1 00:00:06,890 --> 00:00:12,410 It now gives me great pleasure to hand over to our two cherries for the evening. 2 00:00:12,410 --> 00:00:21,680 We will introduce them first to you at the end of the table is also in Norwich, 3 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:29,750 who is a senior lecturer in comparative and English literature at King's College, London, Tessio. 4 00:00:29,750 --> 00:00:35,150 And so he works on African literature with a particular specialism in Rwanda. 5 00:00:35,150 --> 00:00:40,040 And beside her is Marcia Hutchinson, our very own Marcia, 6 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:45,650 who is doing the Master's in the World Literature in English here at Oxford 7 00:00:45,650 --> 00:00:51,260 and who has a particular interest in Caribbean and South African literature. 8 00:00:51,260 --> 00:00:56,270 So head over to emotion to introduce. Thank you so much. 9 00:00:56,270 --> 00:01:06,020 Thank you all again for coming. And we have the great pleasure of the Women-Owned Bundeena Brister, the acclaimed writer and author, 10 00:01:06,020 --> 00:01:11,660 poet, editor and also my lecturer at Brunel for two years and creative writing, 11 00:01:11,660 --> 00:01:18,500 which was a very surreal experience when in my second year we were actually reading The Emperor's Babe on the English side of my course. 12 00:01:18,500 --> 00:01:23,570 And then I got to speak on the occasion about what was going on on that side of it. 13 00:01:23,570 --> 00:01:39,170 So I would like to thank you for joining us tonight, said. And just a little bit your own comfort about the structure of this evening. 14 00:01:39,170 --> 00:01:45,900 We're just going to ask you for your first reading and maybe a little bit about why you chose that reading and myself. 15 00:01:45,900 --> 00:01:53,180 And so we will ask you a few questions, move on to the audience, and then finally back your extract and readings. 16 00:01:53,180 --> 00:01:58,200 OK, Shortridge, it's great. Yes. So it's great to be here. 17 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:01,530 Thank you very much for inviting me, Alex. 18 00:02:01,530 --> 00:02:07,050 So I'm going to read obviously from the entries, but this is the original cover, which is very closely and very nice. 19 00:02:07,050 --> 00:02:12,570 But then they got a bit cheapskates and got rid of the gold. 20 00:02:12,570 --> 00:02:16,950 It's always interesting doing a reading or giving a reading to people who have really read the book. 21 00:02:16,950 --> 00:02:23,640 I don't have to introduce anything. So I'm reading from the start of the book because that seems to make sense. 22 00:02:23,640 --> 00:02:30,090 And I'll just read some of the beginning sections. 23 00:02:30,090 --> 00:02:42,360 As you know, it's written in the voice of Zuleika, and I try to capture something of her character, as I read IMO, a mass amount. 24 00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:52,050 Who do you love? Who do you love? When the man you married goes off for months on end, quelling rebellions at the frontiers or playing Hot Shots? 25 00:02:52,050 --> 00:03:00,420 Editor in Rome, his flashy villa on the Palatine Hill, home to another woman, I hear one who was born him offspring. 26 00:03:00,420 --> 00:03:09,720 My days are spent roaming. This house is vast mosaic walls full of the scenes on Olympus for my husband loves melodrama. 27 00:03:09,720 --> 00:03:20,400 They say his mistress is an actress, a flaxen fraulein type from Germania superior whom everyone envied me in the and the grease ball in the back of a 28 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:27,990 shop in Grace Church Street who got hitched to a Roman nobleman whose parents sailed out of Khartoum on a barge, 29 00:03:27,990 --> 00:03:38,580 no burnished throne, no proof of beeton gold, but packed with vomiting brats and cows, releasing warm turds onto their bare feet, thus perfumed. 30 00:03:38,580 --> 00:03:43,920 They made it to Londinium on a donkey with only a thin purse and a factory. 31 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:48,870 Here, in the drizzle of this Wild West town, Dad wandered the streets looking for work. 32 00:03:48,870 --> 00:03:54,520 But there was no room at the inn. So he set up shop on the kerb and sold sweet cakes which were made. 33 00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:57,510 He's told me this story a million times now. 34 00:03:57,510 --> 00:04:05,790 He owns several shops, selling everything from vino to shoes, vegies to tools, and he employs all sorts to work in them. 35 00:04:05,790 --> 00:04:15,840 A Syrian Tunisian Jew, Persian hopefuls just off the olive barge from Gaul and in fact, anyone who work for Pebble's. 36 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:20,730 When Feliks came after me, that was in ecstasy, father in law to Lusia. 37 00:04:20,730 --> 00:04:31,620 So really as Feliks, no less. I was spotted at the bars of Cheapside, just budding, and my fate was sealed by a man thrice my age and thrice my girth. 38 00:04:31,620 --> 00:04:36,930 Oh, that's sweet. Eleven. Even then I thought I was getting past it. 39 00:04:36,930 --> 00:04:44,430 Then I was sent off to a snooty Roman [INAUDIBLE] called Clarissa for decorum classes, learns how to talk, eat and fart. 40 00:04:44,430 --> 00:04:47,550 How to get my Amoo amass a match right. 41 00:04:47,550 --> 00:05:00,480 And ditch my second generation plebe Kriol Zuleika Acceptor est Zuleika's Della Khatar est Zuleika Belardi Goody two shoes essed. 42 00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:06,360 But I dreamt of creating mosaics of remaking my town with bright stones and glass. 43 00:05:06,360 --> 00:05:10,110 But no non-com is not allowed show. 44 00:05:10,110 --> 00:05:14,220 Feliks brings me presents when he deigns to come west. 45 00:05:14,220 --> 00:05:23,820 I've had Chinese silk, a marble figurine from turkey, gold earrings shaped like dolphins and I have the deepest fondness for my husband of course, 46 00:05:23,820 --> 00:05:32,220 sort of though he spills over me like dough and I'm tempted to call Cock Midnighters to come trim his side so that he fits me. 47 00:05:32,220 --> 00:05:38,370 Then it's puff and chow, baby. Solitude, judo, solitude, solitude. 48 00:05:38,370 --> 00:05:44,520 Oh, Londinium tourguide unofficial. 49 00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:50,990 One minute it's hopscotch in bare feet. Next year for Fotopoulos in Sudan in case you're pink. 50 00:05:50,990 --> 00:05:55,490 In case your pink stockings get dirty, no one prepared me for marriage, 51 00:05:55,490 --> 00:06:01,460 me and Albir were the wild girls of Londinium sought to discover the secrets of its hidden hearts, 52 00:06:01,460 --> 00:06:07,310 still too young to withhold more than we revealed to join this merry cast of actors. 53 00:06:07,310 --> 00:06:12,650 She was like a rag doll who'd lost its stuffing, spiky brown hair cut short because of NYTs. 54 00:06:12,650 --> 00:06:16,070 Everyone said she was either anorexic or had worms. 