1 00:00:00,180 --> 00:00:06,600 The Oxford Centre for Life Writing, which is based, was incorrect. 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:11,790 Most recent publications for Schopenhauer, poetic reinforcement, two readings. 3 00:00:11,790 --> 00:00:16,650 So strong connexion to the book, which we'll be talking about today. 4 00:00:16,650 --> 00:00:22,800 She's a fellow fellow of our society of Literature and a fellow royalist society. 5 00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:29,460 Some of the books include colonial post-colonial literature and the National and 6 00:00:29,460 --> 00:00:37,230 the Post-colonial and the Prise winning novel The Shoutin In Didak to Riffel, 7 00:00:37,230 --> 00:00:43,170 Volcano was highly recommended by for the Australian Review of Books. 8 00:00:43,170 --> 00:00:54,390 It is a big Julia Award in 2019. Andrew Brink has described of Burma as a writer who I quoting brings to her stories two qualities that 9 00:00:54,390 --> 00:01:02,790 all too often are mutually exclusive in lucidity of eye intelligence and the passion of our engagement, 10 00:01:02,790 --> 00:01:09,650 unquote. So please join me in welcoming our guest for the fourth in this series this year. 11 00:01:09,650 --> 00:01:13,380 Our diplomat today is as follows. 12 00:01:13,380 --> 00:01:22,440 Our guest would do a short reading, which would then be followed by a conversation and then we invite questions from the audience. 13 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:32,980 You can either actually die contrary to your aunt or you actually do so by just hand so I can see you or you can take your questions and send it to. 14 00:01:32,980 --> 00:01:44,130 I will be monitoring that. So if I can keep quiet during the process of question and answer, no inaccuracy. 15 00:01:44,130 --> 00:01:46,120 Your question. That's why I'm returning. 16 00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:57,570 So do allow me to be able to ask you to raise your question or to immigration question or eager to read out your questions that you have typed out. 17 00:01:57,570 --> 00:02:04,590 So join me in welcoming person by today's Forcing Seminar series. 18 00:02:04,590 --> 00:02:13,030 Welcome. Hi, Molly. Well, there's a bit of echo on the line. 19 00:02:13,030 --> 00:02:17,920 Actually, no, it's gone. Excellent. Hi. Hi again. 20 00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:25,420 Thanks. Thanks so very much to you for hosting me to talk about to the volcano. 21 00:02:25,420 --> 00:02:36,940 Also to your colleagues, some in particular data protection for setting this up and and also to the African Studies Centre. 22 00:02:36,940 --> 00:02:43,930 I wish we were there now physically in real time. 23 00:02:43,930 --> 00:02:48,460 It's a it's it's a place I'm I'm so fond of and feel very at home. 24 00:02:48,460 --> 00:02:52,240 But sadly, we all in this medium. 25 00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:58,780 But in a way, thank goodness, because we can still talk and and and read books together. 26 00:02:58,780 --> 00:03:07,450 This is a bit of a voyage of discovery for me. I've not done a reading on teams or wazoo or anything like this before. 27 00:03:07,450 --> 00:03:16,060 So, you know, if I run it over or say too much, just just just stop me. 28 00:03:16,060 --> 00:03:18,280 Hello to everyone out there. I'm sorry. 29 00:03:18,280 --> 00:03:28,000 I can't see you all, but I'm really looking forward to this discussion, both with Bourland, with and with everyone else. 30 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:37,240 Just before I begin the short reading, we thought it might be a fun thing to do. 31 00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:50,440 I have a free copy of the book to give away to anyone who's interested in it, and it too, to secure the book. 32 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:58,390 All you need to do is to be the first person to send me an email with the correct answer to the following question. 33 00:03:58,390 --> 00:04:05,140 It's a question relating to one of the stories in to the volcano. 34 00:04:05,140 --> 00:04:13,220 And the question is this. Who is John's true love? 35 00:04:13,220 --> 00:04:20,660 I won't give this story away. There's only one character, Jill, in the in the story is who is John's true love? 36 00:04:20,660 --> 00:04:28,530 And. Is my email. 37 00:04:28,530 --> 00:04:39,160 So the first correct answer to the question, I'll repeat it again later on, will receive the book from me. 38 00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:49,540 Okay, great. So what I'm going to do for this opening reading is to read from the very first story in the collection. 39 00:04:49,540 --> 00:04:57,850 I've chosen it for a reason that I think people will very quickly cottoned on to. 40 00:04:57,850 --> 00:05:13,800 I won't give it away. Other than to say that the story is set in a an old university town somewhere in England. 