Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic

Double Negative is one of those novels that you keep thinking about long after you’ve read them. Not for some shocking storyline or a bizarre setting but because it has so many layers that it takes a while to understand them. We follow Nev, a dropout university student at the start of the book and a photographer at the end of it. By then, he is just starting to get known, and spends some time with a blogger cum journalist Janie driving around Johannesburg and taking photographs of walls and letter boxes. Rewind back to Nev’s younger days, and we see him in a reversed situation, spending a day – arranged by his father who is worried about Nev’s future – with a famous photographer Auerbach, following him as he shows the city to a British journalist.

The day with Janie is post-apartheid. The day with Auerbach – when the apartheid regime is still in full swing, albeit amongst protests and demonstrations that Nev had taken part in, although not as actively as some. Shortly after the day with Auerbach Nev leaves Johannesburg for London. Read more here

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

 'Jhumpa Lahiri’s second novel, The Lowland, tells the story of two brothers from Tollygunge, in Calcutta. Subhash is calm, sensible and conventional. Udayan is rebellious, political in his views. As he becomes more and more involved in the Naxalite movement that is emerging in India, his views get more radical, until one day he is arrested for acts of terrorism.Subhash is by then a PhD student in America and has no idea of what’s happening at home. His own life is far from exciting, his only act of rebellion his orderly affair with an American woman. But when Udayan is killed...' read more

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

My review of The Lowland is coming up on Bookmunch very soon - I'll post a link as soon as it is up.

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

And it's here - head over to Bookmunch for my review of We Need New Names, Bulawayo's debut novel.

'Darling is an imaginative, intelligent and constantly hungry child living in Zimbabwe, in a tin house where the bed is made out of a mattress stuffed with old cloth and chicken’s feathers.  Her commentary on life is matter-of-fact and astute, yet funny in a precocious child kind of way. Darling’s dream is to live in America, ‘My America’, she calls it, and imagines plentiful food, clothes, big beautiful houses  and a Lamborghini that she will surely drive once she gets there. Her friends with Chekhovian names like Bastard and Godknows dream too – like Darling, they want to leave their ghetto called Paradise and become ‘real’ people – but for now they spend their days stealing guavas from the gardens in the wealthy Budapest, playing Find Bin Laden and Country-Game, and watching the adults try to cope with the demise of their country.

Eventually Darling gets a '  read more

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

My review of this Booker 2013 shortlisted novel is coming up on Bookmunch soon - check back for a link.

NaNoWriMo

Last Friday, I went to our monthly writers' group meeting and one of the writers mentioned NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month as a way of finishing a novel. If you haven't heard of it, or, like me, don't know exactly how it works, have a look here.

Anyway, the reason we were talking about it was my current struggle with actually finishing a novel. I write quite a lot, and I finish short stories that I write, but novels are tricky for me. You have to maintain the momentum, and it helps if you plan it. I have always been an intuitive writer so I don't tend to plan that much. The problem is, my mood can change so much from one session to the next that if I don't have a plan to stick to, I sometimes end up writing almost the opposite of what I wrote the day before. Which makes it difficult if you are writing a novel.

The thing I like about NaNoWriMo (apart from its name) is that you don't have time to do any editing. You are in your first draft mode, and the goal is to finish it, not to perfect the first thousand words. I'm doing my challenge in July because I am too impatient to wait until November and if you want to join me, register your profile at campnano

My Hay Festival Highlights - Peter Sawyer and the Vikings

I am still elated after my day at the Hay - I can't believe it has already been ten days! I've been wearing my Hay t-shirt, watching the sessions I couldn't get to in person on Sky Arts, and savouring the memories of the ones I did get to attend.

The amazing historian Peter Sawyer gave a talk on the Vikings, and the treasures that tempted them to frequently raid England. This was my second to last session of the day but the fascinating lecture left me buzzing. I'm putting both The Wealth Of Anglo-Saxon England, published in February 2013, and the earlier Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings on my reading list.

