Anita Sethi previews the London Literature Festival 2013

 By Anita Sethi

Literary stars are preparing to dazzle at the London Literature Literature 2013 which opens on 20th May and is filled with a treasure trove of delights.  Words will be celebrated through an exhilarating range of forms including poetry, short plays, music based on Pablo Neruda’s poetry, and of course, talks and debates.  Literature from the world over will be showcased and there will be two prize-reading events – the 2013 Man Booker International Prize Readings and the Women’s Prize for Fiction Readings. Best-selling authors reading from and discussing their work include Barbara Kingsolver, Audrey Niffenegger, Lionel Shriver and William Dalrymple.  Alongside today’s finest writers, the Southbank Centre will also be haunted by some eminent literary ghosts as celebrated biographer Claire Tomalin presents five lectures on classic authors including Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen.  Meanwhile, musical stars appearing include Jarvis Cocker, Tracey Thorn and Cerys Matthews.

I’m particularly excited about seeing what sounds like a spectacular event celebrating 50 years since the publication of “Ariel” by Sylvia Plath in which 40 leading female poets and performers including Juliet Stevenson, Ruth Fainlight and Samantha Bond will read one poem each from the final unedited manuscript (which starts with the word “love” and ends with “spring”) in an evening introduced by Plath’s daughter, Frieda Hughes.

I’m looking forward to being “blogger-in-residence” for the 3rd year running, so call back for dispatches from the festivals, and I’ll also be tweeting bite-size nuggets from events themselves here.

There are so many to choose from, but here are 5 Selected Highlights: (click on the boxes for more details):

For the full programme of the London Literature Festival 2013, click here.

Anita Sethi will be blogging and tweeting throughout the festival.

in praise of Charles Dickens

By Anita Sethi

www.twitter.com/anitasethi

It was the best of times, it was the best of times for stimulating literature discussions in the past few weeks at the Southbank, to rewrite that infamous opening line of A Tale of Two Cities.   The spirit of the ubiquitous Charles Dickens has weaved in and out of literature talks, from Claire Tomalin discussing her excellent new Dickens biography, Dickens: A Life (published by Viking) to Greg Mosse invoking him syntactically in a recent thought-provoking Southbank Creative Writing class about writing from an assured third-person viewpoint: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” in a single line captures the exhilaration of the birth of two republics, yet the horror that they were born in so much bloodshed.  A Tale of Two Cities has also made it on to the wonderful World Book Night list for 2012 released recently and featuring a treasure trove of titles past and present; it will be interesting to see whereabouts in cities around the country copies of the book are left next year (World Book Night, incidentally, is held on Shakespeare’s birthday).

The Booker Prize also raised the debate about ‘high’ versus ‘low’ in literature and the issue of ‘readability’, discussed by Chair of Judges Stella Rimington.  The ghost of Dickens reminds us that it is indeed a false division since whilst being a heavyweight literary figure he is also hugely popular and was so in his time – showing how good writing can straddle divisions to reach a universality.

I recall Charles Dickens every time I return to my hometown of Manchester, since it was there that Dickens himself opened the country’s first free public lending library in 1852, built upon the philosophy and principle to “provide wisdom for all, regardless of background”. It was here that I would enjoy the benefits of such a library and find a quiet sanctuary in the midst of the chaos – but will future generations be able to say the same? Dickens believed that libraries should be available to all, “knowing no sect, no party, no distinction; nothing but the public want and the general good” – showing their fundamentally democratic nature.

The fantastic Dickens 2012 campaign run by the British Council further elucidates the author’s contemporary relevance, and the British Council Literature Director Susanna Nicklin points out that issues tackled by Dickens such as social inequality are still so resonant today, and not only to people in the UK but all around the world.

Dickens offers words of wisdom relevant to life as well as literature, showing how good books can provide us with a moral compass; a favourite quote from the writer himself:  “Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts”.

 

 

Email: anita@anitasethi.co.uk

* An archive of Anita Sethi’s literature blogs, dispatches and interviews can be found by clicking here.