41 00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:15,990 The story is called The Child in the Photograph. 42 00:05:15,990 --> 00:05:22,810 I will read for about seven minutes and then I unfortunately won't be able to read the whole story in seven minutes. 43 00:05:22,810 --> 00:05:33,870 But I'll read for seven minutes and then I'll just kind of stop and and invite you to to finish reading it in your own time. 44 00:05:33,870 --> 00:05:45,520 The child in the photograph. From Africa is how they introduce me to one that tells her mother on her first trunk, call her. 45 00:05:45,520 --> 00:05:51,470 Isn't it funny, Mo, just from Africa? Can you believe? 46 00:05:51,470 --> 00:06:01,780 Crackles Zepps Her mother's reply after the Angolan port city, Luanda tells her fellow mosta students in development. 47 00:06:01,780 --> 00:06:06,400 Yes. That's my name. But Angola is not my country. 48 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:12,160 See if you can guess my country. For starters, it's landlocked and dry. 49 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:16,540 And farther south than the Sahara hitting warmer. 50 00:06:16,540 --> 00:06:20,830 Luanda loves my country, also has diamonds. 51 00:06:20,830 --> 00:06:25,780 That's a dead giveaway. What you call yourselves development students. 52 00:06:25,780 --> 00:06:30,520 My country has loads of diamonds. You tell them. 53 00:06:30,520 --> 00:06:41,170 Her mother says Dona Suddenly clear phone lines. Your country's brightest diamond, easily brighter than any star. 54 00:06:41,170 --> 00:06:49,240 Luanda shuts her eyes. Her mother's voice is as close as if she were right here beside her in the college phone booth. 55 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:58,030 She pictures her there in the living room at home. Her big thighs spread across the fake leather easy chair beside the TV. 56 00:06:58,030 --> 00:07:04,630 She sees the black plastic mouthpiece wedged between her cheek and her shoulder in that clever way of hers. 57 00:07:04,630 --> 00:07:13,800 Like the P.A. she is, she sees her red painted fingernails twisting around the black telephone cord. 58 00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:18,960 On the wall across from her mother, all her own framed certificates, 59 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:24,940 Luanda pictures them clearly the certificates arranged on the wall in two columns, 60 00:07:24,940 --> 00:07:31,080 university medals and honours and essay prises, the rungs of the long ladder. 61 00:07:31,080 --> 00:07:42,310 She has climbed to get to this ancient stone college with its single shabby telephone booth and muddy MacDonald's wrappings thick on the floor. 62 00:07:42,310 --> 00:07:50,410 She sees the gold embossed lettering on the certificates, catch the horizontal light of the setting sun. 63 00:07:50,410 --> 00:07:56,020 Nothing short of a fancy sundial. Her mother's boyfriend, Paul, once mocked, scolded. 64 00:07:56,020 --> 00:08:00,920 Look, the letters even cast a shadow proud of her. 65 00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:09,660 Her mother staunchly said. A pink and white hand beats against the glass of the phone booth door. 66 00:08:09,660 --> 00:08:17,740 The glass is cloudy with condensation. You and I can't see the body behind the hand. 67 00:08:17,740 --> 00:08:23,540 You can hardly believe it being here, she yells over another school of static on the line. 68 00:08:23,540 --> 00:08:31,910 The other students can't believe it either. I mean, me being here when I walk into a room, they stop talking. 69 00:08:31,910 --> 00:08:36,440 They all stare. So you're educating them. 70 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:42,930 No matter how ancient and clever, they have something to learn. Delenda laughs at her mother's jokes. 71 00:08:42,930 --> 00:08:48,300 If it was a joke, she laughs. The open mouthed laugh that she shares with her mother. 72 00:08:48,300 --> 00:08:57,450 Ha ha ha. It goes rasping to a close. Some days even Nana can't tell their laughs apart. 73 00:08:57,450 --> 00:09:01,620 I must go more next time, NUNNA will come say hello. 74 00:09:01,620 --> 00:09:13,490 Sorry, Lou. She was here, but she's runnels. The swallow Luanda now makes hits her chest, the hand again slaps the door. 75 00:09:13,490 --> 00:09:20,440 Her mother is calling. Bye bye. Over and over again by Luanda. 76 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:29,060 Ekos by. Then she presses the Silva next call button and her mother's voice cuts out. 77 00:09:29,060 --> 00:09:34,970 She stands holding the receiver in her hand. The dial tone purring. 78 00:09:34,970 --> 00:09:40,760 She rubs the condensation on the glass with her sleeve. Whoever was out there has given up. 79 00:09:40,760 --> 00:09:49,160 The foyer is empty. She scrapes off the McDonald's wrapping, sticking to her shoe and takes the stairs up to her room two at a time, 80 00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:53,730 breathing hard with relief, almost laughing as if she has escaped. 