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Welcome to this great writers inspired summer event,

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which is going to be a reading and conversation with our two authors segment of it and Quartier Nuland,

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how this is going to work is we're going to start off with a reading by both writers and then we're going to open up to Q&A.

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The discussions talking. Um, the theme really is writing and reading identity, who we are in the world,

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what it is to to read or to listen to literature and feel ourselves placed or not placed or how we

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engage with with literature and how it how it might illuminate our sense of ourselves in the world.

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Um, so anyway, we're going to we're going to have a discussion.

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Please feel free to ask lots of questions. This is very interactive, after which we will close with another reading by both writers.

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So let me not. Take up the stage too much longer.

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I'm going to introduce our first to say, and he's quoting Union.

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He describes himself and his Twitter profile as a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and literary procrastinator.

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He's the critically acclaimed author of many novels from his first discolour,

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published in 1997 to Society within 1999, Snakeskin 2002 and most recently, the Gospel.

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According to Cain, in 2013, cutting short stories have appeared in various anthologies, including The Time Out Book of London,

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Short Stories and his own collections as well, such as Music for the Of Key and The Book of Blues.

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He's also a writer of plays, including The Far Side, Beautiful Black and to the Sky Quartette.

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You're very welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

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It's really good to be here. I think it's quite an active project for me.

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Probably summer, too,

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but I think a lot of my work is to do with actually trying to give a voice to people who find themselves underrepresented or not represented at all.

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This piece I'm going to read was done out of a project called City of Stories, which worked Spread the Word Literary Project,

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and we replaced four writers were placed in residencies in different libraries.

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My one was White Chapel Library, and we went to stay there for a week basically and cover stories.

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And then at the end of the week,

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he would write a story based on what the people have told you or what you'd found out when you walked around the area.

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You know, various different means. You're supposed to write a story.

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But I found myself so inspired by everything I heard every day that I ended up writing a story for every day that I was there,

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because it's the flash fiction story, not a whole short story. So you have to write 1000 words.

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So I wrote a story basically every day I'd meet with someone or I'd go and do something.

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I come back a story and then meet someone else. And I didn't like that.

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So I ended up with four stories and they chose one and they put it in the pamphlet.

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And we're judging a competition now of flash fiction stories by people who are running workshops in the area.

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And we're going to publish a pamphlet of those stories, including our stories, my story and actually our four writers.

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This story, this was a guide, I suppose.

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So he was just so inspiring. It was on the last day and he told me so many things.

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He was a photographer in the area of bricklaying and stuff. He'd been taking pictures of people, I think, since the 80s up until now.

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So he had a real stockpile of all these things and how quickly that changed over the years.

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And he told me two particular stories, which I've got to do both of those.

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And so this is in two parts. I read one for this reason, and then I read the other one for the last three and the first one got to give.

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Mr. Powell only loves two things gambling and smoking, so when Mom yells, he's on the phone, I don't respect very much.

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The passageway is dark and cool. The handset lies where mom left it sideways on the little mango wood table like a sleeping animal

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inside a grown alive would be sent between the embassy or to put a permutation on at the bookies.

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I've been missing with my Nikon for most of the morning, only I can't make it work.

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All I want is to be left alone in my bedroom with the dull gleam of its workings. But I'm the youngest and Mr. Paola's got no family here.

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So that's it as far as my parents are concerned. Underlain Terry Jones barks loud, saying these juicy oranges are six for a pound.

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That never sounds right to me. I pick up the handset and don't say a thing to the chief.

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I'm pissed he hasn't asked my brother a boy. Mr Powell says he can hear me breathe down the line.

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Hi, Mr. Powell and Tony rolling my eyes come now.

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He says his English isn't all that and everything he says is like an order.

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Come right now. All right, Mr Powell. I'll be there in ten minutes.

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I say it's better not to argue I don't waste my time. I put on my windshield and my neck and around my neck like a medallion had I'm

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leaving and slammed the door outside proper cold spitting rain in English,

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great crowds. I should wear a warm jacket. I need to go back inside.

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I think it isn't worth it to go over with. Given Savage a wave.

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I'm off. Lanes where busy families ducking into shops, women dressed completely,

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completely inappropriately for the nasty weather and saris and no winter coats, my brother calls them fresh.

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He's looking in fresh eggs. He says, don't even know they're in the real world whenever he starts his crapp ignoring.

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I don't like that kind of talk wasn't so long ago. All parents, when you hear to some of them.

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Look, Mr. Powell, for instance, I haven't seen the West End and he's been in London from the early 60s.

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It's an accident. Some of us were born in this city. I feel more at home and I get all excited about.

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Mr. Powers in a right, good mood, a small man with a force of white stubble, eyes blue with age,

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normally frowns his way through life like something's rotting under his nose. Today, he pulls me inside with a green, pushing me into the living room.

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The flat got that hope for a fragrance of musty old man, an open can of host and pillow stands on the wobbly coffee table.

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Next to it, there's one of those big envelopes the paper round kids push for you to do when he says, grinning big win.

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We want Mr. Power the pools. I say to love the dogs. I don't know how he does it.

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Every day he's down at Willie Hill looking up at the screens with a pencil scrunched in one hand.

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How he understands. I'll never know. Mr. Powell can't read the papers.

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He still reads horses just fine. Millions, he says.

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Lips Pull-Back jackpot, million pound. I understand and the heart, since I pick up the envelope,

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it's brightly coloured with balloons and firework explosions and bubble lettering that says Littlewoods jackpot, one million pounds, I turn it over.

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There's a free postage in Newport. Hasn't even been opened. Uh, Mr. Powell, you've not won.

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Nothing is ever in it. They say you could win a million. If you play the pools and send this off, you have to make a bet.

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The look on his face will make milk sour. I want to take his photo, I just don't.

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There he snatches the envelope from me when he says I win.

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He's hesitant, not prepared to let the dream die because some wannabe English brat, you think, Mr. Palace and trust me, you haven't won yet,

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but you might,

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Mr. Powell ever he snatches the weeping kind of peels away and would snatch me to you if I wasn't bigger than him by a foot and a quarter.

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He goes out and comes back jugging, depicts telephone cable to Ucore brother.

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He says, I rub my head, take it and lift the handset to my ear.

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Rafi comes by minutes later, sweaty and peed off first.

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He's back with me, then I tell him he stiffens when he takes the envelope from Mr. Powell.

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He does his best to keep a straight face and he can't hide it. He tries to explain without looking at me.

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Even in his grin strangles the words, I'm a guerrilla faces behind the back, scratching my armpits and pushing my tongue behind my lower lip.

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When the old man curses in Bengali turning around to point at me, I stop and wait.

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In my eyes, not so hard. Laughters, blows from my brain like a burst water main that gets me to.

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And we both know what comes next. We juts out to a torrent of half hearted slaps and creative abuse.

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The door slams, although we hear him shout as he climbs the stairs back to his first full flat.

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We breathe hard, pulling ourselves together. Don't tell that, Rafi says, his eyes watery and red.

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Even some stupid accountant still grinning. We giggle quietly.

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He's rubbing his head, whispering, Oh, my day's over and over.

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Something about the way he's standing makes me lift the camera until he's framed.

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Focus quickly and snap. Automatically, I win, Don, we stare at each other, mouths open.

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It was he says, I think there's a moment of pure wonder and it does.

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Thank you. Thanks.

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Go to. Our second or third this afternoon, she's a fiction writer and the lawyer first novel is out of it,

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published by Bloomsbury in 2011 and listed as a Guardian Book of the Year.

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It's been translated into Arabic, Italian and French. Some is also published.

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Many short stories with Granta was a theory, an international panel at odds, and it's twice in the finals for the Short Story PRISE.

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She regularly writes journalistic and review pieces for various outlets from The Guardian to The Targets Prada and GQ in India.

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She's the author of the Innocent Award nominated Radio Daybreaks, which was produced by the BBC in 2014.

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So cue. Hello, everyone, thank you for coming, can you hear me?

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I'm going to read in the two section sections for the for the reading.

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I'm going to split one short story and two. So I'll leave you with a little bit of suspense in the middle.

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It's a short story I started writing about when I first started writing.

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I started out with short stories and a lot of them were based in the West Bank or in Beirut or Egypt.

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And this one came out of a massacre of Palestinians in a town called Jenin in 2002,

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which was particularly shocking for us at the time watching it and sort of,

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you know, I was living through me and writing about it was one way of processing it.

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I was living a very different life. I was in Bahrain. I was basically a sort of corporate housewife.

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And you'd be witnessing or experiencing things I used to be more connected to

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when I had a more activist existence in my 20s when I lived in East London,

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but and Cairo in the West Bank before that. But I was now extracted from it and I was just watching it on the screen.

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So I tried to find a story, a way to experience it and to take other people into that.

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Not very pleasant, I'm afraid, world. It's called last assignment.

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Janine, if asked when I knew the direction events were going to take, I would say I never knew.

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I say that to myself. Now, there are some directions that are not imaginable.

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He said our lives may be entirely restricted, but that our imaginations are free, he said of stars.

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He believed orbits were necessary for freedom without orbit's choice will become oppressive.

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You can't just spin it, said I'd said. Watch me, he'd replied, his face circling mine.

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Upclose imagination is not limitless. It mainly takes us to good, safe places.

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I didn't anticipate his departure or his loss.

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Even at the point in time where he grabbed my arm and the undercarriage was upon us.

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There was disbelief or hope, if you prefer.

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Once had reached the edge of the camp, the realisation as to quite how screwed up everything was to come to me, an inarticulate, visceral way.

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It has started pounding through me. Once there, it became clear that I could go no further.

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I had called him from an alleyway and by doing so I pulled him into the mass I threw myself into before my call.

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He'd been safe and he could have stayed that way.

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The alleyway was a dead end, about a metre wide, with iron doors on either side that were bolted from the inside at three different heights.

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I tried everything with those doors, but the inanimate inhabitants behind them stayed mute.

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If they had responded, I wouldn't have called him. I knew he was in the area.

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I had ways of knowing where he was.

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In the seven and a half weeks before that evening, I'd started to dial his number more times than I care to admit to.

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But in that alleyway I'd gone through with it. I'd called him, he answered.

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We spoke after I called the sense of having [INAUDIBLE] up my life and now being about to do the same with him swelled

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so huge in me that I felt that it the feeling of [INAUDIBLE] up in us alone would burst down the size of the alleyway,

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the feeling not the enemy. You understand a logical way to think when the enemy has for so long been the feeling.

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It was a recent development to be able to see the hills where I stood.

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The buildings opposite were freshly demolished, providing me with an alley framed vista of the rocks that were absorbing the sun,

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a shift in a veil of dust caught on the hills, and everything about the view said For this, for this land, we fight and die forever.