55 00:06:16,070 --> 00:06:23,060 But OUSA Alba was so busy chasing the Dolce Vita that she just burnt everything she ate before it turned to fat. 56 00:06:23,060 --> 00:06:30,350 She dragged me out on dangerous escapades. We were partners in crime, banditos, renegades, she said. 57 00:06:30,350 --> 00:06:38,450 There was more to life than playing with friggin dolls, like causing trouble and discovering what grown ups did in private without getting caught. 58 00:06:38,450 --> 00:06:41,450 We were going to steal from the rich, give to the poor, 59 00:06:41,450 --> 00:06:49,550 keep 75 percent for ourselves and live in one of their mansions with a thousand slaves feeding us cakes all day, every day. 60 00:06:49,550 --> 00:06:53,240 But until such time, her dad owned the butchers next door. 61 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:56,870 But one mind couldn't care less what I did. 62 00:06:56,870 --> 00:07:02,450 His precious Catullus got the abacus and wax. I got the sewing kit and tweezers. 63 00:07:02,450 --> 00:07:08,210 He was even bought a ponytail for his curly little head, so it fitted in at school with all those trendy Roman kids. 64 00:07:08,210 --> 00:07:18,080 Bless his sockless feet and Magin. Some days we told the tenements of Aldersgate he trailed behind like a giant sloth, his big, 65 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:24,020 muddy eyes on the sleepyheads, just like his father's, and plead with us to slow down. 66 00:07:24,020 --> 00:07:30,200 I tell him to futuro off your little runt, leaving him behind as we raced towards the slums, 67 00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:35,630 swarming with immigrants, freed slaves and factory workers, usual suspects. 68 00:07:35,630 --> 00:07:40,970 We play knock-down, ginge, throw stones, break windows, then Leggat down an alley out of sight, 69 00:07:40,970 --> 00:07:49,160 arrive home breathless and itching with flea bites and Jega foot, what with the alfresco sewerage running between paving stones. 70 00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:55,820 Now in my neighbourhood, some evenings were spiced trout fried on stall's fresh out of the Thames. 71 00:07:55,820 --> 00:08:00,000 You could eat er or run home for supper in the backyard. 72 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:03,170 Dad called an atrium that's of the rush hour. 73 00:08:03,170 --> 00:08:10,040 Traffic allowed carts clogged up the main drag to the forum up and unloading produce from up country or abroad. 74 00:08:10,040 --> 00:08:15,750 Sometimes I'd hear a solitary flute through an open window and stop. 75 00:08:15,750 --> 00:08:22,740 Breathing later, we'd sneak out for the vicarious thrill of the carnal experience like two tons, 76 00:08:22,740 --> 00:08:30,390 we'd prowl the darkened alleys, our noses sniffing out the devastating odour of sex, peeping through candlelit shutters. 77 00:08:30,390 --> 00:08:34,740 We were amazed that the adult need to strip off and stick things in each other. 78 00:08:34,740 --> 00:08:39,780 Men and women, women and women, men and men, multiples of all sorts. 79 00:08:39,780 --> 00:08:46,470 Groaning in pain. Absolutely fascinating. And then we encountered death. 80 00:08:46,470 --> 00:08:51,540 Lukan, Africanness, the Baker, Fenchurch. I was the daughter he never had. 81 00:08:51,540 --> 00:08:56,490 He said that his eyes spelt wife gave us fresh bread dipped in honey. 82 00:08:56,490 --> 00:09:05,280 Our thanks to raid his store one night finds his great black rigour mortis self in a cloud of flour to burn bonds for cheeks. 83 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:12,270 Too much yeast in his bowels emptied on the floor. That stopped our missions for a while. 84 00:09:12,270 --> 00:09:15,390 Some nights we go to the river, sit on the beach, 85 00:09:15,390 --> 00:09:24,180 look out towards the Marshall Islands of Sjöberg and beyond the jungle that was Rattana, teeming with spirits and untamed humans. 86 00:09:24,180 --> 00:09:29,220 We try to imagine the world beyond the city, that country a lifetime away. 87 00:09:29,220 --> 00:09:37,680 That Mom called home and dad called prison the city of Roma, which everyone went on about as if it was her bloody mirabilis. 88 00:09:37,680 --> 00:09:42,600 We talk about the off duty soldiers who loitered in our town everywhere. 89 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:49,230 They were everywhere, watching for lumps on our chests to see of our hips grew away from our waists, 90 00:09:49,230 --> 00:09:53,070 always picking me out, looking at me in the market. 91 00:09:53,070 --> 00:09:57,030 Is our little aubergine ready? No, I'm not just thinking. 92 00:09:57,030 --> 00:10:02,100 Perves eyed growls skedaddling hotfoot out of their reach. 93 00:10:02,100 --> 00:10:08,340 Sometimes we tear grunting on the beach and imagine some illicit extramarital action was in progress. 94 00:10:08,340 --> 00:10:14,610 We'd call out in our deepest gruffness voices Hey Polizia and Rock with laughter because we'd 95 00:10:14,610 --> 00:10:19,920 interrupted the flipping goitres we'd hear them tripping over themselves as they scuffled off. 96 00:10:19,920 --> 00:10:24,930 And then everything changed. I got engaged. I wasn't allowed out no more. 97 00:10:24,930 --> 00:10:32,040 I had to act ladylike. And Albar said it wouldn't be the same once I've been elevated. 98 00:10:32,040 --> 00:10:42,430 And I'll read, I think. Just one more, I think it's probably seven minutes, is it? 99 00:10:42,430 --> 00:10:48,660 Yeah, so yeah. So I'll just read one more. It's called the betrothal page 22. 100 00:10:48,660 --> 00:10:56,550 His pupils are soaked in desire, floats in a crisp January sky, show no mercy. 101 00:10:56,550 --> 00:11:10,410 Even as mine plead innocence. A small gold link to my heart lies in the damp crevice of his supplicant palm spiders crawl up his forearm. 102 00:11:10,410 --> 00:11:17,640 I am level with his beige linen abdomen, black leather girdle slung low. 103 00:11:17,640 --> 00:11:25,110 The Egyptians, he proclaims, discover the most delicate nerve on the finger and glorious the only one, 104 00:11:25,110 --> 00:11:30,060 indeed, with a direct line to our greatest gift, the human heart. 105 00:11:30,060 --> 00:11:39,030 And so with this ring, I thee betroth Zuleika cherished daughter of our man from Nubia and Lamani. 106 00:11:39,030 --> 00:11:50,460 He takes my limp hand, fills the trembling gold and withdraws ever so, ever so, ever so slowly to applause. 107 00:11:50,460 --> 00:12:02,580 But I flick my hand down so that Cupid's cute little handywork tinkles on the ground amidst gasps my eyes lock is in then and smile. 108 00:12:02,580 --> 00:12:15,240 He has just made of my greatest gift an exile. 109 00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:20,790 That's wonderful. Thank you very much. I wonder if he did the other reading, I think, as well, because the tone changes completely, doesn't it? 110 00:12:20,790 --> 00:12:27,990 Suddenly becomes much more sombre and atmospheric. So I you know, this is a series about the experience of reading. 111 00:12:27,990 --> 00:12:33,580 And there's a couple of questions that we're asking to all of the writers that that we're talking to across the series. 