81 00:09:53,730 --> 00:09:59,270 Something has got through an obstacle course without injury. 82 00:09:59,270 --> 00:10:02,750 Luanda relies on her laugh in the days ahead. 83 00:10:02,750 --> 00:10:10,850 At the hundred Ice Break-Up parties and inductions, she lists in beautiful schoolgirl cursive in her diary. 84 00:10:10,850 --> 00:10:18,710 She laughs and watches her laughs effect on people, how it makes them turn towards her and smile, laughing. 85 00:10:18,710 --> 00:10:27,200 She slides across thickly carpeted rooms between shuffling clusters of guests like a rain droplets down a windscreen. 86 00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:31,880 Laughing when they stumble on her name. Laughing when they ask about her course. 87 00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:37,860 And then forget to ask again. Laughing. Laughing till the other students start calling her. 88 00:10:37,860 --> 00:10:43,510 Laughing. Luanda laughing. She asks them to stop. 89 00:10:43,510 --> 00:10:48,550 She wonders around the old university town, her university town. 90 00:10:48,550 --> 00:10:56,580 Believe it or not. But no, she doesn't laugh. A dream is beyond laughter. 91 00:10:56,580 --> 00:11:03,450 And all this is beyond a dream. It's beyond imagination. 92 00:11:03,450 --> 00:11:05,280 Not in a thousand years. 93 00:11:05,280 --> 00:11:15,270 Could she have dreamed up this perfect green grass in the quadrangles or the spreading trees like pictures or the all surrounding stone, 94 00:11:15,270 --> 00:11:24,750 the stone walls, stone flags, the Gothic stone arch of her bedroom window looking like it was stamped out with a cookie cutter. 95 00:11:24,750 --> 00:11:31,980 The stone steps up to her room, worn away by the numberless footsteps of numberless students. 96 00:11:31,980 --> 00:11:37,590 I mean, stone wall cut a stone wall and stone like it's melting. 97 00:11:37,590 --> 00:11:41,650 She said on the phone and still couldn't quite believe it. 98 00:11:41,650 --> 00:11:49,510 She could not have dreamed up the pure coldness that rises from the stone and instantly chills her hand when she touches it. 99 00:11:49,510 --> 00:11:58,840 Anything could be so cold she could not have imagined the cold, dark shadows would wait in the corner of the stone and never shift. 100 00:11:58,840 --> 00:12:08,180 Even at noon, they don't shrink away. A university before this one where she received the trophies and certificates on her mother's 101 00:12:08,180 --> 00:12:15,890 wall is no more than a cluster of single storey prefab blocks built on the surrounding red sand. 102 00:12:15,890 --> 00:12:22,850 On the side of each building, a single huge air conditioning unit sticks out like an air stunt. 103 00:12:22,850 --> 00:12:27,740 The dusty area in front of the Edmond buildings is called the English Garden. 104 00:12:27,740 --> 00:12:32,990 The only plants that grow the cactuses, the English garden. 105 00:12:32,990 --> 00:12:46,210 Looking around at the green grass spreading oaks, Luanda wants to laugh, remembering, but catches herself in time and feels ashamed. 106 00:12:46,210 --> 00:12:49,850 I'll stop there. Thank you. Thank you very much. 107 00:12:49,850 --> 00:12:54,600 Later. First, let me see how much I can turn reading this book. 108 00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:59,810 And so I'm very happy that we are having a conversation about it. 109 00:12:59,810 --> 00:13:02,040 Almost in every single story in the book, 110 00:13:02,040 --> 00:13:10,540 we encounter characters who are struggling with as well as can the cause and what might cause the cause of life. 111 00:13:10,540 --> 00:13:15,120 But in its every everydayness and also so in the long, long term. 112 00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:21,630 So in writing these stories, I'm wondering, what were your overarching reflections about the narratives? 113 00:13:21,630 --> 00:13:32,840 Were you thinking about the implications of the everyday for the larger structural challenges of human life or the obverse? 114 00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:43,000 Whoo! Thank you for the question. I mean, it's it's a huge question and we could take it in different ways. 115 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:51,700 If I if I look back across this collection, I mean, it might be helpful for people who don't know it. 116 00:13:51,700 --> 00:14:00,790 To say that there are there twelve stories, twelve stories in the in the collection. 117 00:14:00,790 --> 00:14:06,400 And, you know, twelth suggested to me it was a good number. 118 00:14:06,400 --> 00:14:12,190 It suggests to me, you know, a year, 12 months and a year. 119 00:14:12,190 --> 00:14:23,320 It suggests to to kind of off an all of time, you know, and and in fact, the door due to more or less I mean, isn't a rigid pattern to this. 120 00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:30,100 But they do more or less lead us from stories of of young people. 