JK Rowling’s launch event for The Casual Vacancy will be available to watch live on our YouTube channel this Thursday 27 September. From 7.30pm Jo will be on stage at Queen Elizabeth Hall for an interview with Mark Lawson before reading extracts from the new book.

To watch live, head over to youtube.com/southbankcentre at 7.30pm GMT on Thursday 27 September.  Here’s a useful time convertor if you’re not in the UK.  The Twitter hashtag #JKRLive will be used throughout the day and you can find us @southbankcentre – we’d love to know where you’re watching from and your reactions to the reading!

The Casual Vacancy is the Harry Potter author’s first novel for adults, set in the small and seemingly idyllic English town of Pagford, which faces an uncertain future. From a local election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations, J.K. Rowling weaves a masterful story. Find out more about the book.

Catch Unlimited at Southbank Centre from 30 August – 9 September. Get more information on Assisted Performances, Access and tickets here. 

Stella’s story

Stella has been volunteering at the garden since last year and says that gardening has dramatically changed her life for the better. She says: ‘I was going to a woman’s centre and one of the workers there was from Ground Ecotherapy. I discovered this garden and starting helping out – and I never left! Now I come up here four times a week.

‘It’s turned my life around’

‘This project keeps me out of trouble – I haven’t been arrested, I’ve come off drugs, I don’t touch alcohol – it’s turned my life around, really. You wake up wanting to be in this garden and when you get here you don’t want to leave.

‘It’s nice to be respected by the public for what you do. A lot of us volunteers come from backgrounds where you think you’re nothing, you don’t think anyone’s going to look up to you. Something like this shows that you can do things with your life. Now I’ve just got a £500 grant to help women at my hostel grow their own vegetables.’

‘Lots of office workers get jealous of our jobs – especially when the sun’s shining!’ (Stella, volunteer gardener)

Southbank Centre’s Gemma Hooper says ‘The gardeners are all volunteers. The main group of gardeners we have is from Grounded Ecotherapy and they all have experience of homelessness and alcohol or drug addiction. They are now channelling their energy into the garden, and some of them have gone on to get jobs after working here. There are currently 15 volunteers who all play a key part and we’re trying to develop the project and get more members of the public to volunteer in the garden and join in with what’s happening here.’

Basil: top tips

Stella and Paul, the head gardener, have grown 13 types of basil in the garden from seed. We asked Paul for his top tips on growing your own.  

‘Basil is very delicate’, says Paul. ‘It’s a tropical plant and if you over-water it you can kill it. It doesn’t like going to bed with wet feet is what my Dad taught me. Water it in the morning so that the basil can take up the water during the day and then when it goes to sleep, the soil isn’t waterlogged.’

‘Basil doesn’t like going to bed with wet feet’

Stella describes how they ‘train’ the basil in the roof garden to get used to being outdoors, putting it out during the day and then popping it back in the greenhouse over night. ‘When it gets older, it can then live outdoors permanently,’ she says.

Join in

If you’re desperate for herb-growing tips, advice on growing veggies or just want to meet new people and spend time outdoors, then do come along to the free, drop-in gardening sessions on Tuesdays from 11am until 1pm. The sessions are mainly aimed at adults but lots of families have been joining in, too. You can just turn up – you don’t have to book and everyone’s welcome.

Southbank Centre’s Gemma Hooper says ‘In these sessions we’ve been doing lots of seed sowing and learning all the proper processes for that. We’ve also been doing dead-heading, removing old leaves and flower heads, and generally what we call ‘Chelsea-fying’ the garden. Lots of our gardeners are involved in the Chelsea flower show and we try to keep the garden up to that standard so we need lots of help to do that.’

Why one story and not the other? This was the question at the heart of writer Siri Hustvedt’s thought-provoking Southbank Centre Lecture at the London Literature Festival, author of such acclaimed novels as What I loved and The Summer Without Men.  She went on to explore the question: what does it mean to have an idea? What is an idea? She engagingly grappled with the  ”problem of dualism”, deftly covering philosophies ranging from the “Cartesian divide between spirit and matter” to the present-day, and her lecture was interwoven with a wide range of writers, scientists, and philosophers, with particularly resonant quotations from Margaret Cavendish and also this one from Rumi:

“Don’t turn away, keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you” – Rumi

Powerfully describing how her own wounds inspired her to look for answers, she explored some of the issues in her compelling non-fiction book, “The Shaking Woman: A History of My Nerves”.

She also movingly described the voluntary work she has done as a writing instructor for psychiatric patients, both adolescents and adults, and how the written text’s ability to fix something on the page can be a gift for those “at risk of disintegration” and writing’s ability to provide consolidation and integration.