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It flaunted its Bluey Green Earth, its pinki orange sky, and the line between the two swam as the crushed colours spread between each other.

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Here, said the land, presenting me with yet another scandalously beautiful evening about to fall dark.

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It is transients that gives rise to beauty, not the object itself.

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The ownership of the thing is irrelevant. This, at least, is what I've been trying to persuade myself in recent months.

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But even a thought like this made me want him, for he place views into context, turned ideas into philosophies.

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I wanted him. I wanted him. I wanted him always. It spiralled in my head like a snail shell of childish handwriting.

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I want you back now. Come back to me and so on and so forth.

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It was tedious and below me, but it insisted on calling into my ear whenever I was still.

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So I kept myself busy. That's what my friends told me to do when they were tired of me calling late at night.

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It is common, I understand, when dumped to dwell on your possible errors and personal flaws.

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I try to accept this, but it was hard. I was bombarded with self mockery when driving work and conducting a conversation waiting to pass through the

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turnstile at Kalandia checkpoint at once at the memory of involuntarily passing wind during the sexual act.

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Find myself hitting myself on the forehead and my on my forehead in shame.

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Mallik, the woman in front of me, said, Aren't you used to the weight?

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Although this self-abuse was a. Actual torment. It was nothing compared to the thoughts of how good it had been.

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The memory of his arm behind my waist, pulling me down onto a mat alone could floor me for what felt like weeks.

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I started to shrivel as though drawn inwardly, my skin pulled tight over awkward bones.

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The mere sight of the words kiss me scrawled over walls.

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Political graffiti could cause me to spend an afternoon behind my bed with my nails embedded into my scalp.

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I have no memory of eating during that period.

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I do recall picking the skin of some chickpeas my mother had left out in preparation for some rough, but I don't remember actually consuming them.

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Why the [INAUDIBLE] was I in Jenin on that day? At that time, I would ask that to I could answer that it was my job to go to places like that.

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This is the answer. If I were to want to portray that the forces were greater than me, but it would not be an honest response.

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The truthful answer is I had wanted that situation, its desperation, its extremity.

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I understood it. It spoke to me that attack, that Jenin attack was the first of its kind, the worst of its kind.

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Its viciousness was stunning even to us. Now such events are more common.

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But at the time that onslaught conveyed such a hurt that I felt I was alone in being able to comprehend it.

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Yes, yes. It was all about him. I thought I thought that horror diving into that external horror could turn off my internal one on the phone.

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I'd given him directions. I'm across the road from where the small mosque and the garage with the green tiles were.

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Khaled said. Were he were are confirmed then my battery had gone.

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I called him, he answered. We spoke and then I stood.

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I even smoked. This was unorthodox for me. Hatem, the other field worker, had left his cigarettes in my bag.

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I'm not standing in the alleyway kind of a smoker. It should be understood.

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I sit when I smoke with a coffee or a glass of wine and I always make sure that the ashtray is clean before I light up.

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I had hoped smoking might distract me from the tanks and bulldozers moaning and slipping in the valley below,

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but I could think only of drones and of night vision as I made a little orange

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star in front of my face with a cigarette of the field worker who got away.

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I shall stop to. So so, you know, OK, I think we're going to open it up to any questions if you also have questions for each other.

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Please feel free. If you could just put your hand up and I'll bring you a microphone.

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This is being recorded for our Web site. It's been.

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Thanks very much for the readings. I have loads of questions, but I'll just start low key.

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I was interested that in both of the pieces that you both read, um, there was imagery of call, of calling, of orphaning,

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and that worked as a kind of device to push the stories along and then to to create a, I don't know, a narrative undertow.

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Um, and and then I was also struck some are just towards the end of your reading,

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you you said you used the phrase it should be understood by your narrator said that it should be understood.

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Um, so my question is, um, you know, any way you approach this is fine.

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It's really it's a really big question is how you as writers appeal to the reader when you're writing, you know, when you say it should be understood.

187
00:19:57,360 --> 00:20:02,620
Presumably your narrator is addressing some one.

188
00:20:02,620 --> 00:20:09,420
Um, so, yeah, when when you're writing, when you're creating those flash fictions or,

189
00:20:09,420 --> 00:20:17,790
you know, that that that that moment in Jenene, how are you reaching out to to the reader?

190
00:20:17,790 --> 00:20:23,020
Do you have an imagined audience when you. When you write.

191
00:20:23,020 --> 00:20:35,410
I try not to imagine an audience as much or if I do imagine an audience, I imagine an audience that's kind of similar to myself.

192
00:20:35,410 --> 00:20:45,080
I'm very interested in the idea of not writing for an outsider's gaze.

193
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:54,610
So I try to write from the inside, I don't really want to particularly appeal to people.

194
00:20:54,610 --> 00:20:57,220
Actually, outside of the world, in a sense,

195
00:20:57,220 --> 00:21:07,540
because I think that sometimes leads to having to act as a kind of translator and that sometimes compromises the work,

196
00:21:07,540 --> 00:21:16,160
not not always, that there's there's a bit of a tradition or history of compromise work in a sense.

197
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:18,040
And some of that is produced really good work.

198
00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:26,410
It's not to say that the work is good, but for me, sometimes it's also good to talk from an insider's perspective.

199
00:21:26,410 --> 00:21:34,740
And so my my imaginary audience does tend to say, OK.

200
00:21:34,740 --> 00:21:39,970
This is someone who understands I'm not going to explain, I'm going to take the time to explain,

201
00:21:39,970 --> 00:21:46,780
I'm going to assume a level of of understanding that's already there.

202
00:21:46,780 --> 00:21:50,430
And I think sometimes that gives you a bit more of a direct,

203
00:21:50,430 --> 00:21:57,850
in a sense for me as a writer anyway, and it means it gives you a slightly different flavour.

204
00:21:57,850 --> 00:22:05,990
So, yeah, that's how I view. Yeah, I think I find it very difficult.

205
00:22:05,990 --> 00:22:09,920
I mean, I started off with talking about like on the Palestinian issue,

206
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:14,930
you something happens and you feel that it's not being depicted correctly in the media.

207
00:22:14,930 --> 00:22:23,150
You feel there's a massive misrepresentation. If you could readjust that misrepresentation, these horrific incidences might be curtailed somehow.

208
00:22:23,150 --> 00:22:28,070
You have that that that myth maybe increasingly.

209
00:22:28,070 --> 00:22:35,090
I think it's becoming that sort of paradigm, which is the same when you work as a human rights worker,

210
00:22:35,090 --> 00:22:40,970
you're going to report on something that's going to be a response. Pressure is going to be applied and the situation is going to improve.

211
00:22:40,970 --> 00:22:43,850
And I think there is, because that was my background.

212
00:22:43,850 --> 00:22:49,880
That's sometimes been a factor in the way that I write, particularly at the time I started writing that.

213
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:56,750
But you might start with an a motive, but it can change over the course that you're writing the piece.

214
00:22:56,750 --> 00:23:01,340
It can become very personal. The characters become more alive to you.

215
00:23:01,340 --> 00:23:04,070
She when she says it should be understood.

216
00:23:04,070 --> 00:23:10,400
I was thinking of her more justifying to herself because actually it's more about her personal what the thing that she did.

217
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:13,910
She called somebody and she use the phone. She used somebody.

218
00:23:13,910 --> 00:23:16,790
And how can she how can she resolve that within itself?

219
00:23:16,790 --> 00:23:25,140
And that became a more interesting question to me than what particular facts of the Jenene events are conveyed to any reader.

220
00:23:25,140 --> 00:23:29,330
This book, this story went on, right? I mean, I couldn't get it published.

221
00:23:29,330 --> 00:23:32,960
It took a long time. I kept redraughting it coming backwards and forwards to it.

222
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:38,120
And it took about ten years. It just came out a couple of months ago with an anthology.

223
00:23:38,120 --> 00:23:45,500
But on this issue of who the reader is, I was recently I just quote one other writer,

224
00:23:45,500 --> 00:23:55,070
but which I find quite interesting is within my canon, which is the Arabic people of Arab origin writing in English.

225
00:23:55,070 --> 00:23:58,520
There's now become a sort of there are a couple of generations of them.

226
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:07,790
And there was one writer who's really very unknown now called Soraya Antonia's, who was born in Palestine, and she wrote about exactly this issue.

227
00:24:07,790 --> 00:24:13,040
But in 2000, talking about writing about in the 80s. So obviously hasn't gone away.

228
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:23,570
But she was saying that as Palestinians, somebody people like myself who've had English language educations, we get this.

229
00:24:23,570 --> 00:24:26,120
We suffer from a kind of internal exile.

230
00:24:26,120 --> 00:24:33,750
You know, your your actually being educated to a point where you're not connected with the language or the place of origin.

231
00:24:33,750 --> 00:24:39,080
And she made this point about how Palestinians were trying to be like a sort of Abba Eban,

232
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:43,250
who was like an Israeli delegate at the UN who had this Oxford educated English.

233
00:24:43,250 --> 00:24:48,020
And the idea that if you could speak it like that, if you could present yourself in this very sort of,

234
00:24:48,020 --> 00:24:53,510
you know, respectable way that your voice would carry far more than, you know, etc.

235
00:24:53,510 --> 00:25:00,530
So she said something and she says it seemed useful rather than a betrayal to become proficient in the language of the two powers,

236
00:25:00,530 --> 00:25:03,200
most directly for the Palestine tragedy,

237
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:12,020
most directly responsible for the Palestine tragedy, and all my later English but not French writer writing seemed to inform the West today.

238
00:25:12,020 --> 00:25:16,040
I think this was rather coloniser reaction, implying, as it did,

239
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:23,090
that Westerners were inherently godlike impartiality and their injustice was born of misinformation.

240
00:25:23,090 --> 00:25:27,470
It might have been more useful had we all been obliged to do military service.

241
00:25:27,470 --> 00:25:34,700
It's quite a radical statement, you know, but it does. You do sometimes think, well, what am I what am I as a writer?

242
00:25:34,700 --> 00:25:41,900
What or who? Who. But then the other thing that she deals with, which I've also felt is your writing for your own small group,

243
00:25:41,900 --> 00:25:45,910
doesn't matter how big it is or whether it's, you know, you know,

244
00:25:45,910 --> 00:25:53,210
or a sort of like Palestinians who are dispersed all over the world or Arabs who've gone through that or any kind of migrant experience.

245
00:25:53,210 --> 00:25:56,090
I once gave a reading in the States and somebody came up and said,

246
00:25:56,090 --> 00:26:00,230
I just really associated with your work because I've moved from town to town within the state.