121 00:14:30,100 --> 00:14:36,010 Use also children, as in the child in the photograph, 122 00:14:36,010 --> 00:14:50,680 running through middle aged to to old age of two stories are quite preoccupied with questions of legacy and end of life. 123 00:14:50,680 --> 00:14:57,440 I suppose they could say quite quiet stories, whereas there's a sort of visit. 124 00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:10,120 There's a liveliness at the start. So it was interesting to me to explore, I suppose, through the different characters in the 12 stories, 125 00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:16,070 the dimension of the dimensions of an individual life. 126 00:15:16,070 --> 00:15:27,000 That of of people who, apart from the character in the final story of the biography and the wife of people who are not. 127 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:35,970 Kind of living in any kind of limelight or, you know, in any kind of flash point of history. 128 00:15:35,970 --> 00:15:51,910 In fact, on the country, they coming in from the edges of the continental masses, in some cases, the kind the provinces, if you like, of the world. 129 00:15:51,910 --> 00:16:00,120 So. So I was interested also, I think, in putting the accent there on life. 130 00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:08,280 I was interested also to think about you. You're talking about the course and the curse of life there. 131 00:16:08,280 --> 00:16:20,560 And that relates absolutely to something that I was trying to do with, you know, exploring how life isn't really set up for us human beings. 132 00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:30,150 This is something I was reflecting on when Louise Glueck won the Nobel prise for literature last week, because her poetry is so, you know, 133 00:16:30,150 --> 00:16:42,600 powerfully, painfully about this this thing, too, that that, you know, often with all our hopes and dreams, our conditions are set up. 134 00:16:42,600 --> 00:16:48,570 You know, of, you know, individual life. It doesn't always lead to the fulfilment of those dreams. 135 00:16:48,570 --> 00:16:56,880 It often takes a lot of pain and and and sacrifice before we get there. 136 00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:03,390 And that's what I think you see in the case of a number of the characters in these stories. 137 00:17:03,390 --> 00:17:09,870 They are. And this short story is a great medium for really homing in, 138 00:17:09,870 --> 00:17:15,340 really bearing down on some on some of these questions as they relate to individual lives. 139 00:17:15,340 --> 00:17:26,670 You know, people Enquist of love, Enquist of certain ambition, Enquist of family. 140 00:17:26,670 --> 00:17:31,260 You know what it takes to get to that point. So definitely course. 141 00:17:31,260 --> 00:17:36,900 And also curse of life. Yeah. Thank you. 142 00:17:36,900 --> 00:17:47,610 So in the title photograph, which you just read to us, it seems to me that this is a story about the struggle with hope. 143 00:17:47,610 --> 00:17:52,950 As a concrete manifestation of issues, obligations, loftiness, including, 144 00:17:52,950 --> 00:17:58,920 of course, turned down tensions regarding how one reconcile oneself with movement. 145 00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:07,140 We move on to our relationships, obligations and responsibilities in light of these. 146 00:18:07,140 --> 00:18:10,680 I was wondering about one. Does choosing a graduate course? 147 00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:21,470 Because developping came to me to be a major force that raises questions about how to reconcile Justices' in addition to NetSol application. 148 00:18:21,470 --> 00:18:34,470 So of course we'll call it an opportunity. So do you think this is a possible way to read this story, Portugal? 149 00:18:34,470 --> 00:18:38,120 I mean, if I should probably save it. 150 00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:43,450 First of all, in response, will that every reader's response is a valid response? 151 00:18:43,450 --> 00:18:52,260 You know, I'm very I very much believe that the writer works together with the reader to get at the meaning of a story. 152 00:18:52,260 --> 00:19:00,950 And often the reader can find meanings that the writer may not at least consciously have have thought of that. 153 00:19:00,950 --> 00:19:13,670 But, you know, to pick up on some of the key words in what you just asked, you know, home and away. 154 00:19:13,670 --> 00:19:26,000 This question of development and this question of belonging in a development is such a loaded word as as as as you know. 155 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:41,990 I'm sure everyone, you know, listening can relate to, you know, the division of the world in a developed and undeveloped developing countries. 