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Why not let Mexican writers earn the seven-figure advances? [01 Feb 2020|07:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/01/american-dirt-jeanine-cummins-mexican-writers-advances The publication of American Dirt has sparked a conversation, but white novelists have long borrowed the voices of others Let’s talk about cultural appropriation. Many of you will have seen the conversations around American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, a novel about a Mexican woman fleeing into the US with her son. In the author’s note, Cummins said that she “wished someone browner than me would write it”; she is a white Latina, and received a seven-figure advance for the novel. This is a tale as old as time. White novelists have always borrowed the voices and experiences of others to tell stories that they don’t have the access and insight to accurately tell. Where does the responsibility lie, here? Is it with the publishing industry, which has consistently opted to publish these culturally lacklustre stories from unequipped authors? It would be easy enough for them to seek a novelist who could write an authentic American Dirt. Or is it up to the author to say: “This story isn’t mine to tell”? Continue reading... post comment

Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann review – a romp through the thirty years’ war [01 Feb 2020|07:30am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/01/tyll-daniel-kehlmann-review-thirty-years-war This energetic historical fiction, featuring a folkloric jester in a violent, superstitious Europe, is the work of an immense talent The hero of Daniel Kehlmann’s new novel is based on a character from German folklore, a subversive prankster who challenges the social order with filthy slapstick and fart jokes, like an X-rated Robin Hood. Tyll Ulenspiegel first crops up in a German jokebook – the gratifyingly evocative German word is Schwankbuch – from the early 16th century. Kehlmann, who found fame with another historical novel, 2006’s Measuring the World, transplants his hero to the gritty context of the thirty years’ war, which I now know lasted from 1618 to 1648. I’m ashamed to admit that before I began this book I knew less about this conflict, which shaped modern Europe and cost millions of lives, than I did about the bloody but fictional struggles that tear Westeros apart in Game of Thrones. However, it demonstrates that it’s possible to read Tyll with pleasure while knowing next to nothing about the history. This is because it first of all succeeds as a rip-roaring yarn – one of the reasons it’s being turned into a Netflix series. The book recounts Tyll’s life from his childhood in a tiny village to his ascent to the 17th-century equivalent of showbusiness celebrity as a court jester. Along the way, he flees witch-hunters, finds himself in a collapsed mine outside a besieged city, entertains the inhabitants of a doomed hamlet and performs for royalty. Continue reading... post comment

Between Two Fires by Joshua Yaffa review – how Putin rules Russia [01 Feb 2020|09:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/01/between-two-fires-joshua-yaffa-review A sparkling analysis shows how Putinism is built from an accumulation of compromise that leads to corruption The last couple of years have produced a lot of books about Russia. Many, if not most of them, argue that Donald Trump’s election was a plot by Vladimir Putin, and feature a Russian stereotype or three on the jacket – St Basil’s Cathedral, a nesting doll, letters turned round – to make the connection between the two presidents visual. Many cover the same ground, blaming Trump on the Kremlin’s omnipotent and steely-eyed dictator, rather than on any deep currents in American society. This book is not like that. Joshua Yaffa is a humane, gifted, curious-minded American journalist who has lived and worked in Moscow for the past seven years, many of them as a correspondent for the New Yorker. Between Two Fires is his rich and detailed examination of how Putinism works, about the compromises required by individuals who want to get ahead, and the capricious nature of the system Putin inherited then moulded in his own image. Continue reading... post comment

John le Carré on Brexit: ‘It’s breaking my heart’ [01 Feb 2020|10:00am] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/01/john-le-carre-breaking-heart-brexit This week the novelist received the Olof Palme prize for achievement in the spirit of the assassinated Swedish statesman. He reflects on how a lack of leadership today has allowed us to ‘sleepwalk’ into Brexit A range of emotions, not all of them beautiful, passed through my head at the moment when I was offered the Olof Palme prize. I am not a hero. I am a fraud. I am being offered a medal for another man’s gallantry. Decline. Continue reading... post comment

The kimono – from costume to catwalk [01 Feb 2020|10:58am] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/01/kimono-catwalk-fashion-japan From the 17th to the 20th century the kimono was the principal piece of clothing in Japan for both men and women. But now it’s an inspiration for fashion all over the world Fashion as we know it – the business of clothes-as-zeitgeist, as distinct from simple dressmaking – was invented in Paris by Louis XIV in the second half of the 17th century. This, at least, is fashion’s widely accepted creation myth. The Sun King and his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, established a luxury fashion industry which enshrined France as the world leader in taste. To help the lavish new court at Versailles eclipse the austere, black-clad glamour of Madrid, they introduced a rigid schedule whereby new fabrics were issued twice a year – not just warmer or lighter to reflect the weather, but in new colours each time – and the fashion “season” was born. But travel 6,000 miles east to Kyoto, home of the kimono, and the history of fashion looks quite different. In the late 17th century, a demand for luxury textiles among the burgeoning Japanese merchant class grew so fast that by 1700 the narrow streets of the Nishijin district thundered to the clacking of an estimated 7,000 looms. The headquarters of Yamaguchi Genbei’s 10th generation family-run kimono business is testament to the garment’s powerful history. This elegant atelier, where studios with lacquered floors look on to a light-dappled central courtyard, helps tell the story of the kimono as an alternative narrative to a Eurocentric history of elegance. Yamaguchi’s designs, and his family collection of antique kimono, attract visitors from the highest echelons of the fashion industry. When Giorgio Armani visited last year, they spent five hours together. (Mr Armani was particularly taken with an obi with silver embroidery cascading down one vertical seam, a design based on how glaze flows on to a ceramic, Yamaguchi said.) Both Chanel and Nike have also sent sizeable delegations to pay homage to this Kyoto version of an haute couture house. Here in Japan, in other words, fashion has never been about Paris. Continue reading... post comment

Naomi Ishiguro: ‘Short stories are like songs – I think of an anthology like an album’ [01 Feb 2020|05:59pm] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/01/naomi-ishiguro-interview-escape-routes The writer talks about her debut short story collection, Escape Routes, why she loves Doctor Who – and the day her dad won the Nobel prize Naomi Ishiguro worked as a bookseller in Bath before studying creative writing at the University of East Anglia. Her first collection of short stories, Escape Routes, draws on the world of fairytales to bring the reader a woman who forges an intimate alliance with a stuffed bear, a young boy in search of a wizard and a rat catcher caught in a royal crisis. What attracted you to writing short stories? I’ve always liked short stories, because I’ve always liked fairytales and folk tales, and Angela Carter has been a huge thing for me. I’m always influenced by kids’ stuff as well – it’s a refusal to grow up properly! Also I love music, and short stories are like songs – so I think of an anthology like an album. Continue reading... post comment

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