247
00:26:00,230 --> 00:26:03,590
So, you know, she's totally, you know, waspish American.

248
00:26:03,590 --> 00:26:10,940
But it's so you always find different groups that you can appeal to and you can provide some sort of comfort

249
00:26:10,940 --> 00:26:17,510
in a way through through writing or or known intelligence about how to deal with different situations,

250
00:26:17,510 --> 00:26:23,090
which are very common to you, not the dominant narrative, but your little grouping.

251
00:26:23,090 --> 00:26:34,460
And that I find, you know, maybe is something. But each work is sort of where you are at what you know, you might have a muse, I suppose, as well.

252
00:26:34,460 --> 00:26:39,340
This is the idea of the you know, the post-colonial exotic, you know, um,

253
00:26:39,340 --> 00:26:49,200
grandmother talks about and and that's pervasive that we all have to deal with that as writers who are not writing,

254
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:56,960
in a sense, from our place of origin. And then that's depending on where there is, you know, how far back you want to go and stuff.

255
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:01,760
So there is that. But I for me, it's just I don't get.

256
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:06,890
All that, what does that mean, and I can be thinking about that and I end up thinking about those things more

257
00:27:06,890 --> 00:27:11,120
than I think about the writing and and being a conduit and it coming through me.

258
00:27:11,120 --> 00:27:13,640
So I try not to get even though I like reading that stuff,

259
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:21,230
I try not to get too cerebral about the point of contact with my fingers and the keyboard, you know, like forget that stuff when I'm writing.

260
00:27:21,230 --> 00:27:27,110
And I think but I do think as an artist, as someone who's trying to get this across,

261
00:27:27,110 --> 00:27:33,410
I think if you can be obviously if you can be really, really specific, then you're hoping to be universal in the way that you were talking about and

262
00:27:33,410 --> 00:27:36,950
you're hoping to be able to be able to connect with people in terms of gender,

263
00:27:36,950 --> 00:27:43,430
in terms of class, in terms of all these different other things, which are the threads that connects us and bind us and stuff.

264
00:27:43,430 --> 00:27:47,930
But in the first instance, I do agree with that statement. I think that's really true.

265
00:27:47,930 --> 00:27:54,530
That's true of a lot of African diaspora writing copy and writing is that there was this thing going on.

266
00:27:54,530 --> 00:27:58,550
I have a very strange thing because I was born here.

267
00:27:58,550 --> 00:28:05,390
Yes, sir. And I was one of the early generations, you know, considered third generation.

268
00:28:05,390 --> 00:28:11,100
Some people say first generation who was born here. So it's a completely unique experience in that sense, you know.

269
00:28:11,100 --> 00:28:21,560
And so what other language would I don't you know, then there is this other kind of slipstream side stream,

270
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,280
English space, British space that I tend to have it.

271
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:37,360
And I think if I can be true about that, then that will be OK. And that that's how I express who I am, who we are.

272
00:28:37,360 --> 00:28:47,410
Can I ask a quick follow up question? Um, I have a lot of what you said was was really, really interesting and lots of different things to pick up on.

273
00:28:47,410 --> 00:28:51,430
But but one is this this association for your writing and place?

274
00:28:51,430 --> 00:28:56,110
Because, you know, even though writing may not have, if you like,

275
00:28:56,110 --> 00:29:03,450
a practical function in the world, it is the case that communities over time, nations have.

276
00:29:03,450 --> 00:29:08,680
Were nominated or elected a writer to sort of stand for them, will speak for them,

277
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:15,660
I mean, the obvious connexion of Shakespeare and and Britain or England.

278
00:29:15,660 --> 00:29:22,140
And I wondered what you would do with the question in the light of the remarks earlier,

279
00:29:22,140 --> 00:29:27,450
what you would do with the question of do you see yourself as speaking for a certain place

280
00:29:27,450 --> 00:29:34,320
or sort of having to evoke a certain place in your work or implying a certain place?

281
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:42,960
I mean, you know, your flash fiction there she was about London and and some of you were talk about Janine.

282
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:50,030
So you were speaking for while you were speaking about those places, but were you speaking for those places?

283
00:29:50,030 --> 00:29:57,430
Um, um, it's it's a.

284
00:29:57,430 --> 00:30:09,070
I think when you're writing it, that that question as to whether you're writing for that place is not so I mean,

285
00:30:09,070 --> 00:30:14,020
it probably ties into that initial thing that I was saying about having a sort of human rights approach.

286
00:30:14,020 --> 00:30:16,360
So maybe that come in at some point, you know,

287
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:23,980
trying to communicate out and write about a place I felt was in need of being depicted at the time and my Bahrein existence,

288
00:30:23,980 --> 00:30:32,650
for example, or are more or other worlds that I could have written about.

289
00:30:32,650 --> 00:30:41,920
The question I think becomes more interesting later on when you actually start getting a public a little bit of a public persona as a writer,

290
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,310
what platforms will you sit on? Will you not sit on?

291
00:30:45,310 --> 00:30:49,810
What will you comment on? How much is it within your remit or not within you?

292
00:30:49,810 --> 00:30:53,020
Because I have you know, by even my legal work is a lot of it.

293
00:30:53,020 --> 00:30:58,660
So in Palestine, it's like I sometimes get to being quite, quite complex.

294
00:30:58,660 --> 00:31:04,570
And so the decisions that you'll take about I think I'm qualified to speak on this subject as a lawyer,

295
00:31:04,570 --> 00:31:11,230
but no, I won't speak on a perhaps an activist front on this issue, which I just don't know enough about.

296
00:31:11,230 --> 00:31:16,960
I mean, some writers have a much more embracing. You know, they want to be the spokesperson.

297
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:25,630
And it's very easy for that to happen in this country where there are so few people from particular parts of the world who have, you know,

298
00:31:25,630 --> 00:31:33,370
so few seem to be articulate voices that writers are used often to be, you know, explain as out of places now,

299
00:31:33,370 --> 00:31:39,220
because I for various reasons, I cannot be as connected to Palestine as I would like to be.

300
00:31:39,220 --> 00:31:43,600
I feel that it's often it's not my place to be talking about the current situation,

301
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:47,720
that there are much better academics in universities than me as a writer.

302
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,370
There are people who are more Palestinian than I am in terms of having greater connexions.

303
00:31:51,370 --> 00:31:56,230
And then I sort of step down or step out or push somebody else forward.

304
00:31:56,230 --> 00:32:00,640
I mean, that's that's a different question. But how how I you know, I don't see that.

305
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:07,240
I don't think many Palestinians would from the West Bank and in Gaza would probably see me as being a very Palestinian writer.

306
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,840
I write in English, you know, they well, they might want to disassociate me.

307
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:15,220
They might think I'm too privileged, I don't know, but or my mother's English.

308
00:32:15,220 --> 00:32:20,440
That might be there are a whole different reasons why they might not want me to be representative of them.

309
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,770
And I mean, I have you have to be sensitive to that.

310
00:32:23,770 --> 00:32:32,170
And I think it's made me perhaps over research when I do write on that subject just out of sensitivity for not seeming like I'm,

311
00:32:32,170 --> 00:32:41,680
you know, taking on other people's stories or or pulling myself out of something that I'm perhaps not.

312
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:49,960
Yeah, not enough. Yeah. Totally agree with you because the place is really strong to me as a writer.

313
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:55,360
I've always written about a particular place, a particular area of London, which is West London.

314
00:32:55,360 --> 00:33:03,730
Up until now I lived in West London until I was 30 and I started writing when I was twenty three.

315
00:33:03,730 --> 00:33:11,380
So Summer, my beginning stuff was just about that very small, like Shepherd's Bush Library, a place I lived there my whole life.

316
00:33:11,380 --> 00:33:15,340
So. So that's what I knew. That was my stomping grounds, that was my patch and stuff.

317
00:33:15,340 --> 00:33:20,650
And then I moved out, I moved to Brixton and then I moved to East London for a long time.

318
00:33:20,650 --> 00:33:27,100
When I was in Brixton, I was still writing about West London, you know, and I was known for that.

319
00:33:27,100 --> 00:33:30,850
And then just lately it started to shift. And just lately I've been like, OK,

320
00:33:30,850 --> 00:33:35,590
I'm going to start writing about places I've been to and I've travelled abroad to stuff and to write about East London,

321
00:33:35,590 --> 00:33:40,270
a few stories in East London and things are starting to move.

322
00:33:40,270 --> 00:33:46,090
But what's interesting about that is, yes, you get published, you just get known for it.

323
00:33:46,090 --> 00:33:49,570
And even though I'm from there, I was born there and I'm very much a part of it.

324
00:33:49,570 --> 00:33:54,130
I feel very much a part of that community is my one true community.

325
00:33:54,130 --> 00:33:58,840
Even though I'm in East London, I'm impressed and I like it and I get along. That's the place people like.

326
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:04,270
I even act differently when they see me there because I've grown up around there.

327
00:34:04,270 --> 00:34:12,220
You still get disconnected by your privilege and my privileges that I was published.

328
00:34:12,220 --> 00:34:17,020
And so I became slightly different from everybody else who was still there.

329
00:34:17,020 --> 00:34:23,650
Then I became even more privileged, although you could question that by moving to Fosgate, you know, and not being part of that community.

330
00:34:23,650 --> 00:34:28,520
So then Grenfell happens, right. I've written about West London all the time.

331
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:33,970
That community, those people write about that working class experience and Grenfell happens.

332
00:34:33,970 --> 00:34:37,870
And then I feel a little bit like exactly what you said.

333
00:34:37,870 --> 00:34:43,810
I can't speak on behalf of those people in that way because I'm ten years now disconnected from that.

334
00:34:43,810 --> 00:34:48,520
I haven't lived there, haven't been around. Things have changed so fast that I don't know some people.

335
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:52,900
I went to a village, which is where they were doing some of the collection,

336
00:34:52,900 --> 00:34:56,770
the story and stuff, because I know the people that walk in and I know a number of.

337
00:34:56,770 --> 00:35:03,580
People who are stuck in the boxes and organising and all and the guy who's running the whole place, I grew up with him, he played drums at my wedding.

338
00:35:03,580 --> 00:35:14,080
I walked in and there's a kid, he's about 18 or 19, and he's looking at me like this and he's watching me up and down.

339
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:24,220
And I suddenly thought, yeah, so I left. Ten years ago, you would have been up, I don't know, maybe like six, seven, eight, nine at the time.

340
00:35:24,220 --> 00:35:31,120
You don't know me to you. I'm not part of the community. I only when he saw me talking to certain people and he was like, oh, OK.

341
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,960
He knows people, he knows people. OK, I leave and he starts looking at me like that.