156 00:19:41,990 --> 00:19:51,710 I mean, the implication always is developed as against undeveloped. But, you know, the the the polite P.C. word is developing. 157 00:19:51,710 --> 00:19:56,110 You know, the question that we always want to ask then is by whose criteria developed? 158 00:19:56,110 --> 00:20:06,050 You know, who sets the standards, you know? And development always seems to imply a kind of slope of progression, 159 00:20:06,050 --> 00:20:18,480 which in the case of the character in the story, the central character becomes, you know, extremely complicated. 160 00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:28,820 Her development studies programme acquires her, too, if you like, hold her life, develop, 161 00:20:28,820 --> 00:20:36,830 you know, put a pause to her life development, had her development as an individual in a family, 162 00:20:36,830 --> 00:20:42,980 her relationships with the rest of her family because she has to travel so very far away and make so very 163 00:20:42,980 --> 00:20:53,810 many compromises and sacrifices in order to take her degree to study towards that degree in development. 164 00:20:53,810 --> 00:21:06,890 So the experience also asks questions of, you know, what is developed land, as in, you know this you know what is you know, 165 00:21:06,890 --> 00:21:13,760 what are the raw materials that need to be extracted for development to take place? 166 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,690 And I think most of all. 167 00:21:17,690 --> 00:21:35,190 Lost in the process, you know, development is always judged really by capitalist criteria of onwards and upwards and farther and better. 168 00:21:35,190 --> 00:21:41,040 So the story, ask the questions, Will. Oh, you will then watch, you know. 169 00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:48,680 And what is lost in the process? Watching our humanness in that process. 170 00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:56,800 Yeah. When I was reading the book, I kept thinking about Milan Kundera especially. 171 00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:59,390 There'll be every lightness of being. 172 00:21:59,390 --> 00:22:07,650 So the paradox is that while many of the characters reflect what you might call lightness of being, that, you know, 173 00:22:07,650 --> 00:22:18,240 recurring in nature of each individual lives, each individual lives, whether the authorities also have the background or most of these lives. 174 00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:22,760 That is what is being described as the happiness of life and the consequences, of course, 175 00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:31,830 of my crew decisions I can never take on society for individual lives, such as opportunities for each to collapse wall and none of that. 176 00:22:31,830 --> 00:22:41,610 So my question is, is this perhaps what you had in mind in portraying Lena where she says that if she didn't fly away, 177 00:22:41,610 --> 00:22:51,340 and I quote I yes, she mickeys or the US would swidler. I think my my I think when I was reading that, 178 00:22:51,340 --> 00:22:57,180 I was thinking about the fact that she's reflecting that despite the likeness that we 179 00:22:57,180 --> 00:23:04,600 oftentimes have to continue that heavy Noyce's would actually determine our lives. 180 00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,760 Yes. I mean. Thank you. 181 00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:18,510 I'm very flattered that you were thinking of them of of of Milan Kundera through these readings. 182 00:23:18,510 --> 00:23:29,730 And certainly structurally, in terms of the narration in these short stories, lightness is really what I wanted to achieve. 183 00:23:29,730 --> 00:23:40,920 I wanted the stories, as it were, likely in to the readers kind of consciousness mindset, 184 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:47,010 you know, so that they they they come across as, you know, stories as a tale told. 185 00:23:47,010 --> 00:23:59,280 But then they likely begin to ask some questions that then we think about them bear down quite heavily. 186 00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:08,240 The story. South north that you mention, which is from my from my memory, is it? 187 00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:17,120 That's right. It's the second story. It is really it's very in some ways, it follows a similar trajectory to the child in the photograph. 188 00:24:17,120 --> 00:24:26,720 It's about a young woman who who travels from, as you were saying, the extremities of the Earth from very, 189 00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:34,040 very far away to come to what we would call the centre or the metropolis or indeed 190 00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:42,710 the developed world in order to pursue a dream or two or to pursue an ambition. 