112 00:12:33,580 --> 00:12:40,200 And the first one which you wanted to pose to you is do you have a reader in mind when you write? 113 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:46,350 Not really. I really try not to have a reader in mind because I find then that I'm writing for a 114 00:12:46,350 --> 00:12:53,550 particular readership and I think that can be very restrictive and limit my imagination. 115 00:12:53,550 --> 00:13:01,350 And since I was thought to censor myself many, many years ago in my 20s, I attended a creative writing workshop. 116 00:13:01,350 --> 00:13:05,370 And really it's the only one I ever attended and only went two or three times. 117 00:13:05,370 --> 00:13:10,500 And I found that outside of the workshop I was writing for the people in the workshop, 118 00:13:10,500 --> 00:13:14,160 and I just thought that there was something very wrong about it and was a feminist group. 119 00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:22,620 And I felt that I had to be right on, as we said in those days, and that I had to be politically correct, although I think we use that term then. 120 00:13:22,620 --> 00:13:28,320 And ever since then, I have an aversion to writing for particular audiences. 121 00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:35,250 That said, I'm very aware that I'm writing. I'm writing for people to read, I'm writing for readership. 122 00:13:35,250 --> 00:13:38,100 I try not to narrowly define who that readership might be. 123 00:13:38,100 --> 00:13:45,570 I know that in this country it is middle aged women of a certain age who will read books more than anybody else. 124 00:13:45,570 --> 00:13:54,390 Statistically, that's the case. So I am aware of that. But when I'm writing, I try to be true to the story I'm telling in the characters. 125 00:13:54,390 --> 00:13:58,740 So I'm really thinking about structural things that are character. I'm thinking about drama. 126 00:13:58,740 --> 00:14:06,420 I'm thinking about variety. I'm thinking about, you know, having depth to the work, but also being entertaining and engaging the reader. 127 00:14:06,420 --> 00:14:12,780 I'm thinking about all those things I'm thinking about to a certain extent, accessibility. 128 00:14:12,780 --> 00:14:16,710 So this book, some people might not find accessible, but even when I throw latinum, 129 00:14:16,710 --> 00:14:22,500 it's usually self-explanatory and it's quite experimental in some ways. 130 00:14:22,500 --> 00:14:26,730 Linguistically, I play around with ideas and so on. But hopefully. 131 00:14:26,730 --> 00:14:34,560 Well, I know I know that people who don't read poetry, no matter who you know, aren't necessarily interested in history. 132 00:14:34,560 --> 00:14:41,310 I know that people can read this book from, you know, from start to finish and engage with it and find it accessible. 133 00:14:41,310 --> 00:14:47,970 But I'm not I haven't compromised what I'm writing. But at the same time, it's accessible. 134 00:14:47,970 --> 00:14:53,130 It's in my mind. So that's one of the things that's in my mind that I don't want to alienate the reader, 135 00:14:53,130 --> 00:14:57,180 the reader picking up on the issue of accessibility and sort of all the linguistic innovation 136 00:14:57,180 --> 00:15:02,970 there that sort of renders the book real and and touchable for us as contemporary readers. 137 00:15:02,970 --> 00:15:07,740 How do you imagine the reader can place themselves in relation to Zuleika? 138 00:15:07,740 --> 00:15:13,860 Because usually with the first person narrative, well, often with the first person narrative, we think her way into her point of view. 139 00:15:13,860 --> 00:15:17,970 But there are certain things here that kind of really I find difficult to get into. 140 00:15:17,970 --> 00:15:21,270 And I think other people might disagree with me. So that'll be really interesting to me once that. 141 00:15:21,270 --> 00:15:29,130 But places where I just and one of places with the fact that she's so very young and fact she's 11 when she's forced into this marriage. 142 00:15:29,130 --> 00:15:35,580 And that was an almost an experience that I felt would be almost unethical for me to empathise with too much because it's so extreme. 143 00:15:35,580 --> 00:15:40,140 It's something that's very hard to imagine now. So where are you thinking of the reader? 144 00:15:40,140 --> 00:15:44,700 I think about the reader witnessing her being inside. 145 00:15:44,700 --> 00:15:50,340 Well, like I say, I'm not really thinking I'm trying not to think about the reader or thinking about the character. 146 00:15:50,340 --> 00:15:57,000 So so I like writing in first person. First person allows me to inhabit the character as a writer. 147 00:15:57,000 --> 00:16:02,760 So I find that when I'm writing in the first person, the character comes alive as I write the character for me. 148 00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:10,410 And I'm hoping that the reader I think my work is quite I think you I can either get into my work or you don't 149 00:16:10,410 --> 00:16:15,340 get into my work because especially when I'm writing in the first place and the characters are very strong. 150 00:16:15,340 --> 00:16:17,730 So she's a very strong character and a very strong voice. 151 00:16:17,730 --> 00:16:24,750 So you either make a decision to go with that voice or you can be possibly repelled by it and say, oh, no, it's too much. 152 00:16:24,750 --> 00:16:31,380 This I like past tense, omniscient narrator, you know, regularly written prose. 153 00:16:31,380 --> 00:16:36,870 I don't want to read poetry. I don't want to get in first person. And this voice is so dissimilar to me that I don't want to engage with it. 154 00:16:36,870 --> 00:16:46,110 But I think if you do decide to engage with it because it's written in the first person and because I wanted her to sound very contemporary, 155 00:16:46,110 --> 00:16:52,200 even though it's very historical. So you'd have noticed the book sort of anachronisms, and that emerged naturally. 156 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:57,240 But it was my way of making her feel like a very contemporary character. 157 00:16:57,240 --> 00:17:01,500 And hopefully, once you engage with that, you you are then inside her. 158 00:17:01,500 --> 00:17:06,990 So as a writer, I want to get inside a character like her and tell her story from the inside. 159 00:17:06,990 --> 00:17:14,140 The epilogue at the end of the book is really it was the beginning of the book in a sense, that epilogue. 160 00:17:14,140 --> 00:17:21,710 So, you know, this one of the I think it was the first thing I wrote, and that was me as a writer becoming the character. 161 00:17:21,710 --> 00:17:32,260 So so yeah. So it's about hopefully closing the gap between the reader who wants to engage with this voice and and the character. 162 00:17:32,260 --> 00:17:36,910 So I don't want the character to feel alien removed is historical. It's nearly 2000 years ago. 163 00:17:36,910 --> 00:17:40,570 It's very easy to feel this is so dissimilar to our lives today. 