Her new collection of essays, “Living, Thinking, Looking” is published this Summer and Hustvedt elegantly fitted a lifetime of learning into an hour, distilling with wisdom and wit the mysterious process of storytelling peculiar to humans, describing human beings as imaginative creatures who can leap from one thing into another, becoming something else, old or young, woman or man.

Rachel Rose Reid is a poet and storyteller who has been in virtual and actual residence at the Poetry Library during London LitFest 2012.  She’s sharing stories she has discovered there to celebrate the Collection, which now spans a century’s worth of poetry  from 1912 to the present day

“A lady came to the library looking for a recording of Ivor Cutler. He used to come here nearly every day. Sure enough he came in.  And he read the poem to her right here at the front desk. That could only really happen here”.

What John, Poetry Librarian says is true: the people found reading and writing at the window-side study desks are also the people found on the shelves.

‘I didn’t grow up hearing poetry. When I was about 20 I moved to the Hebrides, and there was space for it’, says one such regular, poet Stephen Watts.

His life experiences and poetry are strong matches for London’s rich patchwork, from his Alpine-born ancestors and his own flight from suburbia to Scottish wilderness, to his return, diving deep into the heart of Whitechapel, the streets a heady brew of cultures, characters and encounters ripe for picking.

‘I first came to the Library about 35 years ago. It was in Piccadilly run by Jonathan Barker; he had a real passion for books. Back then it was a crammed building, but the rooms were quiet. I remember going there many times.’

The affection with which Poetry Library fans talk to me about the place is akin to the passionate expressiveness of first love. I asked librarian Chrissy whether working here has diminished this sense of romance, ‘No’, she said, ‘the intrigue has not gone. This is still my favourite place in London. I guess anyone who works in a library has the pleasure of borrowing books on the bus home to read over night and bring back. Well, I still try to borrow more than I can physically manage.’

And the romantic similarities continue. In the library and online, there’s even a lonely hearts column for poetry. Single lines await attention from those who can find their matching poems for their curious / desperate / eager seekers.

Do not weep for me the day I die, they say, I have not fully lived my life; I had a little motor car, I called it Nibby Neb.

The Lost Quotations are a long-loved quirky presence here, proved by the yellow plastic folder full of thank you letters:

…I cannot express how much I appreciate your help in finding this poem.  I can hear my mum’s voice as I read it: her inflection, her smile, how easily she recited it from memory…

…Thank you so much…I’d wanted to source the poem as the means of lifting the spirits of my father…he was absolutely delighted…

‘It’s great to have such a wide range in one place’ says Stephen. ‘When I first came I remember reading Hugh McDermott and Yannis Ritzos for the first time, and finding poets like Bill Griffiths – poets from the ‘60s and ‘70s – whose work was in great contrast to Eliot and Larkin. But one style is not to the exclusion of the other. If you like a certain trend you can foolishly discount everything else – but when I come here, it’s just out of a real passion for work that moves me.’

BRICK LANE

(after the death of Altab Ali, and for Bill Fishman)

Whoever has walked slowly down Brick Lane in the darkening air and a stiff little rain,

past the curry house with lascivious frescoes,

past the casual Sylheti sweet-shops and cafés

and the Huguenot silk attics of Fournier Street,

and the mosque that before was a synagogue and before that a chapel,

whoever has walked down that darkening tunnel of rich history

from Bethnal Green to Osborne Street at Aldgate,

past the sweat-shops at night and imams with hennaed hair,

and recalls the beigel-sellers on the pavements,  windows candled to Friday night,

would know this street is a seamless cloth, this city, these people,

and would not suffocate ever from formlessness or abrupted memory,

would know rich history is the present before us,

laid out like a cloth – a cloth for the wearing –  with bits of mirror and coloured stuff,

and can walk slowly down Brick Lane from end to seamless end,

looped in the air and the light of it, in the human lattice of it,

the blood and exhausted flesh of it, and the words grown bright with the body’s belief,

and life to be fought for and never to be taken away.

From The Blue Bag; Watts, Stephen,

[which will be back on the shelves as soon as I have returned it, RRR]

I watch the London Eye revolve and through its slow oscillations Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament gleam beneath a fleeting patch of sunlight.  The Level 5 Function room of the Southbank Centre offers a splendid view over London, and watching the Eye revolve I am reminded of another wheel turning, though in literature rather than in life: a poignant scene in F Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night in which Nicole has a breakdown on a Ferris Wheel.