191 00:24:42,710 --> 00:24:54,500 And in that process, begins to encounter, if you like, the heaviness of history, you know, the the heaviness of history, 192 00:24:54,500 --> 00:25:10,040 often of violence or of war or of possessiveness that has been contested often around the kind of the places of greatest concentration. 193 00:25:10,040 --> 00:25:14,470 So the metropolis at it. So. 194 00:25:14,470 --> 00:25:20,690 So your likeness, lightness of touch and the, if you like, 195 00:25:20,690 --> 00:25:33,590 goofiness of the blowback from these stories or the heaviness of of the kinds of questions that I hope they they ask of the reader. 196 00:25:33,590 --> 00:25:40,280 I actually think that is your greatest achievement in this book is the way in which you deal with happiness to likeness, 197 00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,590 which is why I was interested in that. 198 00:25:42,590 --> 00:25:54,320 Because even in the most I know of circumstances, you know, we see many characters reflecting what you describes as passionate intensity, 199 00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:58,140 which he seems resourceful into reflecting kind of setting. 200 00:25:58,140 --> 00:26:06,710 You know, I see that your characters. So I'm wondering is is your subject more about general offering or some course setting to in life, 201 00:26:06,710 --> 00:26:12,340 or do you want precarity that is reflected in some of the characters? 202 00:26:12,340 --> 00:26:20,020 So are you concerned about the general sort of cool questions or more about specific, 203 00:26:20,020 --> 00:26:28,490 you know, the clarity that people have to face as reflected in some of these characters? 204 00:26:28,490 --> 00:26:33,200 And I must kindies, because, you know, you're also a critic and professor. 205 00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:44,630 I'm wondering whether what was most striking as you were composing these in your mind and these questions that you ask? 206 00:26:44,630 --> 00:26:47,780 It's called I would be concerned with or the question, you know, 207 00:26:47,780 --> 00:27:00,960 the more empirical questions that you think that are reflected in the characters, I suppose. 208 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:06,180 Well, this is a big no. 209 00:27:06,180 --> 00:27:12,360 Okay. Very well. Okay. So. 210 00:27:12,360 --> 00:27:15,210 It's in a way, but it's both. 211 00:27:15,210 --> 00:27:25,530 One, if I'm if I'm dead honest and and give a kind of very straightforward answer, that I will then kind of, you know, unpack a bit. 212 00:27:25,530 --> 00:27:37,380 It's both with the important proviso, I think, that when I go in to, you know, my my left, 213 00:27:37,380 --> 00:27:47,770 my eerie to write stories, I leave my professional other professional roles at the door. 214 00:27:47,770 --> 00:27:55,110 May I know? In other words, I cannot I can't bring the philosophical questions in with me into that space, if you like, 215 00:27:55,110 --> 00:28:08,880 because I think that would that would simply compromise the the the process of story, of storytelling, of putting the stories together. 216 00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:15,720 I am I do think, though, that every writer has it has it has an ethical mission. 217 00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:28,290 We wouldn't write if we didn't. And yes, I am incredibly preoccupied as a as a writer, as a human being, by precarity, by the precarity of the of, 218 00:28:28,290 --> 00:28:37,110 you know, the huge majority of individual lives on this planet and of our lives and community to which, 219 00:28:37,110 --> 00:28:47,700 of course, this crisis, the crisis that we're all in now, the the Korona crisis kind of brings, you know, brings powerfully to mind. 220 00:28:47,700 --> 00:28:57,260 So. So. Each each life, I think, or even some of the stories are to do with, you know, 221 00:28:57,260 --> 00:29:04,280 a group of people or a pair of people or a pair of individuals characters. 222 00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:13,400 Every every character in in to a greater or lesser extent is confronting questions of fragility, 223 00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:20,910 vulnerability and precarity on on this planet and in society. 224 00:29:20,910 --> 00:29:27,680 So that I suppose if I step back, it is something that I'm preoccupied by that I keep coming back to. 225 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:39,830 Yeah, definitely. But the the bigger philosophical questions. 226 00:29:39,830 --> 00:29:49,580 You know, I I wouldn't say that they're not in my mind at some level in the process writing. 227 00:29:49,580 --> 00:29:56,330 Inevitably they are. And I'm always very pleased when later I come back to a store when I finished writing a story. 