But probably not a good idea to read them all in one sitting, as Peter Florence, who presented the session, seems to have done the night before. Here's my sneaky picture of him snoring gently on my right after introductions.

And talking of festivals, this is the last week of the Prestwich Book Festival! There are only two events left to enjoy - Growing Up Saintly with Jenn Ashworth, and Alison Moore and Nicholas Royle: in conversation. For tickets, go to Prestwich Book Festival. 

Today's Writing Prompt

I recently joined a local writers' group and have started exchanging writing prompts with other writers.
Here's one I've been set this week: write a short story or a poem where some or all the lines start with 'I don't know'. 
And here's the one I suggested to a fellow writer: write a short story or a poem using all of the following words: Greta, tongue, basket, sweet peas, dance.

We'll read out our work next Friday at the next session. If you want to join the challenge, write your own story/poem based on one of these prompts and send it to me at maia.nikitina@hotmail.co.uk. I will publish the best three on the blog next month.

My Hay Festival Highlighs - Sebastian Faulks and the demanding fan

Maybe I just haven't attended enough literary festivals and this is actually how it rolls, but I was a little taken aback by some of the questions  the authors got during their session. At Sebastian Faulks' after-interview question time, a self-proclaimed fan of his earlier books who 'adores' him proceeded to ask the now cliche equivalent of Lord Sugar's 'why shouldn't I fire you' - 'Why should I finish this book? I'm thirty pages from the end and I'm struggling,' she said. Faulks looked as surprised as I was and then told the woman that he wouldn't beg her. Then he almost begged her as he set off explaining how great the book is.

My Hay Festival Highlighs - Sebastian Faulks and the demanding fan

Poor Faulks was a little unlucky with his questions, to be fair. His first one was a very old man with a strong Welsh accent  who started a lecture on World War I poets and eventually had to be stopped when Gaby Wood realised that he was not planning to ask a question at all. I dread to think what I would have done in this situation and this will probably become a recurring nightmare for me now but Faulks handled it very well.
He responded with his own mini-lecture on the poets, and since the old man was not allowed the microphone any more, Faulks won.

Hay Festival 2013

 Yesterday I spent the day at the amazing Hay Festival. I wish I had stayed for the whole duration but even a day there has given me great pleasure and a sense of being not just inspired but encouraged by all the love of all things literary that is so abundant at Hay. One of the things I loved about the festival is its accessibility to families and a range of activities not only for young adults but for children of any age. I am already planning next year's trip, this time for the whole family. For now, my boys get signed copies of Andy Briggs's Tarzan novels.

John Boyne appearing as a ghost

I will be posting my impressions of the day as I recollect them but one of the most enjoyable sessions for me was John Boyne's. I have never read any of Boyne's books but I have watched The Boy In The Striped Pajamas on TV and I loved it (and I can only expect the novel to be even better, as is usually the case, so this one is going on my immediate reading list ). Boyne read a little from his new novel, a ghost story called This House Is Haunted. I'm not usually a fan of ghost stories, mainly because I not only don't believe in ghosts, but generally find them quite boring (what's so exciting about hanging around some old house, scaring everyone and generally being a nuisance? Oh, I think I just got it! ). But Boyne's reading was so good that I am now planning to read this one next. The thing that I loved most about this was Boyne's apparent lack of any great strain or anxiety that writers usually get. He talked about his disciplined way of writing (during the day, as if in a normal job), his love of writing on the train, or in hotel rooms when he's travelling, of not bothering to plan too far ahead, or even at all, and of the joy of getting through the first draft and not worrying too much about how it reads until the second draft. Oh, and about how annoyed he gets at still being associated with The Boy In The Striped Pajamas novel, which he considers to be somewhere in the bottom half of all the books he has written. Ooops.

Do you consider yourself a writer?