342
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:38,680
So there was like that because it's got really quiet.

343
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:44,380
You know, there's a lot of stuff going on politics wise with that space and the stories and the fact that people have claimed that space and stuff.

344
00:35:44,380 --> 00:35:46,810
And he was looking at me, I was looking for the toilet, but he was look at me like,

345
00:35:46,810 --> 00:35:51,150
what is this guy doing walking up and down, looking like he wants something, know?

346
00:35:51,150 --> 00:35:57,070
I mean, I don't know you and I'm from the community. So is that that that disconnect.

347
00:35:57,070 --> 00:36:02,620
So I've been very careful, careful not to be talking to people.

348
00:36:02,620 --> 00:36:07,930
People have asked me to do this, but never. And I've been very much no need to talk to this person.

349
00:36:07,930 --> 00:36:14,260
No, that person should go on the radio and stuff. Um, I suppose I'm really got a point to that.

350
00:36:14,260 --> 00:36:17,830
It's just that that's that's the experience in a sense.

351
00:36:17,830 --> 00:36:22,930
And you tend to as much as you are, it's very dangerous.

352
00:36:22,930 --> 00:36:30,970
I suppose what I'm trying to say to start thinking that I am speaking for a community, I'm being a spokesperson from community in that way.

353
00:36:30,970 --> 00:36:36,070
And part of that is the publishing experience. And you have to do green in a sense.

354
00:36:36,070 --> 00:36:43,840
You do have to accept that and you have to play your role a little bit and know when to step back.

355
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:49,540
But I've never I've also on top of that, never really felt like I wanted to be the one to say, I'm the West Wing.

356
00:36:49,540 --> 00:36:54,310
I'm right. It's all about me. And I know because there's so many versions of and there's so many different

357
00:36:54,310 --> 00:36:59,440
communities and it's very difficult to speak with one voice about that place.

358
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,090
Yeah, I agree with that.

359
00:37:01,090 --> 00:37:08,660
And it's quite interesting how our experiences I mean, our life experiences of you, you're very grounded, you know, relatively you're very London.

360
00:37:08,660 --> 00:37:17,320
And I've had such a you know, I've moved so many times. It's like quite I've always hunger to have that connexion to a particular environment.

361
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:23,560
You know, even if it was ten years ago, I have never really had that. I've always been sort of floating on the surface is a place as I feel.

362
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:31,540
But the I think in terms of this issue of like how people feel about you speaking out for them, I think I was overly sensitive to it.

363
00:37:31,540 --> 00:37:37,750
I actually think that when I went to Gaza in 2012 with Paul first, I didn't feel that there was a resentment.

364
00:37:37,750 --> 00:37:45,580
I didn't feel there was suspicion. I felt that people were actually very grateful that Gaza was being put on a literary map.

365
00:37:45,580 --> 00:37:54,250
And I think that I think I'd been perhaps overly overly holding myself back from perhaps

366
00:37:54,250 --> 00:37:59,170
being more than perhaps people were grateful because they saw the stance that you took.

367
00:37:59,170 --> 00:38:03,680
Perhaps if you'd taken a different stance a bit more or less, then then they would say,

368
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:12,970
because I'm just not I don't think is that I think people respond because of the way that you carry yourself.

369
00:38:12,970 --> 00:38:19,150
And I've seen that again from the Grenfell thing, certain people who push themselves into the limelight,

370
00:38:19,150 --> 00:38:23,680
resentment, bill, and they can be from the area born and bred and do that.

371
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:26,650
And people will still be like, what were you trying to get out of it?

372
00:38:26,650 --> 00:38:33,250
And other people who played more of a back role, people say, OK, yeah, I like the way that you've carried yourself when you do these things.

373
00:38:33,250 --> 00:38:44,130
And that's very important, I think.

374
00:38:44,130 --> 00:38:51,410
Yeah, I found very interesting what both you said about being part of a community or also being questioned for your position as an author.

375
00:38:51,410 --> 00:38:58,500
And I was wondering if this may be a kind of clash between authors on the one hand and then the publishing

376
00:38:58,500 --> 00:39:07,020
industry and the publishing industry trying to find spokespeople or trying to find authors that they can you know,

377
00:39:07,020 --> 00:39:13,070
that they can form a speaking in a certain way or that represent certain things.

378
00:39:13,070 --> 00:39:21,810
Yeah, well, I can I I think that it's really interesting that because I do think there's a slight movement away from it,

379
00:39:21,810 --> 00:39:26,490
but I do when I'm feeling hypocritical and annoyed with publishing.

380
00:39:26,490 --> 00:39:34,320
You do feel sometimes that your being that the interest in your writing, if it's about a world,

381
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:41,730
one of the worlds that we write about, it's kind of to be given that you're meant to be giving a sort of authentic voice account.

382
00:39:41,730 --> 00:39:47,430
You know, you're meant to be it's like being some kind of journalist extra, you know what I'm like.

383
00:39:47,430 --> 00:39:58,500
But with, you know, in a kind of more aesthetically pleasing way that there wouldn't be a reason for somebody to read your book,

384
00:39:58,500 --> 00:40:07,320
to learn something about themselves. They're trying to learn about, you know, something new and new geography, a new situation.

385
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:13,530
And to an extent, you have to kind of it's very difficult, particularly with her first book.

386
00:40:13,530 --> 00:40:22,440
It's so difficult to get published, very difficult to push back on that and say, I'm not being positioned like this, not, you know, to, um,

387
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:26,610
to to present your book differently or in a more nuanced way,

388
00:40:26,610 --> 00:40:33,390
because they have certain buzzwords that they they know work and work with the bookseller and work on other levels.

389
00:40:33,390 --> 00:40:42,900
So, um, a bit. But not I mean, I think there's a growing sensitivity in and what's also very uh, in the last couple of years,

390
00:40:42,900 --> 00:40:50,730
I think several writers with known sort of Anglo-Saxon names who've written novels which have been very successful,

391
00:40:50,730 --> 00:40:53,490
which have nothing to do with their place of origin, you know,

392
00:40:53,490 --> 00:41:00,240
and that's quite and then sort of breaking through as writers who can deal with any subject matter.

393
00:41:00,240 --> 00:41:07,740
But it still is a little bit tougher than if you're you're dealing with some form of community.

394
00:41:07,740 --> 00:41:08,190
I don't know.

395
00:41:08,190 --> 00:41:15,840
I mean, I think from my perspective, I'm talking about, you know, African, British writing or black British writing, whatever you want to call it.

396
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,060
I think I think is quite limited, actually.

397
00:41:18,060 --> 00:41:29,070
I think we haven't managed to find that scope and range, which speaks to the fluidity of who we are as a community.

398
00:41:29,070 --> 00:41:36,330
And so I was very much aware when I was first published that I would have to write a certain type of story in order to get published.

399
00:41:36,330 --> 00:41:40,210
And what was lucky at that time was that I knew how to do that.

400
00:41:40,210 --> 00:41:45,160
I'd been put up in that environment. So I was writing about council estates, I was writing about working class living,

401
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:49,680
and I was writing about kids slang and do all sorts of sorts of criminal acts.

402
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:57,030
I knew about that. So I'd grown up in that environment. So when I saw that there were books being published about that, I was like a bit like,

403
00:41:57,030 --> 00:42:00,990
OK, well, finally people will be interested in that type of story.

404
00:42:00,990 --> 00:42:04,890
So I told that type of story. I got published.

405
00:42:04,890 --> 00:42:09,930
Then when I started trying to be like, OK, well, now I want to talk about the wider community and talk about bigger things.

406
00:42:09,930 --> 00:42:16,600
I'm going to say that not everybody goes through that experience. It was more difficult to be published and stuff.

407
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:25,770
And because I wasn't talking so much about identity or hybridity or any of those things, then all my stuff is less about a struggle with identity,

408
00:42:25,770 --> 00:42:29,850
because that's not my experience, my students of being part of a very strong community.

409
00:42:29,850 --> 00:42:34,890
So I'd always come from that perspective of knowing who you are really.

410
00:42:34,890 --> 00:42:45,750
And that was less palatable. But also, I I'm really interested in these different types of experiences, mixing up genres, writing speculative fiction,

411
00:42:45,750 --> 00:42:54,300
still from a working class perspective, writing about people who just live their lives and don't, you know, go through all of these struggles.

412
00:42:54,300 --> 00:43:01,170
You know, just more writing about just everyday experience that I did know is that that became less palatable.

413
00:43:01,170 --> 00:43:10,290
And now we're in a particular time where I think it was it was 2015, 2016, 2015,

414
00:43:10,290 --> 00:43:19,500
where they realised that there had only been one black British male writer published in the entire year,

415
00:43:19,500 --> 00:43:27,420
you know, just one and a baby sorry writer, which was really, really alarming.

416
00:43:27,420 --> 00:43:31,350
You know, we were like, wow, that's just I mean, that's an actual fact.

417
00:43:31,350 --> 00:43:35,670
No one could dispute that. And so, yeah, that's how narrow.

418
00:43:35,670 --> 00:43:38,910
And he was writing about the stuff that I've been writing about 20 years ago.

419
00:43:38,910 --> 00:43:42,620
He was writing about, um, I was called Mama Can't. No.

420
00:43:42,620 --> 00:43:49,310
And it is about his real life experiences are coming from a street background and criminality stuff and him getting himself out of that life.

421
00:43:49,310 --> 00:43:55,230
It was the same narrative I've been saying before. So, yeah, very few black roots.

422
00:43:55,230 --> 00:44:11,290
I think. I guess this is slightly a follow up question to that almost is how did how do you how does it change your approach when for faculty,

423
00:44:11,290 --> 00:44:13,570
when you've almost got given a brief,

424
00:44:13,570 --> 00:44:20,740
you know, the public has actually said we've got this this work and there's going to be this this collection and you're almost given a space,

425
00:44:20,740 --> 00:44:28,510
your you know, your your you spend the week in the library, which is also an interesting space in itself,

426
00:44:28,510 --> 00:44:34,960
because it does kind of mediate that kind of private experience of reading with being in a very kind of public space as well.

427
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:39,220
How did having that brief and kind of change,

428
00:44:39,220 --> 00:44:46,070
if it did your approach and also maybe even how your responsibility to the people's stories that you tell?

429
00:44:46,070 --> 00:44:49,330
Sure. That's a good question.

430
00:44:49,330 --> 00:44:56,110
It didn't I don't think it changed my approach to my responsibility because I always have that sense of responsibility anyway.

431
00:44:56,110 --> 00:45:02,800
I've always been a little bit worried about how I depict people and trying to make sure that depict people in the right way.

432
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:08,050
So I always I step forward in my writing with a real sense of trepidation.