228 00:29:56,330 --> 00:30:03,500 And I've you know, I've edited it to a point where I'm more or less satisfied with its shape. 229 00:30:03,500 --> 00:30:08,780 I then tend to put it to one side and then later when I come back to it to see how it fits, 230 00:30:08,780 --> 00:30:16,010 you know, where it might where I might place it in the mosaic of a collection. 231 00:30:16,010 --> 00:30:25,330 It's then that I encounter with a greater or lesser degree of interest was and satisfaction with it. 232 00:30:25,330 --> 00:30:30,710 It speaks to, if you like, my my ethical concerns. 233 00:30:30,710 --> 00:30:40,400 You know, I'm always very pleased when it does me some of the stories doing it, or this is a story about somebody suffering from dementia, 234 00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:49,760 which is still quite, you know, moves me and makes me quite tearful sometimes when I when I reread it. 235 00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:55,260 I wouldn't say that that has a particular. 236 00:30:55,260 --> 00:31:07,780 You know, philosophical question to ask, but it does it does it does bring the reader into a situation of empathy. 237 00:31:07,780 --> 00:31:13,000 I hope with with the characters. 238 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:19,220 An old woman on a knee and her grandson. So. 239 00:31:19,220 --> 00:31:23,990 And that empathy is, as I suppose, part of my my ethical mission. 240 00:31:23,990 --> 00:31:28,690 Yeah. Yeah. But it's like do I want to move on? 241 00:31:28,690 --> 00:31:34,460 But I'm wondering whether it is absolutely impossible to live to professor behind when you enter the model. 242 00:31:34,460 --> 00:31:37,190 Right. That's another question. 243 00:31:37,190 --> 00:31:44,940 I imagine that the global south is that geographical even auto's with the epistemological centre of all of these stories, 244 00:31:44,940 --> 00:31:48,320 especially to some extent in relation to the global not. 245 00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:56,960 So I'm wondering why you think the South is critical to our understanding of the world, especially at this moment. 246 00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:04,210 Thanks for the question. You're Christian. Very close to my heart. 247 00:32:04,210 --> 00:32:16,810 I mean, you absolutely spot on most of this of the stories, the majority of the stories of visibly or audibly set in. 248 00:32:16,810 --> 00:32:24,370 In some parts of the southern hemisphere. Botswana, Bupp Way. 249 00:32:24,370 --> 00:32:30,830 Australia, Argentina, South Africa. 250 00:32:30,830 --> 00:32:37,430 Amongst others. So. 251 00:32:37,430 --> 00:32:46,550 They are taken together. Reflections on what I call softness with. 252 00:32:46,550 --> 00:32:50,720 Impart means to me, the global south. 253 00:32:50,720 --> 00:33:06,780 So. The two are at the non beneficial end of the unequal planet that we are all a part of. 254 00:33:06,780 --> 00:33:11,880 But the South also signifies, in addition to or alongside global south. 255 00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:20,550 It signifies something you already quoted the far extremities of the earth. 256 00:33:20,550 --> 00:33:31,020 Those parts of the planet that have always been seen by the north or by the West or by the developed world, 257 00:33:31,020 --> 00:33:37,200 or those difficult terms as infinitely exploitable. 258 00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:50,820 And the people there as infinitely exploitable. And I said that I hope likely radiantly is something that I do explore. 259 00:33:50,820 --> 00:33:57,910 I do kind of excavate and worry at and in in these stories. 260 00:33:57,910 --> 00:34:02,340 You know what it means to come from there? 261 00:34:02,340 --> 00:34:11,820 What it means to defend those spaces, to protect those spaces and how those spaces also become. 262 00:34:11,820 --> 00:34:17,490 And we ignore what we in the north, located in the north, ignore this at our peril. 263 00:34:17,490 --> 00:34:28,740 How those spaces are also a kind of barometer of, you know, the disaster that is awaiting this planet. 264 00:34:28,740 --> 00:34:33,450 If we don't do something about the path we're on. Yeah. 265 00:34:33,450 --> 00:34:48,150 Yeah. One of the good things about this book is also how it makes us laugh and particularly in love with Irish refusing to wash dishes for you, Joy. 266 00:34:48,150 --> 00:34:58,890 Initially, I thought this was going to so to speak. That was a strongly held conviction towards this idea of, you know, wishy washy on issues. 267 00:34:58,890 --> 00:35:03,240 Why don't you do it? Was it easy to keep your focus? 268 00:35:03,240 --> 00:35:09,630 So you've been writing about this. Did you think of how we use that as as an element in the context? 269 00:35:09,630 --> 00:35:21,390 Or was it just you might talk to let's listen to what I would call a moral imperative that you're going to have to oppose. 