, £6 (£4). Alexander McCall Smith Our Sandy refuses to slow up whether it’s crime fiction, kids books or the tales of people in a particular street in Edinburgh. After all, he’s only been translated in 43 languages. 22 Aug, 6.30pm, £9 (£7). Michael Symmons Roberts The complexities of body and soul, and science and religion are at the heart of this acclaimed poet’s most recent collection, The Half-Healed. 23 Aug, 4.30pm, £6 (£4). (Brian Donaldson)
‘If we fail to take our planet seriously, we will be like children who take their homes for granted and never doubt that breakfast starts the day . . . our neglect could soon cause the greatest tragedy in the memory of humankind.’ (Senay Boztas) ■ 26 Aug, 6.30pm, £9 (£7). JAMES LASDUN A strident defence of the short story
Over the years James Lasdun has turned his pen to novels, screenplays, travel writing, journalism and poetry, but short stories are his current medium of choice, having recently published his third collection, It’s Beginning to Hurt. Lasdun suggests that the short story should have great appeal ‘because it’s short, it’s quick and people have limited time and short attention spans. One would think it would fit right into the habits of mind that people have in this era.’ He offers a few hypotheses as to why it remains as the novel’s lesser-seen younger sibling. ‘I think there’s a feeling that this is an insider’s game, that it’s an artsy type of writing, and if you’re not part of that world then you might just be wasting your time and money and why not go out and get a novel by some novelist that you know and love?’ When asked what attracts him to a difficult genre, Lasdun says, ‘you get to articulate what’s in your head pretty quickly’. The process, he says, is more like poetry ‘because it’s so much about economy and trying to do many different things all at the same time’. If all the elements work together, if the balancing act between brevity and fully-realised meaning is achieved, ‘they somehow make an alchemy between two elements – some action and some kind of character – and somehow those two things spark. They’ll stay in your mind.’ (Suzanne Black) ■ 21 Aug (with Vincent Lam), 8.30pm, £9 (£7); The Art of the Short Story, 22 Aug, 5pm, £9 (£7).
NEXT ISSUE OUT WEDNESDAY 26 AUGUST
for BOOKS REVIEWS see non-Festival magazine JAMES KELMAN Striking deep into the Scottish soul
mistaken for a prostitute by the working girls, a misconception she didn’t correct. ‘I told the first girl that I was a writer and she burst into laughter,’ she says. ‘For her, if you’re a black woman of a certain age, you can only survive as a prostitute, so I let her believe that. After that, they all found it easier to open up to me.’
There can be few Scottish writers as lauded as James Kelman, and rightly so. The Glasgow-born author has spent a career carving out a place as the authentic voice of his generation, his use of stream-of-consciousness prose and vernacular Scots redefining and reclaiming language from what he sees as oppressively colonial English ideas of what constitutes legitimate literary work. And he’s riding high at the moment. His most recent novel, Kieron Smith, boy, has received incredible praise, as well as winning the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year. This year Kelman also appeared on the shortlist for the hugely prestigious Man Booker International Prize. That Kelman was the only British writer to appear was even more impressive. But it’s an achievement that’s truly
deserved. Kieron Smith, boy is Kelman’s most personal book, drawing on his own childhood to tell of a boy growing up in post-war Glasgow. It unflinchingly tackles themes of national identity, language, bigotry and politics but does so in a truly moving personal tale, and one that strikes right at the heart of the Scottish psyche.
Kelman has always been a controversial figure, most notably when he won the Booker Prize in 1994 for How Late it Was, How Late when one of the judges immediately declared the decision ‘a disgrace’ and his book ‘crap’. For Kelman, that merely reinforced his belief that the London literati were a clique to be fought, and that his work was important culturally, politically and artistically. And so it remains. (Doug Johnstone) ■ 26 Aug, 11.30am, £9 (£7).
CHIKA UNIGWE Learning how much shame there is in luxury
The depiction of prostitutes in fiction can be a one-dimensional affair, but not in Chika Unigwe’s poignant and moving novel On Black Sisters’ Street. Unigwe was raised in Nigeria, but has spent the last decade in Belgium. It was a culture shock that led her to write about four Nigerian girls working Antwerp’s red light district. ‘When I moved to Belgium one of the biggest shocks was seeing black women in display cases in their knickers and bustiers,’ says Unigwe. ‘I was intrigued, and I wrote short stories about them based on imagination. But I didn’t really know about their lives, so when I decided to write the novel, I went and talked to the girls.’ Dressed in mini-skirt and thigh-high
boots to blend in, Unigwe was
The result is a haunting and sometimes heartbreaking tale of four women in an impossible situation, and how they deal with that. ‘I learned how much of a luxury shame is,’ says Unigwe. ‘If you’re father’s diabetic and is relying on you for money for medication, where do you draw the line in what you’re prepared to do?’ (Doug Johnstone) ■ 25 Aug, 4.30pm, £6 (£4).
THE MULGRAY TWINS Gentle crime from unique pairing
If you’re walking around Charlotte Square Gardens and need a double take towards a pair of 70-year-old women who look almost exactly the same, strong chances are it’s Helen and Morna Mulgray. The former teachers who have never been married but have lived with one another pretty much all their lives are a unique literary pairing. They unsuccessfully attempted to write romantic novels back in the 1980s before realising that crime fiction was their forte. Once they settled into their chosen genre, they knocked out a debut entitled No Suspicious Circumstances which was published in 2007 and then followed by Under Suspicion. Both books introduced their heroine, the customs and excise investigator DJ Smith, and her inscrutable sniffer Persian cat, Gorgonzola. A third book, Suspects All, is in the bag and number four is being worked on. Long-term, they don’t see themselves ever doing a Rankin or Rowling and cutting off from their most famous creation. ‘Gorgonzola will
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16 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 20–27 Aug 2009