433
00:45:08,050 --> 00:45:13,960
I read about that and I'm very careful. And so so it didn't change my approach.

434
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:21,370
If I think what I think if it did, it made me a slightly more guarded because this was uncharted territory.

435
00:45:21,370 --> 00:45:25,570
This was islanded you know, this is a different community. This was the Bengali community.

436
00:45:25,570 --> 00:45:31,630
And I think I was I was slightly wary and I was slightly more cautious.

437
00:45:31,630 --> 00:45:35,140
So, you know, I just took my time a little bit more.

438
00:45:35,140 --> 00:45:42,610
But I think the process and everything was very pretty much the same, you know, and and like I said, I try not to overthink things as well.

439
00:45:42,610 --> 00:45:46,450
I like, OK, I'm going to stop yourself from doing things.

440
00:45:46,450 --> 00:45:52,840
So even even Mr. Powell, I kind of like, you know, I think, OK, I've got to be careful with him.

441
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:55,840
You know, he can become a bit precarious.

442
00:45:55,840 --> 00:46:01,040
The character, you know, you become could become a parody, you know, very easily if I'm not careful with him.

443
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:13,390
So I try to just try and treat him with respect, even though I was having a bit of a laugh and at the same time or with him, I should say.

444
00:46:13,390 --> 00:46:20,500
But I think know I think for the most part, I just did what I know I can do.

445
00:46:20,500 --> 00:46:26,590
And this is the thing I think by this stage of my career, I feel like I'm quite grounded in the process.

446
00:46:26,590 --> 00:46:30,400
What I can do this I've done this type of thing lots of times before.

447
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,430
And even when I wrote my first novel, that's what I was doing.

448
00:46:33,430 --> 00:46:45,520
I was going into the community and and we examine the man, interestingly enough, given what I said earlier, from a slightly outsider's perspective.

449
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:51,490
So even when I'm doing the research stuff, even when I was writing about the countless dates and all that stuff, I didn't act like I knew everything.

450
00:46:51,490 --> 00:46:57,160
I had to go and read research, everyone interview people, talk to people, try and get their stories and stuff.

451
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:00,370
So I still acted like there was a lot that I don't know.

452
00:47:00,370 --> 00:47:07,090
And I think as a writer, if you come from that position, this is all the stuff I don't know or even I know nothing,

453
00:47:07,090 --> 00:47:12,860
you know, and you just really look at it, then that makes your fiction really fresh.

454
00:47:12,860 --> 00:47:18,150
So sometimes it's like I said that I mean about I don't write with an outsider's perspective,

455
00:47:18,150 --> 00:47:26,330
but then when I'm doing the research and stuff, I actually feel like I'm trying to feel like I'm an outsider in a sense.

456
00:47:26,330 --> 00:47:30,620
And then, interestingly enough, you become an outsider by that approach.

457
00:47:30,620 --> 00:47:36,590
You become an observer more than an actual active person who's participating in all the stuff that's going to do.

458
00:47:36,590 --> 00:47:53,340
Yeah. If that makes any sense. Yeah, it's confusing to us, too, I mean.

459
00:47:53,340 --> 00:48:06,430
Um, I just wanted to know, what's your motive to write, you write to start a certain movement or do you just write for the love of writing?

460
00:48:06,430 --> 00:48:14,890
I love writing, really has to be, because it's it can feel like a bit of a thankless task.

461
00:48:14,890 --> 00:48:22,950
I mean, it's become it's I mean, it's it really has to be something that excites me now.

462
00:48:22,950 --> 00:48:28,840
I mean, it takes so long for me to get something to a point where I'm happy with it.

463
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:32,530
And I think if I have a really good day writing, there's nothing like it.

464
00:48:32,530 --> 00:48:40,270
If I can create a world that interests me and has gone off in little directions that I didn't expect when I started writing it.

465
00:48:40,270 --> 00:48:46,450
And the thing I want to read by the time I go to bed is the thing that I read started writing that day,

466
00:48:46,450 --> 00:48:55,000
then I really I love that and I love that a lot more than I do the rest of the job,

467
00:48:55,000 --> 00:49:07,750
which is a lot of a lot of sort of trying to get it placed and build up a, you know, a following of some kind.

468
00:49:07,750 --> 00:49:17,860
You know, I think that it's a shame that I but some but with any work, I think it's you don't have to have a huge audience to it.

469
00:49:17,860 --> 00:49:23,950
If a work has made you feel very satisfied with it and if you can give it to someone,

470
00:49:23,950 --> 00:49:30,400
even just one other person, it can resonate with in a fresh way, that is also really significant.

471
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:40,450
So I think it's finding a true resonance with yourself and with one one reader, whoever they may be, wherever they're from, wherever they read it.

472
00:49:40,450 --> 00:49:50,230
It's just that, you know, that connexion. And I think also what what I love about writing, which is where I think that this whole discussion,

473
00:49:50,230 --> 00:50:00,310
however well meaning meaning is about cultural appropriation, you know, the taking of stories and that some things are off bounds.

474
00:50:00,310 --> 00:50:05,440
I find that a real shame because I think one of the things I love about writing is the fact that

475
00:50:05,440 --> 00:50:11,230
I can help inhibit anybody's life if I can feel them intensely and I enough whatever gender,

476
00:50:11,230 --> 00:50:17,500
whatever age, whatever background, if I'm if I'm close enough and by getting close enough,

477
00:50:17,500 --> 00:50:25,450
it might mean that you can't do it very well unless you read huge amounts and submerge yourself in a place and have a lot

478
00:50:25,450 --> 00:50:31,630
of friends in that place or whatever it is to cross that boundary so that you can write that story in a compelling way.

479
00:50:31,630 --> 00:50:37,600
But I would find it very sad if we could only write about people who are very close to us,

480
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:45,330
and particularly because I'm from a mixed background and I've moved so many times, I just don't know quite where my group would be.

481
00:50:45,330 --> 00:50:51,940
You think of that? I mean, because there's been the recent debate, which is quite considerable, Brisbane and in Brisbane.

482
00:50:51,940 --> 00:51:01,250
I mean, I think that was a very insensitive way to go about that.

483
00:51:01,250 --> 00:51:07,000
I say, yeah, that's what I think. And I think it was also it came.

484
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,600
It came, you know, in Australia.

485
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:17,740
But it is talk at Brisbane Writers Festival where she she was very mocking, very unpopular people being upset about cultural appropriation.

486
00:51:17,740 --> 00:51:21,400
I think what that did was negate that actual privilege.

487
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:29,020
That definitely does exist in terms of telling the story. But also it didn't take into account that I don't know.

488
00:51:29,020 --> 00:51:36,090
I mean, I've heard of one person who's really, really against people writing stories about cultures who are not there.

489
00:51:36,090 --> 00:51:43,700
And I've never actually met those people because I think most writers are of the mind that if you do the research,

490
00:51:43,700 --> 00:51:50,770
you do it well and you're open to criticism, as it would be with any other character you write, then then it's going to be a good thing.

491
00:51:50,770 --> 00:51:56,170
Right? So no one's actually saying you can't write about other cultures.

492
00:51:56,170 --> 00:52:02,170
You know, I mean, some of my favourite writers, Richard Price, who wrote the book Clockers, you know,

493
00:52:02,170 --> 00:52:11,860
is that like a white New Yorker who's writing about, you know, black kids in the projects in America and very successfully?

494
00:52:11,860 --> 00:52:16,960
You know, I love his work. I think he's brilliant. I mean, I could go on and make loads of examples and stuff.

495
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:19,840
So when it's done well and it's done,

496
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:27,760
where you take into consideration the amount of research going to have to do to inhabit a space that you were just talking about, then it's fine.

497
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:33,720
You know, but I think Lionel Shriver in that conversation would say something slightly different, know.

498
00:52:33,720 --> 00:52:37,420
And and also it has to go both ways as well.

499
00:52:37,420 --> 00:52:42,190
I think I think if you want to be able to do that and we should be able to do that, too.

500
00:52:42,190 --> 00:52:47,360
So I think she handled it badly with a lot of what she said.

501
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:51,370
I mean, yeah, I agree with you on that.

502
00:52:51,370 --> 00:53:01,300
But I think where it goes wrong sometimes is that if you when so if you have when you have a white writer dealing with a subject and black white,

503
00:53:01,300 --> 00:53:05,140
you're dealing with a subject and it it's going to be.

504
00:53:05,140 --> 00:53:13,720
When the publishing industry or the marketing or whatever is going to make sure that the writer from a white background is just going to sell better,

505
00:53:13,720 --> 00:53:17,620
it's going to be marketed better, it's going to be put forward for prises, I think then.

506
00:53:17,620 --> 00:53:22,240
But it's not really the writers themselves necessarily that falls, you know,

507
00:53:22,240 --> 00:53:28,360
but so it's a shame if you clamp down on what they're able to deal with because it's hard enough to write as it isn't,

508
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:36,940
rather than deal with the whole that the other the other reasons why it might not get ahead.

509
00:53:36,940 --> 00:53:42,160
But I'm interested in this idea of clamping down on where that will come from and who's doing it,

510
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:44,610
because we certainly don't have the power to clamp down on anybody.

511
00:53:44,610 --> 00:53:50,890
So it's just, you know, the fingers being pointed and you guys are clamping down on us that way.

512
00:53:50,890 --> 00:53:54,610
I don't know anyone. It's more I think it's more.

513
00:53:54,610 --> 00:54:03,940
But that wouldn't be coming from the people of colour who because we don't have any kind of power control in the States or in the UK or anywhere,

514
00:54:03,940 --> 00:54:08,050
you know, that that's coming from something else. And maybe it's more to do with the perception.

515
00:54:08,050 --> 00:54:10,030
And maybe if there was a dialogue about this,

516
00:54:10,030 --> 00:54:18,790
then we could maybe clear up that misconception that that's actually happening, I think, or that's even what people want.

517
00:54:18,790 --> 00:54:27,730
I just like I said, I haven't met anyone who thinks that that's a valid thing is a right to be advocating that people advocate the complete opposite.

518
00:54:27,730 --> 00:54:30,370
When I've had conversations with people, particularly writers of colour they like,

519
00:54:30,370 --> 00:54:36,090
I don't believe in censorship of any kind because that one could say, oh, my right to be able to write things.

520
00:54:36,090 --> 00:54:42,730
So, you know, even if we don't like it, even if it's, you know, what's his name, Milo.

521
00:54:42,730 --> 00:54:46,420
I mean, I don't like it as much as I find his views abhorrent.

522
00:54:46,420 --> 00:54:52,150
I wouldn't say that that book shouldn't be published. It's just like, OK, so what are you doing to correct the balance then?

