Elif Shafak would like to see more Turkish books translated into Kurdish. ‘I was mesmerized when I came to Hay that the road signs are in English and Welsh. Maybe one day in Turkey we will have Turkish and Kurdish road signs.’ Her country operated, she said, on the basis that ‘everyone is Turkish. We […]
I’m back from Hay Festival, the campervan is unpacked and I’ll be posting my favourite snippets from the 10-day literary event over the next few days. First up, Rhianna Pratchett in conversation with Guy Cocker. ‘Fifteen years ago when I was a games journalist, no one talked about narrative,’ said Rhianna Pratchett to a multi-generational […]
Will Self always pulls a big crowd at Hay and this year he dished out a sizzling mix of wit and venom, plus comic banter with interviewer Sarfraz Manzoor. In a (literally) terrific performance, he read from his latest novel Umbrella. As he later explained to the audience, Umbrella is the completion of a trilogy […]
‘I do love the basic Anglo Saxon vocabulary,’ said US-writer Lydia Davis at Hay Festival. The remark was prompted by a question from the audience (Why do you write so many single-syllable words?) Davis continued: ‘I do like the Latinate, too, but Anglo Saxon is the language of great emotion. “I am so mad.” “You […]
At Hay Festival in 2006 I intercepted Will Self between events and he very kindly signed my hardback copy of The Book of Dave. Only… he wrote “From Anne” instead of “For Anne.” No matter how hard I try to untangle this briefest of encounters (what exactly did I say? what did he say?), I […]
I’ve deciphered my scribbly notes from last week’s Arthur C Clarke Award and Write the Future micro-conference, organized by Tom Hunter, and I thought I’d share my favourite quotes from the day: Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City (winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award in 2011) and The Shining Girls, quoted Muriel Rukeyser: “The […]
Chris Beckett was presented with the Arthur C Clarke Award 2013 yesterday evening at a packed event at the Royal Society. Many congratulations! I hope this award will create a bigger readership for his brilliant book, Dark Eden. And I’m holding off to the second paragraph to say – I told you so! Yesterday I […]
Well, I’ve slept on it… and I’ve re-read my reviews. There are two novels that, for me, stand out from the six on the 2013 shortlist: Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden and Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars. Each of the remaining four novels obviously have great merits in terms of subject matter, plot, writing quality or […]
I have to admit that I haven’t read Kim Stanley Robinson’s fiction before and on the strength of 2312 I’ll read his Mars Trilogy, which established him as a big hitter, with a literary bent, in the realm of hard SF. Truth is, I don’t really gravitate to other-world science fiction. I suppose because I’m […]
A global flu pandemic has decimated the human population and, if that’s not bad enough, the worst effects of global warming are taking their toll. The Dog Stars is set in Colorado nine years after the flu pandemic. Hig, a pilot, has made a life for himself at a remote airfield and he’s coping with […]