I spent this afternoon at my local Clough helping promote the Prestwich Book Festival which started today. I had some copies of The Crazy Oik and was even asked to sign one (with my story in it) for a customer - a new and very pleasant experience! I had no idea that we had so many local writers right on my doorstep, and this has made me remember just how isolating writing can be if we don't make a conscious effort to go out there and find our fellow writers. Sometimes it is a good thing, of course - there are times when we need peace and tranquility. But we also need an audience, and an exchange of energy to avoid becoming stale. The trick is to find the right people, the ones who will support you without jealousy or harsh criticism when you are feeling vulnerable, who will be as interested in writing, or even books generally, as you are.

I often hear writers, including fairly well-published ones, talk about the difficulty of accepting themselves as 'real' writers. It is particularly hard when we surround ourselves - intentionally or not  - with non-writers or non-readers. These non-creatives tend to view writing as something frivolous and feel uneasy when faced with someone imaginative. To make themselves feel safe, they would try to make us, the creatives, feel as if we are doing something unworthy with our life. No matter what our achievements, at these times we may even agree with them, especially if they are people we respect, like our parents or our peers. In fact, someone recently posted on Facebook how, when asked what he does for a living, he feels uncomfortable saying he is a writer even though he has two published novels and a third one on the way. The reason he, and many others, feel this way, is because so many things nowadays are measured by money. But success isn't about the money. Ask yourself - would you write if you were already very rich? And what if you were never going to get paid for your writing?

We need to stick together, to remember that without the support of other writers and artists, in a world of those who find books boring and art - useless, our work will not flourish. Find your own support network, be it online or in person. Go out there, talk to people, get your work out and you'll see your creativity grow.

And if you are in Manchester, get yourselves to the Prestwich Book Festival and make sure you come and say hello!

All The Beggars Riding by Lucy Caldwell

My review of Lucy Caldwell's latest novel is up on Bookmunch.

'Lara is in her late thirties and has just lost her mother. She is now an orphan – her father, a prominent plastic surgeon from Belfast, died in a helicopter crash when Lucy was just twelve. Her life as she knew it crashed at that moment too, with her father’s double life, and Lara’s family, suddenly becoming the favourite topic of national tabloids...' read the full review here

Interview with Ebba Brooks, Prestwich Book Festival

Ebba Brooks is the director of the Prestwich Book Festival - a new addition to the Manchester literary calendar. It is in its second year of running and already boasting such names as Alison Moore, Jenn Ashworth and Cath Staincliffe. This year the Festival will take place from 12 May until 16 June.

Maia Nikitina: Finally we have a literary festival in North Manchester! Do you feel any competition from the other side of town?

Ebba Brooks: Ha ha, no! I set up the festival to give writers on the North side of the city a space to perform and interact with each other and with readers. All too often writers from up here are assumed to be from the south side of the city, and I wanted to set the record straight. That's not to say I'm being parochial: the aim of the Prestwich Book Festival is to celebrate great writing from the North and far beyond.

M: There are some big names taking part this year - Alison Moore, Cath Staincliffe, David Conn... For a festival only in its second year, that's impressive! And you got the Arts Council funding this year. How did you pull that off?

E: Thank you. I've got a fantastic programme steering group to help me: the poet Longfella (aka Tony Walsh) looks after the poetry strand; and novelist Sherry Ashworth has been incredibly helpful with contacts amongst the fiction writing community. Alison Bond, the reader development librarian at Bury Library has also helped me with her amazing contacts and enthusiasm. Some writers approached me about getting involved, and all those I've approached have been really keen to get onboard. Having Howard Jacobson and John Cooper Clarke as our festival patrons helps too! Getting Arts Council funding was hard work, but all the people I've mentioned played a part in getting the bid written.

M: What event are you looking forward to the most? No diplomatic answers please!