164 00:17:40,570 --> 00:17:47,440 This this has no relevance to to our lives today as women that you just come and go through it. 165 00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:53,260 But I think the sort of anachronistic elements of it helped to make her feel very contemporary. 166 00:17:53,260 --> 00:17:56,380 Yeah, thank you. 167 00:17:56,380 --> 00:18:05,920 I just found that as a reader myself, it was my first time experiencing a version of what I say and the topics that you talk about in the novel. 168 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:11,050 Foods are really interesting to me, but at the same time, she transcends so many different boundaries. 169 00:18:11,050 --> 00:18:18,220 She's there trying to discover identity, but she's working out her own race and she's moving through these different class systems and everything. 170 00:18:18,220 --> 00:18:23,050 And I was just wondering if you see your work is maybe communicative about perhaps a 171 00:18:23,050 --> 00:18:27,640 political statement or about the absence of this kind of multicultural Brittania, 172 00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:31,240 as it were, or whether you just see it as purely a work of art. 173 00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:38,230 Maybe it's never I never see nothing. Anything ever is, you know, Damien Hirst at the moment, you know, 174 00:18:38,230 --> 00:18:46,570 stealing what I think he's definitely appropriating and, you know, African and Western Nigerian bronze at the moment. 175 00:18:46,570 --> 00:18:49,630 I know going slightly off. But, you know, it's not just a work of art. 176 00:18:49,630 --> 00:18:54,340 It's an iconic African image that if you know about Damien Hirst, his latest artwork, 177 00:18:54,340 --> 00:19:00,450 but he's literally taken and copied and painted the gold and and setting up his artwork. 178 00:19:00,450 --> 00:19:05,380 So, yeah. So I feel that all art is political and very political writer. 179 00:19:05,380 --> 00:19:13,510 So so I did write this book because I read about Africans in Britain in the Roman era, and I thought that was amazing. 180 00:19:13,510 --> 00:19:17,380 Nobody knew about it even today. I would suggest a lot of people don't know about it. 181 00:19:17,380 --> 00:19:26,020 And I wanted to bring that story alive. And so I thought, well, okay, I'm going to do this through a young black woman living in the city. 182 00:19:26,020 --> 00:19:33,700 And the interesting thing about this book is that when I I did notice that you had a quote from something that I'd said. 183 00:19:33,700 --> 00:19:36,670 So I don't know if you've really discussed this, like, I forget what I've written. 184 00:19:36,670 --> 00:19:41,680 But anyway, the book actually came out of a residency at the Museum of London. 185 00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:45,940 At that time. They had Roman ruins recreated in the gallery. 186 00:19:45,940 --> 00:19:50,170 And I walked through and I thought, wouldn't it be great to have a black Roman character? 187 00:19:50,170 --> 00:19:57,100 So so the museum's curators said told me there were no black people in Roman London. 188 00:19:57,100 --> 00:20:03,130 There were no black people in Britain. And, you know, you know, there was no evidence for it. 189 00:20:03,130 --> 00:20:08,440 Therefore, they did not exist. So they were, you know, they archaeologists. 190 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:14,800 And so they were depicted. They were relying on archaeological evidence. So I said, well, you know, the Roman roads are very good. 191 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:20,770 Rome was a very multicultural city at that time and people travelled backwards and forwards. 192 00:20:20,770 --> 00:20:26,680 Of course they did. You might not have the evidence, but of course, there were all kinds of people living in Rome, in London. 193 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:33,370 So so the London I've created Londinium is actually it's not just L.A. that, you know, you heard me talk about the Syrians and the Jews and Persians. 194 00:20:33,370 --> 00:20:39,040 I really wanted it to be multicultural. They they were, you know, very emphatic that I was wrong. 195 00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:44,890 You know, I should do that. But as a writer, you can do what you like. So I created this world in these characters. 196 00:20:44,890 --> 00:20:53,950 And, of course, archaeology has not caught up. So now that the DNA evidence is now telling them from archaeological finds, 197 00:20:53,950 --> 00:21:02,050 I discovered over 100 years ago that there were black people in all over Roman Britain and that London was a multicultural city. 198 00:21:02,050 --> 00:21:08,230 So it was a very political point that I was making. I was saying, you know, this myth about this ridiculous myth, 199 00:21:08,230 --> 00:21:15,120 about this kind of white British history that some people still believe I'm sure is is not true. 200 00:21:15,120 --> 00:21:21,310 It's not, you know, from the 15th and 16th century onwards, you know, that's a very recorded black presence. 201 00:21:21,310 --> 00:21:25,960 But I wanted to go even deeper and look at something that was 2000 years ago, too. 202 00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:36,100 It's sort of completely disrupts this myth of, you know, Roman Britain with Great Britain two thousand years ago being a white society. 203 00:21:36,100 --> 00:21:40,450 So that was my starting point of history. 204 00:21:40,450 --> 00:21:43,150 Might have moved on. When I was writing the book. 205 00:21:43,150 --> 00:21:50,500 I couldn't find any evidence for anti black racism existing then because it had emerged with the slave trade as we know it. 206 00:21:50,500 --> 00:21:56,830 So even though Zuleika is a black girl and people obviously will notice a difference, 207 00:21:56,830 --> 00:22:01,030 because I'm not saying that there were loads of black people in room in London. 208 00:22:01,030 --> 00:22:06,970 She's not really experiencing the kind of racism, as we understand it today saw her. 209 00:22:06,970 --> 00:22:13,940 But she has an identity, which is though, of somebody who does look different and feels different and is a bit of an outsider, but. 210 00:22:13,940 --> 00:22:20,720 She finds herself obviously moving class, so she's she comes from the gutter, 211 00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:25,610 essentially, and now she's she's kind of living a sort of a rich lifestyle. 212 00:22:25,610 --> 00:22:33,830 So all those things are things that I was playing with. And there were things in the book to do with, you know, class and gender and race and so on. 213 00:22:33,830 --> 00:22:40,160 That happened because I'm a very political being and it just I just constantly throwing it in there. 214 00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:45,380 So, yeah. OK, thank you very much. Think we're short on time. 215 00:22:45,380 --> 00:22:55,380 OK. Now to the audience if you have any questions. 