The recent gap in my postings to the blog were not entirely down to my getting involved in following the football World Cup, more than I ever thought I would, though that did not help. It was down to the unusually good weather – so surprising at the height of British summer (we were grateful for those days of sunshine), and also because of the London Literature Festival. This is the second year of the festival – how come London did not have one before? And while I did not get to any of the events in the first year, I do enjoy going to the book and spoken word events that take place throughout the year at Southbank Centre, as I have explained before – check it here
However, with the best part of 80 events to choose from for the London Litfest, how would you decide what to attend? The first look at the catalogue, gave me over 10 events that I felt I could not miss. Unfortunately my hard-earned cash is not unlimited and I had to focus. Well, a colleague at work brought on that focus – the only event date that we both could do and that was on both our lists was the Gary Younge (6 July); this ended up being a girls night out with three other friends. [Listen to some of it here Gary Younge in conversation with Bidisha podcast.] Bidisha was an excellent interviewee, she'd done her preparation and understood what Gary Younge was about.
After that Mr Muse and I went through the catalogue again and plotted out events based on the authors from overseas. Essentially I felt that while it would be great to see Andrea Levy, Aminatta Forna, Maggie Gee, Jackie Kay or Jeanette Winterson, there would be fewer opportunities to see authors who are based abroad and flew into London just for the festival. We also decided to take up the opportunity to indulge our fascination of all things Brazilian. So that meant that our list of events became 2010 Caine Prize Readings (4 July), A Woman’s Eye on Brazil (9 July) and Joáo Paulo Cuenca & Tatiana Salem Levy (10 July). In all honesty I was never going to get to the Jackie Kay reading since it was scheduled to take place in the run-up to the World Cup Final, and Mr Muse found himself playing for Brazil no less, in a artists, photographers and curators football event and so I became a faux wag, rather than a literature maven for that afternoon.
Now for the gripes, I was actually prepared to book a few more events for the London LitFest but I could not get the website to work properly and at least one of my chosen events, Talking Tropicália appeared not be listed on the bookings bit of the website. I could not work out how to get the events discount to work and so gave up on that too. And, why is the wine sold in plastic glasses at the Southbank? I can of course, understand this police enforced requirement at pub screenings of football matches during the World Cup, but how rocking do you think Southbank ever gets? It is all so well behaved; I cannot imagine that wine in proper glasses should ever be a problem there.
Caine Prize Readings
My first London Litfest event took place on a wonderful sunny afternoon, but it did not feel too bad to be in the Purcell Room, which is always such an intimate experience for spoken word events despite its size. 2010 is the 11th anniversary of the Caine prize which celebrates writing, specifically short stories, published in English from African writers. The entry needs to between 3,000 and 5,000 words and has to be put forward for the prize by the publisher. There were 115 entries from 13 countries this time and the prize is £10,000. The first thing to say is that the people sitting behind me wondered where Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche was, since Southbank had used a photograph of her to illustrate and promote this event. That is so naughty!
You can read all the stories and hear the 2010 nominees in conversation on the BBC World Services’ Arts programme The Strand – Caine Prize nominees. All the stories are also in A Life in full and Other Stories published by New Internationalist.
Ken Barris is South African and his story The Life of Worm is a taut, but funny piece about how the fear and concerns about domestic security can translate into a power drive that becomes the desire of and enjoyment in the kill. He had a wonderful dry sense of humour, but was difficult to interview, since he appeared to be someone who prefers that his work speak for itself. This is his second nomination for The Caine Prize and he was looking forward to the fact that getting this far again would give greater access to the publishers and promotion on a wider international stage.
Lily Mabura is from Kenya and had been nominated for How Shall we Kill the Bishop, however on the day she chose to read from her not yet published book House on the Dead Sea, and that also covers similar themes to her Caine Prize entry - the life’s of the people of the northern Kenyan desert communities. Lily’s is a complex story of an isolated religious community tearing itself apart with its own intrigues and about to be torn further apart by the arrival of the British military. In her discussion after the reading she gave a considered explanation of the challenges and differences between writing novels and short stories. I found her difficult to follow on the day, but felt that of all the entries (which I had read before the event) this was the one least in the style of western short story format. I think that Lily’s work really does have a different voice.
