Winter Festivities: Anita Sethi reviews the Economist Books of the Year festival

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Anita Sethi

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By Anita Sethi

www.twitter.com/anitasethi 

The Southbank is strung with beautiful Winter lights outside, and inside is an enlightening experience, too, as this weekend sees the Economist Books of the Year festival, with a veritable feast of a programme.  It got off to a rollicking start with a talk by Edmund de Waal, author of the acclaimed book, The Hare With Amber Eyes, which scooped the Costa Book Award for Biography and the Ondaatje Prize.  Last month I chaired the Southbank Centre Book Club on The Hare With Amber Eyes and the response from participants was phenomenal, with discussion ranging far and wide across the globe, from the extraordinary journey Edmund de Waal undertook tracing the history of the Japanese netsuke he inherited – 264 wood and ivory carvings of plants and people and animals – to what ‘things’ and objects mean in our own lives.  The complexities and fascinations of family history were also unpicked by Simon Sebag Montefiore through his compelling book Jerusalem: the Biography – the author is a descendant of the first European to be allowed by the Ottomans to visit the Temple Mount and uses family diaries and memoirs as a key to unlock the mysteries of yet undiscovered terrains of the past.

Objects are indeed a continuing theme throughout the weekend with a talk by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, about the fascinating History of the World in 100 Objects, which traces a journey through both time and geography discovering how things reveal who we are – from ancient tools such as handaxes to modern contraptions that it seems we could not do without such as the credit card.

Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
Today grand themes ranging from war to love to science are on the menu, with the haunting memoir by Janine di Giovanni, Ghosts by Daylight, to Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw who will later this evening do no less than explain the deepest questions of life and the universe through the complexities of quantum physics – a talk I, for one, wouldn’t miss for the world.

Janine di Giovanni

 

Email: anita@anitasethi.co.uk

* An archive of Anita Sethi’s literature blogs, dispatches and interviews can be found by clicking here.

 

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Hayward Gallery Short Stories Competition

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Daniel Webb

Hayward Gallery is inviting you to create 300 word short pieces of fiction, inspired by George Condo’s outlandish  yet heart-rending paintings, and will be judged by George Condo and Hayward Gallery Director, Ralph Rugoff.

The winning entrant will receive limited edition George Condo: Mental States playing cards, a signed catalogue and free tickets to one of Southbank Centre’s creative writing courses in 2012, and all entrants receive a George Condo: Mental States notepad.

The competition is inspired by the fantasy characters of  Condo’s portraits, and in particular his painting ‘The Psychoanalytic Puppeteer Losing His Mind’, which following a meeting with Salman Rushdie in 2001, led to a description of the painted figure to appear in his novel ‘Fury’

Here is an example short story, by Emily Webb, inspired by Skinny Jim.

Croaking Through The Weeds

Black dots on the trousers. She knew something was missing. Now she’d noticed it, she felt irrationally irritated by the clown’s subtly mismatched costume; pantaloons conspicuously void of the black dots scattered between insipid pastel blotches on the oversized top, drawing her eye away from his mediocre magic tricks. Perhaps that was it. Didn’t clowns always try and distract from their slights of hand? Not that distraction was a problem; the kids seemed distinctly unimpressed with this middle-aged pretender, more excited by the mechanical, back-flipping dog he’d just drawn from a top hat (live rabbits being, she assumed, a health and safety hazard these days).

She should obsess less. Too much time to think. But could she cope with her sister’s life, all children’s birthdays and runny noses and ketchup half wiped from the high chair? She battled with an orange, digging her fingers into its waxy resistance and releasing the skin’s musty, tangy smell. Something to do with her hands; she’d kill for a cigarette. Suddenly the squealing and thumping around her was too much. She abandoned the orange, oozing juice onto a cheap paper plate, and escaped into the garden.

Hopeful plants and ubiquitous weeds surrounded the squalid pond, the best assimilation of nature’s beauty this suburban neighbourhood could offer. She watched a lethargic frog lollop from the black tarpaulin into the water.

“Got a lighter?” A gruff voice behind her. The clown had finished his shift.

“Sorry, I’ve given up.”

She had the involuntary urge to grab the offending cigarette packet and chuck it into the pond. He seemed to notice the perfunctory reflex of her hand. They stood for a moment, held by the slight social oddity of the movement. The frog croaked, back up for air, echoing the clown’s guttural throat-clearing as he turned and left her to her cravings.

Here is the information on how to enter the competition:

  • Short story submissions should be emailed to competitions@southbankcentre.co.uk with ‘George Condo Short Story Competition’ in the subject line.
  • All stories must be original fiction and no more than 300 words long.
  • The deadline for the competition is 6pm on 18 December 2011.
  • The authors of those stories shortlisted for the overall prize will be alerted by email. Due to the volume of submissions, the Hayward Gallery may not be able to reply to all entries.
  • The winning short stories will be posted here, on the Hayward Gallery blog: http://thehayward.southbankcentre.co.uk/
  • ALL ENTRANTS WILL RECEIVE A LIMITED EDITION GEORGE CONDO: MENTAL STATES NOTEPAD

George Condo, Skinny Jim, 2009, Private Collection. Image courtesy Luhring Augustine © the artist

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In praise of translation

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Anita Sethi

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By Anita Sethi

www.twitter.com/anitasethi 


Happy December! It is the season to be jolly, and looking back over the year’s literary calendar, a jolly good literary discipline to celebrate is translation.  Indeed a number of literary events this year have reached to the heart of this very subject, from Mourid Barghouti speaking fascinatingly on the issue in connection with his beautifully written new memoir, “I was Born There, I was Born Here”(published by Bloomsbury), to a trio of Egyptian writers who also explored the issue, Khaled Al Khamissi, Ahmed Mourad, and Ahmed Khaled Towfik (published by Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation).  Next season will also be filled with the delights of literature from all around the world.

Translation opens up to us a whole world of stories hitherto hidden. English PEN are at the heart of exciting initiatives in translation and I caught up for a chat earlier in the year with Director Jonathan Heawood who explained: “A really positive, creative way of supporting world writers is just to make sure that they’re read” - and one way of doing this with writers working in different languages is to develop and expand translations. Indeed, English PEN have recently announced the recipients of their Writers in Translation awards.  The aim is to get people reading more world writing, as so much literature written in indigenous languages does not bridge the divides of geography and language due to few translations.  This year also saw the 2nd International Translation Day focusing on the important art of translation in breaking down barriers.

The issue of translation is also one I’ve been thinking about having attended international literary festivals and book fairs this year including the thought-provoking British Council Erbil Literature Festival in Iraq, and Sharjah International Book Fair: at both of these, translation was crucial to communicate the ideas and stories of a range of exciting and important writers working in languages including Arabic, Kurdish, Syriac and Persian.  Indeed at the Sharjah International Book Fair, a new translation grant was inaugurated to encourage the sharing of global literatures.

Of course, this is not to undermine the importance of learning new languages themselves: what a joy to read classics in the original language. As the Czech proverb goes: “Learn a new language and get a new soul”.

Email: anita@anitasethi.co.uk
An archive of Anita Sethi’s literary blogs and dispatches can be found by clicking here. 

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