216 00:22:55,380 --> 00:23:04,350 We were talking earlier about whether it's a feminist novel and the idea of Celenk as a as a character and going back to what you talking about, 217 00:23:04,350 --> 00:23:11,970 the idea of how brutal, how brutal that, you know, you talked about that when you were doing the reading of the of this building might go over her. 218 00:23:11,970 --> 00:23:15,900 And I remember when I read that I want to stretch I like my immediate reaction was 219 00:23:15,900 --> 00:23:20,760 that I want to be safe at the things that are happening to the 11 year old girl. 220 00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:26,130 But at the same time, there's this amazing touch of humour that she's injecting, 221 00:23:26,130 --> 00:23:31,110 that she's making him into this disgusting creature that's on her that felt really empowering. 222 00:23:31,110 --> 00:23:36,890 And we were just talking about as a group like, well, where did we go with it? 223 00:23:36,890 --> 00:23:41,550 Is it is she is she is she objectified? 224 00:23:41,550 --> 00:23:46,590 Is she can we see her as a kind of heroic figure? You know, does she emerge from it? 225 00:23:46,590 --> 00:23:51,120 Is she ridiculed at the end when she's met? Seem silly to perpetrate that kind of thing. 226 00:23:51,120 --> 00:23:55,440 So I just to. Yeah. Is that a feminist. 227 00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,100 But I don't know if I thought about that really in terms of this book. 228 00:23:59,100 --> 00:24:02,430 I don't know. I suppose it is perhaps, you know, 229 00:24:02,430 --> 00:24:10,740 because it is looking at somebody who is completely disadvantaged because of their gender in the society that she's growing up in. 230 00:24:10,740 --> 00:24:17,610 But I don't really like writing female characters who are victims. 231 00:24:17,610 --> 00:24:25,140 So she is a victim of circumstance by her person. She just she's not a victim like a person in terms of her personality. 232 00:24:25,140 --> 00:24:34,230 She's triumphant in many ways. So she's she's been dealt a sort of a difficult hand in some ways, but she makes the most of it. 233 00:24:34,230 --> 00:24:38,220 So that's perhaps where the humour comes from in that she does have this sense 234 00:24:38,220 --> 00:24:44,820 of humour and she does have this incredible friendship with Venus and Alba, 235 00:24:44,820 --> 00:24:51,780 which is which supports her and nurtures her, and that's where she gets her sustenance from. 236 00:24:51,780 --> 00:24:57,150 But the thing about writing fiction is I I'm approaching it from the character. 237 00:24:57,150 --> 00:25:02,100 What kind of character? My creating how can I make them as believable as they need to be? 238 00:25:02,100 --> 00:25:06,120 That means they have to be flawed, as we say. 239 00:25:06,120 --> 00:25:10,650 So she is flawed because we see how she treats her servants, for example. 240 00:25:10,650 --> 00:25:17,720 But that makes a human. But it's also I'm also making a commentary on the fact that, you know, 241 00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:22,980 the the the the victim can also be somebody who perpetuates oppression on other people. 242 00:25:22,980 --> 00:25:27,600 We know that, you know, it's this kind of Power 101, isn't it? 243 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:33,180 So so even though she's she's in a situation that's very difficult for her, 244 00:25:33,180 --> 00:25:39,080 that doesn't mean that she empathises with the people who are even in a worse situation than her. 245 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:44,610 So is a feminist novel. I don't. 246 00:25:44,610 --> 00:25:52,980 Well, yes, I suppose so, if you want to call it that. Sometimes it feels as if you're kind of limiting something by putting that kind of label on it. 247 00:25:52,980 --> 00:25:57,360 You know, it's feminist postcolonial novel. Is this normal? It's of that novel. 248 00:25:57,360 --> 00:26:05,010 It's definitely a novel about a woman making the most of her life in spite of a difficult situation, a difficult situation. 249 00:26:05,010 --> 00:26:12,120 And also, I feel that Zuleika is, you know, very young girls today in Yemen, you know, 250 00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:19,360 and Saudi Arabia and other countries who are being married off at the age of seven, possibly even younger to big dirty old men. 251 00:26:19,360 --> 00:26:25,860 And, you know, I felt that I was making a commentary on that through the experience that she goes through. 252 00:26:25,860 --> 00:26:32,310 So so, again, that's where the anachronism comes in, because it is not just about making her feel like a lively contemporary character, 253 00:26:32,310 --> 00:26:39,210 but it's also about making commentary on the society that we're living in today 254 00:26:39,210 --> 00:26:44,580 and all kinds of different ways to do anything of a great one to come in on that, 255 00:26:44,580 --> 00:26:50,670 because you're close to an age in some ways to. How did you respond to that when you were reading? 256 00:26:50,670 --> 00:26:57,360 Yeah, I think we had a very similar reaction in the sense that it was incredibly shocking when we first read that. 257 00:26:57,360 --> 00:27:01,110 But I think in a way, it needs to be shocking. 258 00:27:01,110 --> 00:27:09,030 And I think lots of things you can do in like as you were talking about countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia, 259 00:27:09,030 --> 00:27:17,580 when you see news coverage of the atrocities that happen, that it doesn't have the same visceral reaction. 260 00:27:17,580 --> 00:27:26,100 So I think it's definitely made us think about some of those kinds of things in a way that it otherwise wouldn't. 261 00:27:26,100 --> 00:27:39,540 We wouldn't have had that experience. Stephanie, thank you. What do you think your work could have for us to think you for writing this book? 262 00:27:39,540 --> 00:27:45,660 Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think she'd be a great stage character or film character. 263 00:27:45,660 --> 00:27:51,480 So there's a really talented young comedian called McNicoll. That's anyone heard of her? 264 00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,860 I mean, she's a. Wonderful, and she's got a show on it. 265 00:27:55,860 --> 00:28:02,940 Well, it was on last year called Chewing Gum, and I saw the live show at the National Theatre that she didn't as a one woman show. 266 00:28:02,940 --> 00:28:09,790 And she's a very funny, young, dark skinned, beautiful, very petite black actress. 267 00:28:09,790 --> 00:28:18,060 And I was in a Twitter conversation with her about, you know, her writing the a drama adaptation of this and playing it. 268 00:28:18,060 --> 00:28:21,910 But of course, she's become a big star in Hollywood, which probably is in Hollywood already now. 269 00:28:21,910 --> 00:28:26,070 So, you know, she's not really interested, but. But with the right actor. 270 00:28:26,070 --> 00:28:30,360 Yes, absolutely. And it was optioned to be a film, but a lot of books. 