To keep the wheels turning on cutting-edge discussion of F Scott Fitzgerald, gathered here are writers Geoff Dyer and Sarah Churchwell, author Kathleen Tessaro, and artistic director of Elevator Repair Service, John Collins, whose company has staged the  West End performance Gatz.  Together they discuss the enduring appeal of The Great Gatsby, still resonant today, in the context of the wider work of F Scott Fitzgerald, its contexts, and its legacy.

“It’s a book defined by its miniatureness”, pointed out Geoff Dyer, going on to explore the paradox of how although it is short (only 48, 588 words), the felt experience of reading it is much larger since it embodies all of the big themes: morality and the lack it; money and consumption; madness; glamour and grit.

Asked whether her experience of teaching The Great Gatsby differs in the UK from in the USA, the American academic Sarah Churchwell picked out some interesting, culturally specific details from the text, such as the symbolism of the colour green which flashes throughout the narrative. Whereas students in the States might pick up on the fact that green is the “colour of money”, our own banknotes adorned with the Queen’s head might not lend themselves to such associations.

One theme resonant universally is that of failure, purposeful failure, and how The Great Gatsby is a book that “failed to fail”.  Fitzgerald was so obsessed with the idea of failure that he was almost longing for it.  Does failure replace the idea of tragedy and epic grandeur in the book?   It is essentially a book about the fact that “reality is disappointing compared the image that we have in our heads”, about the great gulf between dream and reality, about what it feels like to have our illusions stripped away.

There was also an interesting discussion about the varying virtues and vices of the forms of books, plays, and films – each medium has sought to tell the story of The Great Gatsby.  Language can do something that films can’t, allowing the reader to be both there and not there, using the imaginative faculty.

Another question raised (which I remember being asked in a university interview myself many moons ago) is: what is it that puts the “great” in Gatsby?  It is, of course, his “capacity for hope”; as Sarah Churchwell succinctly pointed out; whereas Gatsby has capacity, the characters around him are “incapacious”.

As I watch the water lap on the River Thames, I’m reminded of one of my favourite lines from The Great Gatsby:

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”.  

All in all, this discussion about the theme of failure managed to be highly successful.

By Anita Sethi

Tonight at the London Literature Festival 2012 I’ll be in conversation with author Monique Roffey about her gripping new novel “Archipelago”. As the rain thunders down here in the UK, it’s a fitting question to ponder:  how would we react if our family home was destroyed by a flood?  When what was loved has been destroyed, how do we rebuild our lives?

We will also be discussing the current state of Caribbean literature and the new wave of Caribbean writers. It’s a topic we explored in the Caribbean itself earlier this year when we were involved in the new ‘CALAG’ – ‘Caribbean Literature Action Group’ – project in conjunction with the British Council and Commonwealth Writers, looking at ways to increase opportunities for writers from within the Caribbean itself. At a monumental meeting in the Port of Spain, Trinidad, writers, publishers and editors gathered to discuss these issues on the eve of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.

Come along to the Southbank Centre tonight, 8pm, to be taken on a riveting journey through Caribbean life and literature.

By Anita Sethi

LONDON LITERATURE FESTIVAL PREVIEW:

EVENT: NIGERIA NOW: Noo Saro-Wiwa and Chika Unigwe

DATE/PLACE:  4 July, 7.45pm, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth’s Hall

I first interviewed Chika Unigwe in Trinidad & Tobago during the NGC Bocas Lit Festival.  During our interview, the acclaimed author discussed a host of engrossing topics, ranging from the themes in her compelling new novel, Night Dancer which explores the complexities and contradictions of Nigeria, to ‘nego-feminism’, and how literature has the capacity to effect change.  Her event at the London Literature Festival 2012 is sure to be fascinating so do grab a ticket if you can.

Chika Unigwe’s critically acclaimed second novel,  ‘On Black Sisters’ Street’ (first released in Dutch under the title ‘Fata Morgana’), is a tale of choices and displacement set against the backdrop of the Antwerp prostitution scene and was longlisted for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.  She explained her motivation in writing the book:

“‘On Black Sister’s Street’ was a book I had to write because I was very intrigued by the subject matter of the prostitutes in Antwerp. I had to write it to get the curiosity out of my head.  The process of writing the book changed me completely. It taught me to be a lot more empathic. I saw a face of Nigeria I didn’t know existed. I didn’t know it was such a huge export of women”.

That shows that literature has a capacity to change both the writer and the reader?

“Definitely. It definitely changed me.  My first thought about these women was ‘have they no shame?’, but then I realised through writing the book that some people don’t have the luxury of feeling shame.”

Both ‘On Black Sister’s Street’ and your new novel, “Night Dancer” deal powerfully with the theme of women’s lives, their trials and tribulations.