E: Too many to choose from! I'm very excited about Jay Rayner's event at Manchester Jewish Museum - it's a real coup for the festival to have him, with his new book A Greedy Man in a Hungry World. He's a great speaker, a funny guy and a fine writer too. I'm also really looking forward to the Bank Holiday Monday (28 May) evening with Rosie Garland, Toby Stone and Simon Bestwick, plus a host of writers published by Hic Dragones a Crumpsall based publishing house. It's an incredible line up, and I've got a real soft spot for the venue too. And then there's Vocabaret, and the Poetry Slam, and all the events at the library... Spoiled for choice...

M: You are a writer too and you teach creative writing. What was the first thing you ever wrote?

E: A short story about a group of seven short policeman who drove round in a small police car, chasing baddies en masse and causing chaos. I think I was heavily influenced by the Keystone Cops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Cops). I thought the story was hilarious, but since then I have realised that visual gags don't translate too readily to the page, and that portraying internal conflict is a strength of fiction!

M: What weird habits or rituals do you have that help you with your writing?

E: I don't know if it's weird, but I need a quiet room with a door I can close, a computer, a chair and a table. That's it.

M: You are a mother of two - do you feel that having children helps or distracts from writing?

E: Having kids enriches my life but definitely distracts me from writing. On the other hand, it makes me far more focused than I was before.

M: What are you reading at the moment?

E: I just finished Sherry Ashworth's book Good Recipes and Bad Wives, which I absolutely loved for the evocation of south London in 1967, and the clarity of the plot and the prose. I'm in awe. I'm also reading Philip Pullman's re-tellings of Grimm's Fairy Tales, to myself as education, and aloud to my daughter as entertainment.

M: What book has made the most impact on you and why?

E: I can't narrow it down to one. But books that I have read and loved and which have seeped into the way I think include: Paradise Lost by John Milton, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, everything by Jane Austen, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), Middlemarch by George Eliot. Writers I look up to with awe include William Trevor, Nabokov and Angela Carter.

 Go to PBF official website for tickets and more information

The Prestwich Book Festival

Last week I met Ebba Brooks, the director of Prestwich Book Festival. It is in its second year, and gathering speed so quickly that some pretty big names are taking part this year, including the author of The Lighthouse Alison Moore.

The festival will be running from 12 May until 16 June in Prestwich, Manchester. I will be chatting to Ebba about the festival on this blog so check back over the next few days.

Ivan The Fool

My short story Yvan The Fool is being published this month in The Crazy Oik. For your own copy of the Spring issue, head to the magazine's website or contact me directly.

Female author - male voice?

As the longlist of what is for this year The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously The Orange Prize) has been published, Natasha Walter, a member of the judging panel, has been quoted as saying that she was struck by how many female writers were now writing from a male viewpoint.  "I'm not trying to make some big generalisation out of it … but if you think back to Virginia Woolf saying that her ideal for women writers is that they shouldn't be seen as women, they should be able to be androgynous. Well, maybe we are getting more towards that." (The Guardian, 13 March 2013)

Maybe we are. Getting androgynous and Woolf-like. Or maybe we are so used to reading literary fiction in a male voice that we are subconsciously - and even consciously - writing from that perspective too. There has been such an increase in female authors receiving prestigious literary prizes lately that some have even suggested to get rid of specifically female prizes such as The Orange Prize. Is it possible that the reason for such an increase is that women have been writing more and more with male voices?

I do it too. I tend to write more naturally as a man. I find it simpler - there is less complicated stuff going on with male viewpoints, less self-questioning about genre, less wondering whether writing a particular story as a woman would place it into the 'women's writing' or 'chick-lit' category. Less chance of being accused of self-indulgence and being too female. As if being female is some sinful thing that we should all pretend to not possess and instead discuss the issues that bother us with our girl friends. Besides, most of my favourite books were written from a male perspective - it only feels natural that if you write in the literary genre, you would be tempted to write as a man.