270 00:35:21,390 --> 00:35:25,440 Really? And. Yes. Thank you. 271 00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:36,370 Thanks for the naughty question. I don't mean Iris is standing upon her dignity. 272 00:35:36,370 --> 00:35:52,490 You know, eat. Well. And and she also has a certain, you know, a kind of bone to pick. 273 00:35:52,490 --> 00:35:59,430 A political bone to pick, a sexual bone to pick with both John and Patsy. 274 00:35:59,430 --> 00:36:03,980 Yes, sir. I think I know. 275 00:36:03,980 --> 00:36:12,170 She makes a statement about. About her own boundaries by refusing to wash the sheets. 276 00:36:12,170 --> 00:36:18,330 Then pile up and lead to. You know, a minor, a minor crisis. 277 00:36:18,330 --> 00:36:28,190 It turns out there was also a way of negotiating. You have been quite productive in both your creating your school, your quality of life. 278 00:36:28,190 --> 00:36:33,500 In addition to of course, you're not going to need construction positions. 279 00:36:33,500 --> 00:36:40,880 What do you have advice for young writers? Now to combine these two exceedingly demanding awards. 280 00:36:40,880 --> 00:36:50,580 To achieve success in both. Well, thank thanks for the nice comment. 281 00:36:50,580 --> 00:36:56,670 Well, a. I'm gosh, it's a big question. 282 00:36:56,670 --> 00:37:02,410 We could be all afternoon really aware that some people may be tuning in. 283 00:37:02,410 --> 00:37:08,010 You've only just started on the academic pathway. 284 00:37:08,010 --> 00:37:19,110 Well, maybe you've only just started on their writing pathway. So you know what I say. 285 00:37:19,110 --> 00:37:30,230 I think. It's when I was younger, I would have given a different answer, I think, to this question. 286 00:37:30,230 --> 00:37:36,830 So I might have said that the kind of writing. 287 00:37:36,830 --> 00:37:44,450 So the creative writing was rather different from the other kind of writing, the critical writing AM, 288 00:37:44,450 --> 00:37:53,480 and that the two came from different parts of, you know, my life or my head. 289 00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,210 But I no longer think so. 290 00:37:56,210 --> 00:38:08,580 I think this being the kind of convergence and I hope this is helpful for people in how I understand these this this practise of writing. 291 00:38:08,580 --> 00:38:16,910 And, you know, when when we're doing our critical writing, when we're talking about literature, 292 00:38:16,910 --> 00:38:27,480 when we're writing history, writing about empire and new literature and goodness, 293 00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:44,710 doing the right thing and and and and and writing is a process of it in which we use the page in our hands and our bodies to first of thinking. 294 00:38:44,710 --> 00:38:50,000 And, you know, it's it's it's supremely worthwhile. 295 00:38:50,000 --> 00:39:03,470 What what what if a mood is particularly suited to you or you find particularly congenial and both modes or the modes combined, 296 00:39:03,470 --> 00:39:10,820 creative, critical, critical, creative, philosophical, historical. 297 00:39:10,820 --> 00:39:19,580 They all require a kind of attunement to context and and and attunement to the now. 298 00:39:19,580 --> 00:39:27,140 You know, when you writing this word now or speaking it now, you're absolutely in the moment of your life. 299 00:39:27,140 --> 00:39:32,850 And in the end, that is that is what I love about about writing. 300 00:39:32,850 --> 00:39:36,740 Mean sometimes you sort of you then take a step back, especially in critical writing, 301 00:39:36,740 --> 00:39:45,320 and reflect again on what you or what you have, what you've just said, what you've just done. 302 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:55,700 And they are essentially similar processes of self reflection and attunement to 303 00:39:55,700 --> 00:40:06,470 the now on running these two different kinds of writing alongside each other. 304 00:40:06,470 --> 00:40:11,290 It's it's tough. It requires quite a lot of self-discipline, you know, and. 305 00:40:11,290 --> 00:40:17,890 And I you know, I wouldn't be I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say there'd been moments of great 306 00:40:17,890 --> 00:40:26,240 force when I felt I'd be the one kind of writing this block the other or, 307 00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:32,520 you know, there's never been this. There's never enough time. 308 00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:41,840 As I think many people would agree, that it's time for writing also demands time for not writing. 309 00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:49,200 When you and you replenish your senses so that you can write again. 310 00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:54,073 Thank you. Yeah. Let's open it up now, so please, if you have questions, can you Racey Diana.