Namwali Serpell, is the first Zambian to be nominated for The Caine Prize. Her short story Muzungu gave us the prissy nine-year old Isabella on a coming of age journey in her gin-soaked colonial community, where she learns that she is not at the centre of everyone’s world, and she gains humility and respect for others. Namwali was easily the best performer and is an accomplished writer. I loved her story. In the way that she was interviewed I was left with the impression that she’d won. Also, I was not surprised to find out later, that Namwali’s story is actually the chapter of a book that she is working on. It turns out that The Caine Prize organisers will consider elements of stories and parts of wider works if the single chapter works of itself.
Alex Smith’s story Soulmates is a historical love story based on her imagined back-story of the first interracial couple to be hanged for adultery in South Africa. It is a beautifully told story of the harsh existence of the lovers and relentless cruelty of the also oppressed and oppressing husband. Alex’s writing really took you too this horrendous place and time, it is a wonderful piece of research and writing, which I read not long after finishing Andrea Levy’s The Long Song and followed up with Wench by Dolen Valdez-Perkins both of which also deal with interracial relationships though in much more unequal circumstances in the Caribbean and USA respectively.
After the LondonLitfest event I was doing some research about The Caine Prize and came across an event at SOAS. So I took the afternoon off work and had a wonderful afternoon there. First of all it was free and there was lunch! Thanks to all who made it happen. This was a chance to really hear The Caine Prize entrants close-up and to discuss their work with them, but first we heard a selection of academics explain their thoughts in detail on each short story. This was completely fascinating and absorbing for me, as I have never experienced this before. As you know I just read (addictively?) for fun and I am not even sure I really ever studied ‘literature’, at my school we went to ‘English’ where we read books or had them read to us. So I am certainly no academic. But trust me, the only things that these short stories have in common is that they were entered for The Caine Prize in 2010 and the authors are in varying degrees of and from the continent of Africa. That is it. Only academics would draw links between each piece. I was disturbed to learn that the male lover in Soulmates could only have been Malay because at that time the Dutch India Company would have brought people from that part of the world to South Africa, and therefore Alex’s story should have had footnote explaining this. Surely that would be odd in a short story. It felt to me that the adulterous love affair/cuckolded partner was a kind of universal story, even though this was, of course particular to South Africa. Does it matter that the female lover appears to be Catholic, when strictly speaking she would more likely have been an Huguenot Protestant? Is it really an issue that Lily’s characters have Moslem names but live in a monastery? Or that the dogs in Namwali’s Zambia are a breed that have a name that you are no longer allowed to say because Rhodesia does not exist? These are stories aren’t they? They are fiction – lyrical realism (yes I learnt that expression on the day too), the authors have made them up based on their experiences and desire to share a moment. The reader makes of it what they will, at whatever level engages them. I learnt from the audience that there are two camps of readers – the academic and the general/book club reader - the latter I have to say, slighted in a bit of uncalled for disdain by The Caine Prize organisers - soon put them right on that! I do think though, that The Caine Prize does a good job of including us all in their live events, but it was a close run thing, and I wish that more of the general readers - even the fledgling academics, had spoken up at this event. It was good to see the authors relax a bit and enjoy the literary bicking that went on around them. My main hope however, is that someone enters something from the ‘chick lit’ genre for The Caine Prize soon.
You will know by now that The Caine Prize 2010 winner is Olufemi Terry for Stickfighting Days. It is a Homeric style tale of young boys competing against one another to be kings of their ‘hood’, which is municipal dump in an unnamed major African city. If I’d not watched the TV programme Welcome to Lagos a few months ago, I would not have understood the life that was being depicted in this story. It is a tale of the sibling camaraderie of orphans, barely understood codes of honour and rivalry to the death. I did not get into this story as easily as I did the others, but the end of it is dramatic, you’ll be holding your breath as you read it. Terry says that he did not do any research for this story; it’s based on his ideas of 13-year-old boys in this situation and his love of JRR Tolkien’s stories. Terry is a freelance journalist, now based in Cape Town, and has lived all over Africa, born in Sierra Leone, he’s lived in Nigeria and Kenya. He has also spent time here in the UK and in the US. In his discussions he was the least convinced of an African type of writer that The Caine Prize celebrates, but he did feel that it was an important step to getting writers from the continent greater exposure. Read the review of The Caine Prize 2010 in The Economist here
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