I don't know what's worse - a possible co-relation between female writers getting more prizes and having a male protagonist, or us noticing that they do it in the first place. Androgynous does not mean male, nor does it mean women taking on a male identity (which is what happens when you write from a male perspective).

The issue is that we are still dominated by the 'men do important things while women do unimportant, women stuff' mentality. You may argue that there are many books exploring women characters doing 'important men's things' but that's exactly the problem. We are still under the wrong impression that men go out and have adventures, whilst women - unless they assume a more male identity and go have adventures too - have a boring life that will only interest other women. And that those manly adventures are what is important. We still accept for some strange reason that when a male protagonist explores such issues as love, loss, death or family, it is literary and credible, and when a female protagonist does the same - it's chick-lit. What's even more puzzling is that women make up the majority of the readers, and yet the majority of literary fiction is written in a man's voice.

Writing from male perspective is a free choice and I am all for freedom. Chances are, I'll do it myself half the time. My concern is whether instead of hiding our female identity under a male nom-de-plume, we are now hiding it under a male viewpoint. We are being coy - look, we are saying, we are female writers and we are being recognised for our work, and we can write as men if we like. But the question remains  - would we be still as recognised if we wrote from a female viewpoint?

The Crazy Oik

The new year has started with some brilliant news! My short story Not Made For Northern Weather has found its literary home - The Crazy Oik. Have a look at the website here and for subscriptions, click here.

A clever, playfully uncanny debut collection that has left me looking forward to more of Guy Ware’s writing’ – You Have 24 Hours To Love Us by Guy Ware

Guy Ware’s debut short story collection is called You Have 24 Hours To Love Us. It took me roughly that amount of time to read through it for the first time and immediately fall in love with the author’s style. Ware’s take on life is original and thought-provoking but not without a hint of humour. In ‘In Plain Sight’, a chicken farmer Stan in a far away country is suddenly put under blockade by a government led by a President and a General Weedon from the other side of the world. ‘You have twenty-four hours to love us,’ they tell him. Read on

‘I struggle to see why this book became a bestseller in France and Spain’ – The Taste of Apple Seeds by Katherina Hagena

When Katharina Hagena’s latest novel The Taste of Apple Seeds (translated from German by Jamie Bulloch) landed in my lap, I was hoping for a similar exquisite pleasure as I experienced when I read Jenny Erpenbeck’s Visitation. There is a house here too, also in Germany. There are several generations, their stories tangled up around a family secret. There is even a lake. But here the similarities end.   Read on

The indecisive donkey

I have been trying to write simultaneously in Russian and in English. Not at the same time, a pen in each hand, of course! But two novels - or whatever they will become - at once. The reason for such foolish behaviour is that I just cannot choose which one to write first. I am like that donkey that starved itself because it couldn't choose which pile of hay to eat.

The thing is, Russian is not just my native language, the language I feel most comfortable in, but it also corresponds to a very different side of my personality. Even the tonality of my voice changes when I speak Russian. And since it has been a while since I properly used it, played with it, I feel so drawn to it at the moment that I just cannot resist.

The characters of my two literary lives correspond to the language I am writing in too, which shoudn't really surprise me but it still does. I am completely in love with my English character George and I just cannot bear to leave him for too long. Besides, he's old and I'm a bit worried about him while I'm gallivanting with my younger Russian protagonist! And so here I am - a day of writing wasted because I couldn't choose who and in which language to spend it with.

I might try to wear, eat or listen to something that reminds me of Russia on my Russian writing days, and do the same for the English ones. Let's see if that works - wish me luck!

PS. I have finished All The Beggars Riding by Lucy Caldwell and it's brilliant - read full review here in a couple of weeks.

PPS. I haven't submitted anything this month yet, and the time is ticking...Better hurry up. For now I'm consoling myself with the fact that school doesn't start until tomorrow and my son has been very audibly getting bored without me while I have been trying to write. His favourite 'Mummy pay me attention' thing at the moment is to play the same thing on the piano over and over again.