271 00:28:30,360 --> 00:28:35,610 Yeah, no, no. But that was ages ago. Don't forget, this book came out in 2001. It was a long time ago. 272 00:28:35,610 --> 00:28:40,110 So. So you're saying the book came out in 2001? Yes. 273 00:28:40,110 --> 00:28:49,840 So it's a big relaunch. I think my publisher said something about relaunching its sometimes they relaunch, but it just seems very sorry to. 274 00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:54,450 But I think that it seems like you just that it just does seem. 275 00:28:54,450 --> 00:29:00,220 And so I'm just thinking for the current political moment. 276 00:29:00,220 --> 00:29:06,210 Do you mean because Abraxas does seem so nice. 277 00:29:06,210 --> 00:29:12,830 Yeah. No, but it's I mean, I actually wrote it, I think nearly 20 years ago. 278 00:29:12,830 --> 00:29:17,190 Do you think I said do you think that's interesting? 279 00:29:17,190 --> 00:29:20,640 I thought it was just blown away. 280 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:25,140 No, no, not at all. I think it was turned into a radio play. 281 00:29:25,140 --> 00:29:33,120 Oh, yes. Yeah, it was. Somebody made it to a one off radio play, you know. 282 00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:38,210 So for now. Yes. On Radio four. Yeah, it was adapted. Yeah. 283 00:29:38,210 --> 00:29:42,390 Wow. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. It might be in the archives somewhere else. 284 00:29:42,390 --> 00:29:46,050 Just thinking about the idea of radio and performance and voice. 285 00:29:46,050 --> 00:29:52,290 Um, we were chatting earlier, we were a couple of people noticed the spoke in this image. 286 00:29:52,290 --> 00:30:00,810 You know that's that's part of the power. And I, I just wondered if you had sort of responses to that, whether that was something you really did. 287 00:30:00,810 --> 00:30:07,290 You have her voice in mind when you were when you were writing and the voice the voice emerged, you know, as I was writing. 288 00:30:07,290 --> 00:30:16,290 But my background is in theatre. So, you know, I started off trying to be an actress and I was an actress and I wrote for theatre many moons ago. 289 00:30:16,290 --> 00:30:20,700 So I I think that's a formative element to some of my work. 290 00:30:20,700 --> 00:30:25,380 And I think this one in particular has a strong morality to it. 291 00:30:25,380 --> 00:30:29,970 Yeah. And I read I mean, certainly when I was writing this, as I was writing it, 292 00:30:29,970 --> 00:30:38,760 I was reading it out loud and hearing how it sounded because it is poetry and and then revising it and then reading it and then revising it. 293 00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:44,370 I tell students to do time, read the work aloud. You hear what's working, what isn't working, what's wrong. 294 00:30:44,370 --> 00:30:48,210 You send yourself to sleep with it, then you know you're going to send Jerry to sleep with it. 295 00:30:48,210 --> 00:30:54,550 So yeah. So it was definitely I was almost like performing it as I was writing it. 296 00:30:54,550 --> 00:30:57,240 Can we just get a couple of other voices? 297 00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:02,910 And we were talking earlier about the poetry performance and about that sort of and about the strangeness of that. 298 00:31:02,910 --> 00:31:08,490 Does anyone you want to see who commented on that one to come in or not perhaps think he'd have spoken poetry? 299 00:31:08,490 --> 00:31:12,870 Yeah, I was. So it seemed to be quite a moment in the novel when that happened. 300 00:31:12,870 --> 00:31:16,770 She has that poetry, as I was saying, mad. 301 00:31:16,770 --> 00:31:22,050 I was actually surprised by that because I was expecting her to win the prise. 302 00:31:22,050 --> 00:31:27,720 You know, I was with a crow and she seemed to have something to say. 303 00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:33,020 And then there's a wee bit where it didn't work and everybody got drunk by then. 304 00:31:33,020 --> 00:31:39,260 Just the moment I was I was I was just so sad. 305 00:31:39,260 --> 00:31:48,730 But it was really, really sad. But it didn't mean she just did that. 306 00:31:48,730 --> 00:31:52,150 Well, you know, the Romans, I don't know if they're any historians in the room, 307 00:31:52,150 --> 00:31:58,220 but the Romans did have performance poetry, if you call it that, parties. 308 00:31:58,220 --> 00:32:02,500 And, you know, because a lot of it is based on historical truth. 309 00:32:02,500 --> 00:32:06,920 Yes, she's a classicist. So. 310 00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,080 And so they did so, you know, and when I wrote this performance, 311 00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:15,230 poetry was particularly big in the U.K. and there was a really bad performance poetry. 312 00:32:15,230 --> 00:32:23,860 And I was having fun with it. So, like so like his poem is, you know, the River Nile running through my blood, all that stuff. 313 00:32:23,860 --> 00:32:28,390 It's very cliche, you know, and it was actually supposed to be funny. 314 00:32:28,390 --> 00:32:36,280 She doesn't realise that. But but but I was also playing with the idea that, you know, in this sort of 70s and 80s, 315 00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:41,980 black performance poets would write about being Nubians and, you know, and the River Nile and so on. 316 00:32:41,980 --> 00:32:47,330 And she is actually, you know, of Nubian parentage. 317 00:32:47,330 --> 00:32:55,930 So I was playing around with all those kinds of things. One of the poets is a very recognisable British poet. 318 00:32:55,930 --> 00:33:05,500 And, you know, I mean, out there in the world who I was put in there because I wanted to make a point about somebody who who is celebrated as a poet, 319 00:33:05,500 --> 00:33:10,300 is actually a terrible poet, is just expressing anger at that time. 320 00:33:10,300 --> 00:33:20,970 This is going back a bit. And yeah, I, I think I think that's just the beginning of her sort of I mean I felt like it was important. 321 00:33:20,970 --> 00:33:21,370 Yeah. 322 00:33:21,370 --> 00:33:29,230 But I think I think in terms of her development as a character, if you feel sorry for her, that's really good because, you know, because as a writer, 323 00:33:29,230 --> 00:33:38,200 you have to manipulate the reader's emotions, not necessarily thinking about the reader, but, you know, you're taking your reader on the journey. 324 00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:43,840 You're taking your characters on the journey and the fact that she has this big moment in her mind, 325 00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,800 but nobody's paying any attention to it and even trade the Jordanian government. 326 00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:58,830 This is ridiculous. Hopefully will give you give you a bigger emotional response to the end when she's killed because you're on her side. 327 00:33:58,830 --> 00:34:03,070 Yet you know that she has many different facets, doesn't she? 328 00:34:03,070 --> 00:34:06,830 So, yeah, picking up on that scene again. 