“Women’s lives is a subject in which I’m very interested, and how women have been oppressed. I went to a talk by Professor Obioma Nnaemeka in which she was arguing that, interestingly, a Western form of feminism isn’t always acceptable in Africa – so ‘nego-feminism’ is negotiated feminism in which you stay within the limits of your culture but manipulate the space you have.  One of the first short stories I wrote after listening to this talk about ‘nego-feminism’ was about a young woman in an abusive relationship.”

The title of your compelling new novel, ‘Night Dancer’, has interesting layers of meaning. Could you explain more about that?

“In ‘Night Dancer’, you don’t really see the protagonist as she’s already dead by the time the book opens. Night dancer is a transliteration of a word used to refer to witches – someone who operates outside the accepted norms. That also refers to my protagonist who breaks all the norms.”

This theme of witches is very topical at the moment with some recent horrific news stories of people being accused of witchcraft and brutally punished.

“A video went viral on Youtube of some self-styled bishop in Nigeria who had an altar call and he accused a woman of witchcraft and when she denied it he slapped her.   The past five years has been really awful as there are women being accused of witchcraft and sent out of their homes.  It’s a society where everything is broken and things don’t work.  If you’re working so hard and your business is failing – who do you blame? your daughter for being a witch?”

The image of the ‘broken society’ has been used powerfully in Nigerian literature, including Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” – is this a theme of Nigerian literature you aim to continue unravelling?

“I worked in politics as a counsellor in Nigeria. The reason I went into politics is the same reason I write – I want to change something. ‘ Change’ is such a big word, but I want to have an impact. That’s what motivates my writing”.

“Be the change you want to see in the world”, as Mahatma Gandhi said?

“At least try to. That’s the greatest thing about being a writer – you can articulate your frustrations with the world and society around you and hopefully someone will read it and it will make a change”.

You also powerfully explore stories and lives and people who have not previously been given a voice.

“The important thing to remember is that all these stories have equal validity”.

And then, right in the middle of it all, right under your nose, some delights barely break above a whisper.

Step out of Waterloo, beneath the bridge, round the back, between Southbank Centre and the NFT, the rooftop garden green and tempting, high ahead of you.  Turn left into the Southbank Centre and immediately to your right for the Singing Lift. Step in and press 5.  Let the choir serenade you up there.  Turn out, turn left. Shh.

This is the Library in London’s jacket pocket. It has been nestled here since 1988, though it began in the post-War boom of the 1950s.

As of 2012, the collection itself spans 100 years, from the estimated birth of Modern Poetry, the sharp hewn lines of poets like Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle slicing through the remains of Romanticism in the face of the 20^th Century and the oncoming Great War.

You don’t have to know the names of poetic movements to come here. You don’t even need to know any poems.  You just peel a book off the shelf, part a page (or unclip a CD from its jewel-case) and go.

“You mean, there’s a whole library for poetry?!” Chrissy says.  She works here. Obviously she knows there is a library for poetry. She’s just telling me what people say when she tells them where she works. She sits gently nestled by piles of poetry journals that she digitises for the online collection.

“ ‘You mean, there’s a whole library for poetry?!’,

‘Yes’,

‘How big is it?!’,

‘Over 200,000 items’,

‘What?  But what’s it for?’ ”.

“And what do you tell them?” I ask

“I ask them if they’ve ever been to a wedding or funeral that hasn’t had a poem. And why is it we turn to that?  Why do we turn to poetry of all things at such big life moments? Better than anything else, poetry expresses the inexpressible”.

Jon, who’s been a librarian here since before the SBC redevelopment in 2005, says that for him, poetry is a great mood-changer. “say, if I want to feel upbeat, I’ll pick Ivor Cutler, or John Hegley, or even Ted Hughes”.

Kasmyn says she loves how poetry enables you to “Look in a book and remember yourself”.  I think that’s a wonderfully poetic way for her to make her point.  In fact, pretty much everyone who works here is both avid reader and writer.

“I don’t think people end up here casually, saying  ‘oh I may as well’”, says Chrissy (also a poet), “It seems more like somewhere that people actively want to work”.

“That’s true” says Librarian (and novelist) Mia.

Whilst some of the librarians come from backgrounds with literature running in their families, just as many had nothing but a spark of curiosity that led them to it.  Same as the visitors then.

Some people say “’I don’t know poetry’, ‘I’m not into poetry’, Why is there a library for poetry?’, and then scurry away” Mia notes, “but generally, when I tell people that I work here, they say “Lucky you”.

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on / in the world between the covers of books / such sandstorms and ice blasts of word / such

staggering peace, such enormous laughter / such and so many blinding bright lights…

Thomas, Dylan (second bookcase on the right, third shelf down)

You can buy tickets for this event by visiting the event page on the website