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Writing the book appears to have opened the creative floodgates for Husum. His next novel, I Am an Army, about young Danish soldiers, is out in October. Meanwhile, he’s writing two film scripts and a play about men dressing up as superheroes. ‘I never had the ambition of becoming a writer. I still have the feeling that it’s just something that happened.’ (Miles Fielder) ■ 18 Aug (with Alan Bissett), 8.30pm, £10 (£8). ALBERTO MANGUEL Stepping back from the over- reliable narrator
Alberto Manguel’s latest book, All Men Are Liars, is ‘a tribute to falsehood’ in which no one is a reliable source; not the enigmatic figure whose death is being investigated, not those who knew him, nor Manguel himself. It’s a concept that challenges the reader’s
commonly-held assumption that the author is a trustworthy guide through a narrative. ‘No amount of disclaiming will persuade us otherwise,’ Manguel has said. ‘The reader has a superstitious belief in the truth in fiction, as though writers are expressing their own voices through the text. What such an approach by the reader fails to take into account is the possibility that the author is only an instrument for creating the book; he knows no more, and perhaps less, than the reader about the subject. With no more props than ink and paper, the writer – and not a magician – conveys to the reader the magic of another world. What we look for in that world and the feelings we bring to it are not really the responsibility of the author.’
Manguel’s work traverses genre, style, and theme, from The Dictionary of Imaginary Places to News from a Foreign Country Came, and he is a prolific creator of worlds. So do we trust him in this work? As he says, ‘every minute of every day and every breath is a risk, so why not take the chance?’ (Kate Gould) ■ 18 Aug (with Miguel Syjuco), 4.30pm, £7 (£5).
GARTH NIX Unlocking the keys to the fantasy kingdom Garth Nix, the bestselling Australian author of young people’s fantasy fiction, is both honoured and alarmed that he’ll be kicking off this year’s Book
heard is that it is a reaction to the technological world we now live in; we seek out the wonderful and mysterious in fiction.’ Was that what got Nix interested? ‘I grew up in a house full of books, and parents who read, which led to me reading from a very young age. And reading seemed to naturally progress to writing.’ (Miles Fielder) ■ 14 Aug, 10am, £4. LAURA BARTON Unleashing some stored-up memories
Born and raised in Lancashire, Laura Barton migrated south a decade ago, and found gainful employment with the Guardian. ‘I started writing a music column [Hail, Hail, Rock ‘n’ Roll] in a style that was quite different to most journalism at the time,’ she recalls. ‘The response was, and is, amazing. I knew that if I wrote like that in a novel then it would find an audience
Festival with its very first session. ‘I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be talking about yet!’ Nix says. ‘I tend to tell stories, drawn from a repertoire of tales that I’ve developed over the years and only do as spoken pieces. I have a new one I’ve been working on.’ Nix will also be talking about how he goes about making stories up and how he then writes them down, and he’ll be reading from his latest book, Lord Sunday, the seventh and final book in The Keys to the Kingdom series, before taking questions: ‘Interestingly, it is often the younger members of the audience who ask the most sophisticated questions.’
Speaking of which, why does Nix think the current renaissance in young people’s literature has been focused on fantasy? ‘Much of this is down to JK Rowling and Harry Potter,’ Nix says. ‘But like most social phenomena it is impossible to work out why fantasy has become so attractive to readers, though one theory I have
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12–19 Aug 2010 THE LIST 25