329 00:34:06,830 --> 00:34:11,980 And we have a Scott in the audience who is who is interested, intrigued by it, 330 00:34:11,980 --> 00:34:16,090 but then had some questions about the Scottish voice and that performance. 331 00:34:16,090 --> 00:34:27,220 Do you want to ask both of you. Sorry, I was just wondering where you've got this Scottish accent from a mixture of different accents. 332 00:34:27,220 --> 00:34:35,230 It was a pigeon. Scots Latin, isn't it? But did you don't recognise it? 333 00:34:35,230 --> 00:34:44,050 No, I wanted to do it for good. I'm proud to say that I'm not at all. 334 00:34:44,050 --> 00:34:50,790 I don't know. Oh, I just looked it up. And again, Scottish accents. 335 00:34:50,790 --> 00:34:57,300 Yeah. I mean, I got some Scottish I think I've got some Scottish words and I thought, oh, it's definitely Scottish. 336 00:34:57,300 --> 00:35:01,930 Oh, it's just the day of the week. 337 00:35:01,930 --> 00:35:13,690 OK, so we had some interesting conversations about whether it was some kind of mixing with Jamaican patois as well with some kind of, 338 00:35:13,690 --> 00:35:17,860 you know, sort of a crossover between the dreadlocks and the and the Scots that. 339 00:35:17,860 --> 00:35:22,000 Yeah, yeah. You know, the sort of English is a mixture of lots of different languages. 340 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:27,670 So I was just kind of replicating that in a different way, I think. Is Cockney rhyming slang in there as well. 341 00:35:27,670 --> 00:35:33,490 Americanisms, you know, totally, you know, factually incorrect. 342 00:35:33,490 --> 00:35:37,070 And what I found fun to write. Yeah. 343 00:35:37,070 --> 00:35:45,430 Yeah. I think we have to get moving. 344 00:35:45,430 --> 00:35:49,570 We were talking a little bit about whether the brilliant humour in it and 345 00:35:49,570 --> 00:35:53,350 exacted it cost in terms of the seriousness of your themes and their strength, 346 00:35:53,350 --> 00:35:57,640 your political points, whether it ever got to get packaged in certain ways. 347 00:35:57,640 --> 00:36:04,390 That was frustrating to you, because I thought they to this wedding reception in English first. 348 00:36:04,390 --> 00:36:09,280 But some of them can be quite old fashioned and you had to persuade them, you know, 349 00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:13,340 this is important and this is intellectual and this is and that's easy with that before they 350 00:36:13,340 --> 00:36:17,280 read it that I can't quite believe in their classes for the know enough to do this whole. 351 00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:25,960 And they're convinced that if you say that, you know, do you feel that the human sassiness and was Miski in any way? 352 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:30,160 I think it is a mixture of comedy and tragedy, isn't it? 353 00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:34,960 And I think one services the other. So you're laughing, but then you're crying. 354 00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:40,450 And I hope that there is a mixture of that in there. And there are some very, very serious moments in there. 355 00:36:40,450 --> 00:36:47,620 But you're saying about the other things, I found it devastating and a really important but really painful. 356 00:36:47,620 --> 00:36:54,220 I tend to find funny things anyway because the challenge is to get to meetings in the first place. 357 00:36:54,220 --> 00:36:59,740 So I work on Toni Morrison and a number of white men who tell me they can't understand a word she's written. 358 00:36:59,740 --> 00:37:04,880 And I'm OK with words, man. Oh, actually, no. 359 00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:09,090 Oh, that's not for me. And do you ever feel frustrated? 360 00:37:09,090 --> 00:37:11,350 Is this what are you meant to what? 361 00:37:11,350 --> 00:37:19,600 You pick up the book in Washington, which is more classic for me, but how many of your colleagues will want to read this? 362 00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:23,810 And they're in reception each time. This is making a serious point about classics. 363 00:37:23,810 --> 00:37:28,540 And I think it's a kind of I think I think that's difficult because a lot of those 364 00:37:28,540 --> 00:37:33,670 justices aren't interested in any kind of think of what we would call reception, which has nothing to do with anything else. 365 00:37:33,670 --> 00:37:40,360 Apart from that, you're about two centuries, two centuries, two millennia, too late for that kind of time. 366 00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:45,620 But I can imagine the sort of comedy might make people take us seriously. 367 00:37:45,620 --> 00:37:49,600 I, I have a strange, different experience because I remember when I picked this up, 368 00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:53,890 a friend gave this to me for my birthday in 2002, so I had it then. 369 00:37:53,890 --> 00:37:59,860 So I kind of always knew about it. And that's kind of tactics I do. 370 00:37:59,860 --> 00:38:07,830 And then all classes I work do that kind of stuff. It's like, I don't know, didn't you know it in Brisbane? 371 00:38:07,830 --> 00:38:11,440 That's the whole point. But it's just the people you want to listen. 372 00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:19,930 It's so damn hard to get you to listen. Yeah. I mean, I'm not particularly bothered about academics not wanting to read it. 373 00:38:19,930 --> 00:38:25,370 I mean, I know that. So it's great when they do. 374 00:38:25,370 --> 00:38:28,390 I love it. It's great and they're teaching a course as writers, 375 00:38:28,390 --> 00:38:36,970 we absolutely love this because it means you're taking what, seriously arts, you know, a wider readership. 376 00:38:36,970 --> 00:38:39,970 You know that to me, that would be the focus, really. 377 00:38:39,970 --> 00:38:50,610 And I think they would probably find it attractive if it's packaged as something that's got a lot of sort of levity in it. 378 00:38:50,610 --> 00:38:59,210 So anyone that hasn't spoken yet has got one final question for us. If not, when we go to the final reading. 379 00:38:59,210 --> 00:39:11,490 Nobody. Thank you, Tom. It's 13 minutes after. 380 00:39:11,490 --> 00:39:20,390 So I'll read the page 228. 381 00:39:20,390 --> 00:39:32,160 Venus winks at lovers games. Songbird surprise was my favourite dish, and I knew it would be his from first sighting, 382 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:38,820 I had imagined being crushed into the imperial purple robes of Emperor Septimius Severus, 383 00:39:38,820 --> 00:39:44,850 his sword drawn out of its gold and rubies, gathered and plunged into me ruthlessly. 384 00:39:44,850 --> 00:39:53,940 Oh, sweet death. We were together finally, in my opinion, a player in the background as we reclined on sofas, 385 00:39:53,940 --> 00:39:58,740 the low marble table laid out with a little spread served in my floral red, 386 00:39:58,740 --> 00:40:05,400 sameeh and crockery, small songbirds soaked in asparagus sauce with quail's eggs, 387 00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:10,470 dormice cooked in honey and poppyseed salted fish with oyster dressing. 