523
00:54:52,150 --> 00:54:59,500
OK, who else? We probably shouldn't have an alternate point of view and then that then things would be a bit more fair.

524
00:54:59,500 --> 00:55:02,830
This is when it's like this and we say it's like this.

525
00:55:02,830 --> 00:55:16,200
Democracy is freedom of speech. And actually, you know, you're privileging once one version of freedom of speech of another.

526
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:27,660
This is mostly for. I wondered if you could say something about how sort of London has shaped your kind of literary aesthetic,

527
00:55:27,660 --> 00:55:30,660
so kind of apart from sort of the themes and subjects,

528
00:55:30,660 --> 00:55:36,690
but also whether you think London have shape your writing in a kind of formal sense in any kind of way.

529
00:55:36,690 --> 00:55:45,600
And the reason why I'm asking that question is because I've been looking at, um, a lot into the early writing of the Caribbean artist movement.

530
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:50,310
And a lot of the early meetings was about, you know, what is the West Indian aesthetic?

531
00:55:50,310 --> 00:55:59,640
And therefore, I'm wondering as like a first generation or black British writer or African diaspora writer, if you're sort of thought about sort of.

532
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:08,950
Yeah, how. Yeah, kind of what what what the London aesthetic is or what kind of first generation black British is that might be.

533
00:56:08,950 --> 00:56:14,410
Wow, that's a very interesting and difficult question.

534
00:56:14,410 --> 00:56:17,980
Yeah, I did. I started off by examining those guys as well.

535
00:56:17,980 --> 00:56:31,470
So, you know, I was looking at Bill Gilroy and Sam seven and come out briefly and, you know, and you saw he was a favourite of mine.

536
00:56:31,470 --> 00:56:36,160
I, I mean, you know, all those guys who were doing that stuff.

537
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:40,330
I started off by trying to write a kind of Windrush novel, and I was researching it for a while.

538
00:56:40,330 --> 00:56:46,540
I was my first novel I was working on. And then I encountered Lonely Londoner's, which is in my area where I grew up in.

539
00:56:46,540 --> 00:56:52,030
And I was writing about and I read Lonely Londoners. And I was like, well, I can't do this now.

540
00:56:52,030 --> 00:56:56,290
I'm trying to do that in the mid 90s. And he was actually there.

541
00:56:56,290 --> 00:57:00,550
And this is the story that my granddad is telling me. All these things that he said happened. This guy's already written.

542
00:57:00,550 --> 00:57:08,230
He's done it. That was like, you know, back to the drawing board, you know, seven chapters in that scrap, the whole novel.

543
00:57:08,230 --> 00:57:11,920
But then I started thinking to myself, OK, what could I write?

544
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:17,200
What could I talk about? And that's how I came about. The scholars I know this I know all this stuff and I know this.

545
00:57:17,200 --> 00:57:23,810
We're talking. I know that. And it's almost like is the direct descendant of lowly Londoners.

546
00:57:23,810 --> 00:57:28,600
This is where we are now. This is the the grandchildren of those guys who came over.

547
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:32,260
This is what their brain looks like. This is what their Britishness. That's right.

548
00:57:32,260 --> 00:57:36,220
So that's what I was I was doing.

549
00:57:36,220 --> 00:57:44,440
But I was really hesitant to think about it in terms of creating an aesthetic for all the reasons I spoke about earlier,

550
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:49,420
about not wanting to be a spokesperson and stuff. And there's going to be so many different ways.

551
00:57:49,420 --> 00:57:59,170
So I believe that someone like, say, Heleno Yemi, although her perspective is completely different from mine, is completely valid as well.

552
00:57:59,170 --> 00:58:03,700
You know, it has to be. Right. So if we talk about it, can we talk about anaesthetic and stuff?

553
00:58:03,700 --> 00:58:08,740
It has to be a plural. One has to go in so many different directions.

554
00:58:08,740 --> 00:58:17,800
And and for everyone there in London, you know, eight million people or something like that, there's going to be many different aesthetics.

555
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:24,640
And that's and only then when we've reached that point can we then zoom out maybe and look at it as a whole and say,

556
00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:26,960
so this is the kind of things to do in.

557
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:32,080
One of the unfortunate things about what we were just talking about is that you never get to that point because

558
00:58:32,080 --> 00:58:38,440
everything's dictated by a quite singular way of seeing the world and a singular voice and stuff like that.

559
00:58:38,440 --> 00:58:42,970
And we don't get to read those multiple narratives.

560
00:58:42,970 --> 00:58:49,450
So that's another reason why I get so upset and passionate about it, because I want to see that I want to be able to read it.

561
00:58:49,450 --> 00:58:55,330
Hey, this is what we're doing. These are the directions that we're going in. This is the tradition that we have and we come from.

562
00:58:55,330 --> 00:58:59,320
And it and it's interesting. I know I'm just rambling a little bit,

563
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:09,700
but it's interesting just because as much as I feel that I have that Caribbean aesthetic is it is that there is that one aesthetic as well.

564
00:59:09,700 --> 00:59:16,210
There's that London very Working-Class aesthetic that I also feel a part of and I feel I owe a lot to that.

565
00:59:16,210 --> 00:59:19,780
You know, it's like, you know, the urban Welsh, you owe a lot to that.

566
00:59:19,780 --> 00:59:20,170
You know,

567
00:59:20,170 --> 00:59:26,950
like I believe that my book couldn't have been published if Urban hadn't gone before me and done what he did in terms of just the class thing.

568
00:59:26,950 --> 00:59:32,680
I mean, and being on housing estates, even if it was all the way in Edinburgh. So also then.

569
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:37,480
Yeah, these different kind of multiple cities in that sense as well.

570
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:41,140
It's it's really fast. New questions really for us.

571
00:59:41,140 --> 00:59:44,800
And I could never answer if you can believe that it's so big.

572
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:54,940
But I mean, where I see myself is kind of like at this point in time is building something I'm borrowing somewhere,

573
00:59:54,940 --> 00:59:57,490
but not quite sure where it's going to end up.

574
00:59:57,490 --> 01:00:07,960
And I have to be open to all forms of influence and and all forms of directions, you know, so I've just got to try stuff out and experiment.

575
01:00:07,960 --> 01:00:16,150
And one thing that's really good is that those guys are a bit long, but those guys who went before, they were very clearly defined.

576
01:00:16,150 --> 01:00:23,320
And what that tells me then by that clear definition is what I don't have to do because they've written it for me.

577
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:28,360
I have to say those things. You know, my my duty is to say something new to them.

578
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:29,650
They would want me to say something.

579
01:00:29,650 --> 01:00:36,010
You know, the few people I meet, like come out and people like that, they're very much like to go off and do your thing.

580
01:00:36,010 --> 01:00:40,570
You know, you just go and be, you know, that's all that's that'll be great for us.

581
01:00:40,570 --> 01:00:49,770
So that's really free. As a writer, do you have something similar in that way from.

582
01:00:49,770 --> 01:00:59,260
Um, well, I think you're probably I mean, that's why I got so excited about finding this article, sort of about I write in English.

583
01:00:59,260 --> 01:01:08,520
And I think also for me, when I first in the late 90s, I found a book written by Hananel Share, a paperback which was a novel and it was setting.

584
01:01:08,520 --> 01:01:13,500
Kuwait, which is where a grown up and if anywhere is completely off the literary map,

585
01:01:13,500 --> 01:01:19,440
at the time it was Kuwait, I mean, I was constantly having to explain this place where I lived.

586
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:30,930
And it and it just to me, it was sort of very growing number of writers who live between languages that I think I hook on to.

587
01:01:30,930 --> 01:01:40,310
But no, not I mean, I think I've just I didn't feel that I belong to.

588
01:01:40,310 --> 01:01:49,460
Particular aesthetic, I don't see it really in that way, but it's strange because the Caribbean experience is of that experience.

589
01:01:49,460 --> 01:01:58,010
It's actually it's like a kind of formalisation in the sense of that experience because of the whole slavery history stuff.

590
01:01:58,010 --> 01:02:03,230
It meant that that was maybe hundreds of years ago that was imposed on people, you know.

591
01:02:03,230 --> 01:02:06,800
So it's a strange one.

592
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:16,520
And I think that you what you're talking about is actually so much it's the descriptor people who are kind of neither of one place nor another or,

593
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:17,930
you know, fully,

594
01:02:17,930 --> 01:02:29,120
I think that those that that kind of writing and I think I was very curious and I found it very hard to find writing about the modern Middle East,

595
01:02:29,120 --> 01:02:39,380
like contemporary world, like people not who are there, who were just living urban lives, which weren't that different from Europe.

596
01:02:39,380 --> 01:02:43,980
You know, like the rather than concentrating on the difference,

597
01:02:43,980 --> 01:02:52,310
the the similarity in terms of set up the non exotic but having huge strains on them

598
01:02:52,310 --> 01:02:58,430
in terms of I don't know that the the way that their families were spread apart,

599
01:02:58,430 --> 01:03:07,850
the number of languages they were dealing with, issues to do with, I don't know, visas or war or conflict or, you know, just your normal lives.

600
01:03:07,850 --> 01:03:15,470
But the situation is it's it was hinting at some of the issues that had come up in my life.

601
01:03:15,470 --> 01:03:24,200
I mean, like, you know, like Kuwait being invaded or my father being kicked out of Kuwait, out of Palestine and and different sort of upheavals.

602
01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:33,400
That was commonplace for my family, you know. Yeah, I think that's how you normalise it and you get to go on.

603
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:44,180
You adapt and you find a new place. And and then I think and some of the sort of just mental fallout from that as well, really interests me.

604
01:03:44,180 --> 01:03:49,770
But. I know that that's great, I'm.

605
01:03:49,770 --> 01:03:53,940
I'm so sorry to kind of call this discussion to an end, because I'm sure they could be lots more questions.

606
01:03:53,940 --> 01:04:02,080
In fact, I see half a question, but I think maybe we should.

607
01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:08,440
Going to tell the really big question, just as you were talking, both of you, just in the last few moments,

608
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:15,130
I kept thinking of that that essay that Salman Rushdie wrote a long time ago now about imaginary

609
01:04:15,130 --> 01:04:20,410
homelands and how writing is a way of of bringing the shards of memory back together.

610
01:04:20,410 --> 01:04:25,230
Actually, I think war could actually also has a when you talk about the broken heirloom.

611
01:04:25,230 --> 01:04:36,520
So, yeah, just just in closing, a question about where writing puts your homeland or your memory or your community back together,

612
01:04:36,520 --> 01:04:43,260
it might be that actually what you've been saying is that you are onto another thing entirely, but this story beautifully.

