‘When the system makes everything possible and you don’t fear any consequences, some people discover entirely new human beings inside them. Schoolboys one day are now running around violently with Kalashnikovs. When there are no consequences, the ground of civilisation turns out to be quite thin.’
Nino Haratischwili on violence and war in 1990s Georgia.
Maren Uthaug in conversation with Karoline Kjær Hansen at LiteratureXchange, discussing ’Women and Power’ with sharp sight and wit - I finally worked out why I got a sense of déjà vu. It reminded me of seeing Thelma and Louise in the cinema when it came out. Men and women laughed in different places. And when we did all laugh in the same place, women laughed … differently.
If you think I had the social grace to not ask a Nobel laureate to sign a grubby worn 23-year-old paperback edition of one of his novels, then you have another think coming. He, on the other hand, had the social grace not to hesitate and just kindly signed both the new and the old book. And how beautifully he signed them too - the dying art of an aesthetic signature.
It was interesting and, appropriately, somewhat discomfiting to hear Abdulrazak Gurnah in conversation at Aarhus literary festival. The Nobel laureate from Zanzibar whose work focuses on the legacy of colonialism, speaking to a mostly white, mostly Danish audience in a colonial land. During discussion about European tourism in Africa and neo-colonialism, I could almost hear Denmark and Danes loudly not being mentioned by name. Gurnah was reserved, careful and insightful.
Rachel Cusk is as interesting and deep and complex-thinking in conversation as she is in her written work. A pleasure to hear her at a LiteratureXchange festival event. I appreciate it when authors of her stature come to smaller places, not just to fancy capital cities and fancy flagship festivals, when they happily turn up for readers in libraries in small cities and towns.
"Shuggie was cancelled in Texas. I was supported by the librarians. A single librarian stood up and spoke out first. That took bravery and moral clarity.
Librarians are on the frontline. Support library unions, support librarians. It starts with them coming for queer books, then they'll come for them all. Wherever you go, if you see a library, support it."
US-based Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart in conversation at LiteratureXchange Aarhus Literary Festival
Asked about his literary influences, Erlend Loe said: Douglas Adams, Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard.
If you've read Erlend Loe, these names make immediate sense. If you haven't read Erlend Loe, then I apologise for wasting your time as you read this toot when you could be reading Erlend Loe instead.
Something that struck me after a range of events at Aarhus International Literature Festival: every author mentioned how nice it was to be in a packed room having a slow, deep, collective conversation about books with no distractions, no clickbait-questions, nobody recording video, no online fights.
It was liberating and lovely, they said. It struck me that writers from different countries and generations each brought it up, unasked, independently of one another. It resonated.
‘War reorientates a person. It humbles desires and ambitions. They become small. You become small. You no longer have dreams to be a doctor, to marry, to travel. There is only the need to survive. War is the shrinking of desires in the shadow of self-preservation.’
Chigozie Obioma on the aftermath of war and the fact that Biafrans who fought in the Nigerian civil war will not speak of their experience surviving the slaughter. Not one word, to this day, not even to their families.
Ciara