388 00:40:10,470 --> 00:40:23,340 My Lord, milk fed snails just for you for jellyfish, bare cutlets sliced, flamingo tongue marinated, marinated in tumeric and clove oil. 389 00:40:23,340 --> 00:40:32,280 I'm feeling my hunger power cooked courgette spoilt whole Solti's peacocke brains melts in my mouth. 390 00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:38,310 You look across stuffed dates torn between my teeth. 391 00:40:38,310 --> 00:40:50,310 SAOs udders lark's tongue in gold, garlic spiced with perfumed peacock feathers and peppered rose petals, sweet wine cakes to follow olives with. 392 00:40:50,310 --> 00:40:56,400 Time is on our side, all drawn down with finest African wine. 393 00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:04,770 We were silent, letting oils drip over lips and chins, watching each other lykketoft with acrobatic tongues. 394 00:41:04,770 --> 00:41:15,510 He was solid, like a gladiator, my Libyan, my lover, to be my libidinous warrior, my Belcher, his black eyes following the slope of my shoulders, 395 00:41:15,510 --> 00:41:22,080 my shimmering sarees gown, decollete fastened with sapphire clasp, set in gold, 396 00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:28,990 flattering my shining bazookas, the rise and fall with each excited breath. 397 00:41:28,990 --> 00:41:31,480 He was in Britannia, waging war, 398 00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:40,360 he said would leave when the whole of Caledonia had been taken from Hadrian's Wall to the antonym wall and way up to the North Sea. 399 00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:45,910 His marriage was in possibile. He said his wife had gone from swan to donkey. 400 00:41:45,910 --> 00:41:50,380 He knew Felix well, had often dined with him at his villa in Rome. 401 00:41:50,380 --> 00:41:56,200 News to me, he called me to him, nibbled my neck, his harsh bristles, 402 00:41:56,200 --> 00:42:03,880 scratching my delicate skin, stuck his tongue down my ear, making me squeal, growled. 403 00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:13,260 Are you ready for war? Mylie Janoris, I like you two ways, either take off your crown of laurels, 404 00:42:13,260 --> 00:42:20,780 drop your purple robes to the floor and come to me naked as a man or dress up like a. 405 00:42:20,780 --> 00:42:23,630 Real soldiers wear tunics, Under Armour. 406 00:42:23,630 --> 00:42:35,840 My emperor does without stands before me, metal bands tied with leather straps over a bull's chest iron wings protects shoulders from flying sabres. 407 00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:46,100 I finger your second skin, my lord. Cold, polished, my reflection, cut into strips your tawny trunks, perfumed with juniper oil, 408 00:42:46,100 --> 00:42:52,490 powered with squeezing the damp planks of stallion's dagger gripped for my forging. 409 00:42:52,490 --> 00:43:03,740 Are you ready for war soldier? As Centurion's crested helmet and visa curve of dramatic Rissel Like an EQUASS you roll your head lightly brush my 410 00:43:03,740 --> 00:43:12,170 inner thighs leaving a trail of goosebumps and giggles then trace the tip of your sword down the centre of my torso. 411 00:43:12,170 --> 00:43:23,180 Dare I breathe let your route map a thin red line silver goblet Sjoberg and Divino by my bedside to toast the theatre of war. 412 00:43:23,180 --> 00:43:29,720 Close your eyes you command a freezing blade on my flesh and cheek hand around my neck. 413 00:43:29,720 --> 00:43:35,960 I am your hostage. I am dying. I am dying of your dulcet conquest. 414 00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:40,190 You make my temples drip into my ears, whisper obscenities, 415 00:43:40,190 --> 00:43:49,730 plant blue and purple flowers on my barren landscape here besiege me battery ram my faltered gateway you archer stone 416 00:43:49,730 --> 00:43:58,940 slinger trumpeter give it to me for Toyomi footsore me my actor emperor I hold the pumping cheeks that rule the world. 417 00:43:58,940 --> 00:44:04,520 I do ditch the empire on your back set to me it is crushing my courage. 418 00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:12,590 The weight of a soldier trained to march 30 kilometres a day, marching for centuries over roads made with crushed skulls, 419 00:44:12,590 --> 00:44:23,870 legions forming an impregnable walking tortoiseshell on the battlefield on your back, making the whole world Roman video [INAUDIBLE]. 420 00:44:23,870 --> 00:44:32,210 Take off your victory. I am vanquished already. I can't fight you just stab me to death again and again. 421 00:44:32,210 --> 00:44:41,600 Stab me today, soldier. And this is the language of love to. 422 00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:46,750 After you have admitted yourself paid one hundred and fifty nine. 423 00:44:46,750 --> 00:44:55,990 After you've emptied yourself of all the walls, you have thought, after you have shuddered and roared and collapsed on top of me sobbing, 424 00:44:55,990 --> 00:45:02,050 your snores do not reverberate on my spine, nor do you offer me your back cold. 425 00:45:02,050 --> 00:45:06,340 Always you ask who I am. What do you dream? 426 00:45:06,340 --> 00:45:11,110 Charisma. Your head heavy upon my breast to be with you. 427 00:45:11,110 --> 00:45:15,430 I quietly reply to leave a whisper of myself in the world. 428 00:45:15,430 --> 00:45:21,580 My ghost, a magner opera of words. I feel the sweep of your eyelash on my skin. 429 00:45:21,580 --> 00:45:28,060 For my boy slips inside himself again to return to his core, his composure. 430 00:45:28,060 --> 00:45:37,510 And I am left rowing with his legions inside a galley on a barren horizon when the battle is finally over. 431 00:45:37,510 --> 00:45:52,090 And finally, I read the final piece epilogue page two five one that Zuleika it is you will have found to where Zuleika lying in a panel of summer, 432 00:45:52,090 --> 00:45:58,120 your golden couch moved into the atrium to feel your skin for the last time. 433 00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:03,210 I enter quietly from what Lynn calls the pounding bass and horns of the city. 434 00:46:03,210 --> 00:46:07,210 Square miles suspended between two columns. 435 00:46:07,210 --> 00:46:12,940 Your couch faces a pool fed by the aching stone mouth of Medusa. 436 00:46:12,940 --> 00:46:19,360 A cloud chills you in its shadow of passing. Zuleika moratoria est. 437 00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:23,170 Now is the time I glide to where you lie. 438 00:46:23,170 --> 00:46:35,500 Look upon your pink robes, ruched the quality of moused with each tired breath pronounced mould of your face obsidian with light and sweat. 439 00:46:35,500 --> 00:46:40,870 So Tranquillo, in your moment of leaving I slip into your skin. 440 00:46:40,870 --> 00:46:46,270 Our chest stills drains to Chako you have expired. 441 00:46:46,270 --> 00:46:55,125 Zuleika and I will know you from the inside.