613
01:04:43,260 --> 01:04:48,860
I'll I'll go with that that I can do.

614
01:04:48,860 --> 01:04:54,420
And I just feel like what you're saying and what you're saying actually gives us

615
01:04:54,420 --> 01:05:02,310
this kind of like root or pathway to something that hasn't yet been defined.

616
01:05:02,310 --> 01:05:11,140
And it's less about putting something back together as it is about creating something like really new.

617
01:05:11,140 --> 01:05:16,440
And what's interesting for me is this. I have all these I've never stopped for a story.

618
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:23,280
I never thought because of this experience, it just means I'm always thinking there's all this stuff that hasn't been copied yet.

619
01:05:23,280 --> 01:05:35,380
There's all these people that have not spoken about it. And it just makes it a really enriching time to existing and to write about.

620
01:05:35,380 --> 01:05:40,760
That's the great thing in the discussion that we have.

621
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:53,300
So. So, yeah, this is not a continuation of the relationship between these three guys,

622
01:05:53,300 --> 01:06:01,040
Mr. Powell and the two boys that he knows from around the Brick Lane area.

623
01:06:01,040 --> 01:06:05,170
And it's called for it's called Mr. Powles Retreat.

624
01:06:05,170 --> 01:06:13,510
Many years later, Mr. Powell sits on the kerb of White Chapel Road, his legs wide open and his hands limp between them staring into the gutter.

625
01:06:13,510 --> 01:06:18,640
Rafiq's in. First, he pulls at my shoulder. I hardly recognise him.

626
01:06:18,640 --> 01:06:22,630
Then I do. We go over crouching beside him.

627
01:06:22,630 --> 01:06:29,330
He's muttering or singing something. I can't hear his train as a woman in black split at the front like an open mouth.

628
01:06:29,330 --> 01:06:37,420
His suit, which was always neat, is torn. The left sleeve and his white shirt is black, with grime billowing in the breeze of passing traffic.

629
01:06:37,420 --> 01:06:43,900
We speak to him and each other in Bengali. I'm not sure he recognises us anymore, as there's nothing in his eyes.

630
01:06:43,900 --> 01:06:49,720
But he talks back in return, saying something about retreating. We don't know what he means by that.

631
01:06:49,720 --> 01:06:53,620
Rafie suggests we lift him. He's the oldest and I'm used to doing what he says.

632
01:06:53,620 --> 01:06:59,110
So I shrug and say, sure, we tell him what we're about to do, make good on our promise.

633
01:06:59,110 --> 01:07:06,330
He's like all bones and cotton. It feels as though he hasn't had a good meal for months.

634
01:07:06,330 --> 01:07:11,520
He leans on us all the way to his home, gives us the keys, and we let him in going upstairs.

635
01:07:11,520 --> 01:07:16,260
He stops and stiffens pulling against us as if he wants to go back on the street.

636
01:07:16,260 --> 01:07:20,810
We resist him and it's a tug of war until Rafi opens his flat.

637
01:07:20,810 --> 01:07:27,380
This thing's terrible old rubbish, mouldy food, unwashed old man, Mr. Powell gives up there,

638
01:07:27,380 --> 01:07:33,500
and it's almost like the smells the date since we left him the rest of the way and deposit him on the sofa.

639
01:07:33,500 --> 01:07:41,090
Rafi turns on the spot looking at the wall. Jesus, he said, which is unusual for my brother.

640
01:07:41,090 --> 01:07:47,450
He doesn't take his names in vain even when they're not ours. I'm keeping an eye on Mr. Powell in case he makes another break for it.

641
01:07:47,450 --> 01:07:51,890
So first, I don't see where he's looking when Rafie doesn't speak again.

642
01:07:51,890 --> 01:08:01,340
I Clocker is the second thing he's done in as many minutes. I check on him, too, and see why Mr. Powell didn't bring much from Bangladesh.

643
01:08:01,340 --> 01:08:07,520
But the thing I remember is the photo of his mom hanging above the electric fireplace is pretty big.

644
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:12,050
And it was actually me who helped him to frame it when we found the print amongst these things,

645
01:08:12,050 --> 01:08:17,760
just just after I really got into photography myself, it's one of those old sepia tinted ones.

646
01:08:17,760 --> 01:08:24,200
It must have cost the bomber at the time. She's in an unseen chair, looking into the camera, wearing a sari with her head covered.

647
01:08:24,200 --> 01:08:28,700
And it must have been taken when he was young, because I have to say, she looks beautiful.

648
01:08:28,700 --> 01:08:35,420
I don't know if it's the colour enhancement or the way she always was because our eyes are bright, hazel and a really nice shape.

649
01:08:35,420 --> 01:08:39,200
They don't look alike at all, apart from something in the twist of her mouth.

650
01:08:39,200 --> 01:08:46,430
But Mr. Powell smiling, but Mrs. Powell smiling, and Mr. Powell hardly does that type of thing.

651
01:08:46,430 --> 01:08:56,220
That's how it used to look anyway, has done for years only now half of the photo and Mrs. Powell with it have faded in some inky black kind of fog,

652
01:08:56,220 --> 01:09:00,950
obscures the left side of the face and everything else on that side with it.

653
01:09:00,950 --> 01:09:09,570
Mr. Powell rocks on the sofa, retreating, he says, pointing at his mom or retreating, asked what happened.

654
01:09:09,570 --> 01:09:15,620
But that's all, Mr. Powell says, retreating, retreating. His English has got better since we were kids.

655
01:09:15,620 --> 01:09:19,550
It's a shame to see him arrested. Mr. Powell, we knew way back when.

656
01:09:19,550 --> 01:09:24,350
Rafi makes that whistling whistle noise you used to say someone's cuckoo acronym that isn't

657
01:09:24,350 --> 01:09:29,840
fair and they have to take a closer look at the photo and the smaller ones lining the mantle.

658
01:09:29,840 --> 01:09:37,700
These landscape colour snapshots like you used to get from the pharmacy, old school, grinning kids and upright family.

659
01:09:37,700 --> 01:09:48,750
A young girl caught mid cartwheel, kicking village dust. Set each one obscured by that fog fade in blackness, like Polaroids in reverse,

660
01:09:48,750 --> 01:10:00,590
instead of developing these pictures of dissolving retracted into a misty, unreadable past, which Mr. Powers I see in my face or retreating.

661
01:10:00,590 --> 01:10:06,560
He shuffles out of the room so slow we don't stop him, the sound of rummaging comes from a back room.

662
01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:10,910
When he returns, Mr. Powell is holding them in sheets of crumpled paper.

663
01:10:10,910 --> 01:10:19,360
He gives them all to me, the yellow line, them filled with scrawl in handwriting, the deep blue light sailor's tatties.

664
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:24,090
Also, it seems when I look closer, I see the writings also fading,

665
01:10:24,090 --> 01:10:29,580
leaving half words and blank lines exactly as they were before they'd been screwed on.

666
01:10:29,580 --> 01:10:41,100
I look at Rafi, he gets. Sure, he says exactly, Mr. Powell screeches, laughing, as if it's all a big joke.

667
01:10:41,100 --> 01:10:45,930
We sit on the sofa in a row, me, Mr. Powell and Rafi,

668
01:10:45,930 --> 01:10:51,330
we spread the colour photos on the coffee table together with the letters, trying to work out what's going on.

669
01:10:51,330 --> 01:10:55,020
Mr. Palestine, the Bangali, it started happening recently.

670
01:10:55,020 --> 01:11:01,890
He says first he couldn't remember. He couldn't say whether he had a grown up niece or a nephew.

671
01:11:01,890 --> 01:11:10,140
Then he couldn't remember his mother's name. Then the house he was born in, the village he grew up in, or the country he left to come to England.

672
01:11:10,140 --> 01:11:19,640
All of it had faded and retreated from him. When they disappeared, it began happening to the things he brought over from Bangladesh to.

673
01:11:19,640 --> 01:11:25,000
Rapping looks at me, I look at. To be honest, we don't know what to say.

674
01:11:25,000 --> 01:11:27,620
My brother rotates Mr. Paola's left hand.

675
01:11:27,620 --> 01:11:35,360
I take his right, he begins to cry, his shoulders shaking with emotion, tears collected in the crevices of his face.

676
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:53,500
All we can do is gently rub his nose, different fingers. We lie and tell him everything's OK.

677
01:11:53,500 --> 01:12:07,290
OK. All right, I just finished the second half of the show, so thank you so.

678
01:12:07,290 --> 01:12:14,760
OK, so I've left my character in in Janine waiting in an alleyway, so we'll take it from there.

679
01:12:14,760 --> 01:12:18,570
I couldn't have stayed at the last witness's house. I'd made my excuses,

680
01:12:18,570 --> 01:12:23,790
lies about people and transport and left by which time the streets were empty and

681
01:12:23,790 --> 01:12:28,290
the only cars remaining in the streets were those that had already been shelled.

682
01:12:28,290 --> 01:12:35,620
That level of that level of fear is like being in a pressurised container is the only way to describe it.

683
01:12:35,620 --> 01:12:41,310
A vacuum is created that winds you. And then the ladies release balance is restored.

684
01:12:41,310 --> 01:12:45,150
You're able to breathe again. And then I feel winded once more.

685
01:12:45,150 --> 01:12:46,680
What I had not expected, though,

686
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:56,850
was the sense of elation that runs alongside the fear in a prattling endorphin bolstad rush perhaps to do with an oxygen manipulation.

687
01:12:56,850 --> 01:13:00,990
The bulldozers and tanks comforted each other in the valley below.

688
01:13:00,990 --> 01:13:08,610
We're going up there soon, but we shouldn't worry. There are so many of us and we're together with all the world behind us and ahead of them.

689
01:13:08,610 --> 01:13:19,200
Behind me were bodies in the corners of rooms curled over themselves in front of televisions, soft awaiting bodies and collapsible concrete cubes.

690
01:13:19,200 --> 01:13:23,700
Maybe we had a lone gunman possibly to OK, a handful.

691
01:13:23,700 --> 01:13:31,620
Some guys who knew how to booby trap tiles, a couple of fellows who had dab hands with incendiary devices, a god ours against yours.

692
01:13:31,620 --> 01:13:40,800
OK, on the phone, he said, you know, they're planning to attack again tonight as though I didn't know anything that I had to leave that last house.

693
01:13:40,800 --> 01:13:44,130
I couldn't have stayed there, not with those ghosts. They were sucking up all the air.

694
01:13:44,130 --> 01:13:48,900
Amjed, you've got to believe me on this one. The little [INAUDIBLE] have been seeking me out for weeks.

695
01:13:48,900 --> 01:13:53,460
I hope they would come tiptoeing across the stone floor in the half light of morning,

696
01:13:53,460 --> 01:13:58,200
but that when the first girl had come, I thought she might be bringing me messages from him.

697
01:13:58,200 --> 01:14:04,110
But that was not their purpose. They were polite children who used to use speech with care.

698
01:14:04,110 --> 01:14:10,980
Look on t about first ghost girl had said, twirling in the air, pointing at the part of her head that was no longer there.

699
01:14:10,980 --> 01:14:20,140
Look on t half of it is gone. The soldiers blew it away. The girls have be more enthusiastic than normal in that last house, pulling up my trousers,

700
01:14:20,140 --> 01:14:24,180
wanting me to talk to them, peering up at me from under my questionnaire.

701
01:14:24,180 --> 01:14:30,970
They chatted irrepressibly abound of translucent, despairing monkeys on speed.

702
01:14:30,970 --> 01:14:35,620
A field worker is essentially a form filler in a flak jacket.

703
01:14:35,620 --> 01:14:43,660
My organisation doesn't support the wearing of flak jackets, although our funders agree, argue that we should support this protective attire.

704
01:14:43,660 --> 01:14:51,670
My organisation's position is that the wearing of military style outfits places a distance between us and the witnesses that we interview.

705
01:14:51,670 --> 01:14:56,980
I subscribe to my organisation's position and I do not wear a flak jacket.

706
01:14:56,980 --> 01:15:00,310
Everyone said I was good at my job. I was thorough and conscientious.

707
01:15:00,310 --> 01:15:06,400
Where my skills were lacking was in putting myself and therefore so my witnesses at ease.

708
01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:10,210
I admit I was a little hung up about being a middle class Theresa might.

709
01:15:10,210 --> 01:15:15,400
My bare head was also offensive to many families I visited and on principle I

710
01:15:15,400 --> 01:15:20,050
would never cover it up as a result of the of these barriers to communication.

711
01:15:20,050 --> 01:15:26,050
As a workshop trainers put it, I frequently adopted an imperious front with my witnesses.

712
01:15:26,050 --> 01:15:34,120
I expected them to serve me coffee, to turn on their fans, to offer me their best chair, not to interrupt my questions or to challenge my worth.

713
01:15:34,120 --> 01:15:42,310
At the same time, I felt humbled and useless in their presence. I was frequently possessed by the thought that they knew details of my failed

714
01:15:42,310 --> 01:15:46,300
sexual relationships and that they therefore understood why I was an unmarried,

715
01:15:46,300 --> 01:15:50,230
childless woman in my mid thirties to stop them pitying me.

716
01:15:50,230 --> 01:15:55,870
I boss them around. It was better at least to be hated.

717
01:15:55,870 --> 01:15:57,400
At the last witness house,

718
01:15:57,400 --> 01:16:04,240
I had blocked out Question six without even thinking where the children were born before they were shot at us or mahasen that scene,

719
01:16:04,240 --> 01:16:10,150
the whole incident from the downstairs window. The question had the effect of making the family look towards the door.

720
01:16:10,150 --> 01:16:19,870
As an oddly dressed stranger who just walked in, one of Hassan's sons stepped in to disperse the white noise that my questioner created.

721
01:16:19,870 --> 01:16:23,470
As my mother explained to you over the telephone,

722
01:16:23,470 --> 01:16:28,960
the soldiers were telling the children to pull down the wall that had been damaged to move the bricks.

723
01:16:28,960 --> 01:16:33,070
And the children were crying because they were scared of the guns that were being pointed at them.

724
01:16:33,070 --> 01:16:35,710
I see. I said scrape scribbling in my form.

725
01:16:35,710 --> 01:16:41,920
Although the information didn't fit, the box had a little ghost girl not being at my feet, showing me her scratched and bloody palms.

726
01:16:41,920 --> 01:16:46,000
I may well have started interviewing, winding up the interview by then.

727
01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:51,710
I was a terrible smell of death in that room. If you don't know what death smells like, I can explain.

728
01:16:51,710 --> 01:16:59,950
It's like lumps of rancid urban snot in your nostrils. It's not the kind of thing that can be dislodged by tissue or change of scene.

729
01:16:59,950 --> 01:17:06,550
Once you smell it, it will always be with you. It may abate before it comes back, but it will always be there.

730
01:17:06,550 --> 01:17:11,440
It could recur in the most expensive restaurant in Geneva. Ms.

731
01:17:11,440 --> 01:17:16,390
Hassan's family have been trying to counter it with bleach, air fresheners and disinfectant.

732
01:17:16,390 --> 01:17:20,650
The toxically cleanse surfaces of the room was still wet.

733
01:17:20,650 --> 01:17:26,380
The air was trying to pass itself off as lily of the valley. But all we could smell was death.

734
01:17:26,380 --> 01:17:31,030
They were trying to pick up the bricks and carry them, but the children were small and they were panting.

735
01:17:31,030 --> 01:17:40,810
They couldn't get enough breath, said Omar Hassan, her shoulders moving up and down, her chest contracting like a dog sweating on its side in the sun.

736
01:17:40,810 --> 01:17:47,290
Yes, the sun continued. They were breathing like that, and the soldiers were aiming their guns at them, watching them run up and down,

737
01:17:47,290 --> 01:17:50,980
carrying the bricks and stones, telling them they would be shot if they didn't do it.

738
01:17:50,980 --> 01:17:59,500
But Omar Hassan was staring at a spot on the wall above the veneer sideboard with a decorated tree on it.

739
01:17:59,500 --> 01:18:04,150
Son watched her revisit a scene that was being recalled and replayed for my benefit.

740
01:18:04,150 --> 01:18:09,760
But they shot them anyway, she concluded with a shrug. Well, the U.N. give us an extra bag of sugar.

741
01:18:09,760 --> 01:18:18,520
If our answers are sufficiently precise on Hassan son, it's not exactly for the United Nations, but we're hoping to document evidence of war crimes.

742
01:18:18,520 --> 01:18:23,830
I've started. And that was enough of this adoption of that. After that, I couldn't stop them.

743
01:18:23,830 --> 01:18:30,520
The names of the children overwhelm me. I was writing in a partner exasperated by the forms, lack of ambition, who is whose brother,

744
01:18:30,520 --> 01:18:33,850
which girl it was in the red skirt trying to help her three year old in the blue.

745
01:18:33,850 --> 01:18:37,570
There was no stopping it, and I scribbled and scratched until way past the hour.

746
01:18:37,570 --> 01:18:42,400
I'd set myself as the absolutely latest time to leave while the ghost children Odali

747
01:18:42,400 --> 01:18:46,750
now stepped up and presented themselves as though I was their teacher or God forbid,

748
01:18:46,750 --> 01:18:52,060
their only mother. He came. He was coming. He had come to get me out of there.

749
01:18:52,060 --> 01:18:59,170
The sound of a car travelling too fast over a bumpy surface, the screeching of tires audible over drones, helicopters and tanks.

750
01:18:59,170 --> 01:19:03,070
That was the sound of him coming to get me out of there. He came. He came. He came.

751
01:19:03,070 --> 01:19:07,030
Who left you? He shouted, chucking stuff. A child's drawing a first aid kit.

752
01:19:07,030 --> 01:19:13,600
A camera lens of the passenger seat. Hatem, his wife was in Labour should never have left you here.

753
01:19:13,600 --> 01:19:18,220
Never. He was holding the steering wheel in a melodramatically fierce way.

754
01:19:18,220 --> 01:19:22,420
I could see the slabs of a blue van that ran on either side of his middle knuckle.

755
01:19:22,420 --> 01:19:30,630
It was him in the shirt had worn that evening in Ramallah when he tritle the gardenias, stroking his fingers round and around until I pulled it from.

756
01:19:30,630 --> 01:19:34,940
And stuck it in his hair, but he was too shy to place in mine, but you're OK?

757
01:19:34,940 --> 01:19:38,800
He asked. You look OK, quiet. It was quiet.

758
01:19:38,800 --> 01:19:44,080
That last line of finances. I just messed up my exit strategy, that's all.

759
01:19:44,080 --> 01:19:49,560
Certainly did that. He was looking upwards through dirt smeared windscreen as he said this because it

760
01:19:49,560 --> 01:19:54,030
was clear that one of the helicopters was taking the same path as he accelerated,

761
01:19:54,030 --> 01:19:59,730
launching us against the rubble strewn roads, grating at them with the bare pope's stomach of his feet.

762
01:19:59,730 --> 01:20:04,920
That way, I said, although in truth I didn't really know. In darkness, the town had transformed itself again.

763
01:20:04,920 --> 01:20:12,210
It was more whole now, more resolute. The human diggers had gone, the men, the women, the children who'd crawled rubble with spades and hands.

764
01:20:12,210 --> 01:20:18,360
Either side of us were tombs of brick wire and mattresses. The remaining houses were expressionless in the dock.

765
01:20:18,360 --> 01:20:23,460
Shut it up and shut up. Sprayed and scrawled with army graffiti that they didn't agree with.

766
01:20:23,460 --> 01:20:28,890
He was trying to drive fast, but the roads weren't allowing him to be kept hitting things and being thrown by them.

767
01:20:28,890 --> 01:20:34,890
I heard you were in the area. I even then I was not considering what it was that was about to happen to us.

768
01:20:34,890 --> 01:20:39,330
We may be safer on foot, he said, but he didn't break or give me a chance to get out.

769
01:20:39,330 --> 01:20:43,770
Tanks, helicopters could be heard even amongst the above the streams and skids of the car.

770
01:20:43,770 --> 01:20:49,860
The head of the helicopter. I still had to know more than anything. I had to know what happened to her.

771
01:20:49,860 --> 01:20:55,440
To who? He shouted, loud, angry, like a father. The helicopter was hovering right over us,

772
01:20:55,440 --> 01:21:02,520
thwacking away as though the sky was made of tire rubber to the bride your mother found to replace your unsuitable girlfriend.

773
01:21:02,520 --> 01:21:06,870
I was screaming. His face turned up to the hovering weapon. A slam of brakes.

774
01:21:06,870 --> 01:21:14,580
Get out. We can get out. OK, ok. I look forward to get my bag, my bag pulling out the door with the other hand.

775
01:21:14,580 --> 01:21:19,320
He grabbed my arm, made my face. Look at him, look at him. His eyes hold steady.

776
01:21:19,320 --> 01:21:23,400
But talking, talking like I see him now she was a mistake.

777
01:21:23,400 --> 01:21:27,510
OK, the whole thing. She was a big mistake. Now get out. Get out.

778
01:21:27,510 --> 01:21:43,102
It was at that point that the shelling began. Thank you.