My novel, That Existential Leap: a crime story, was in production last year when Lionel Shriver caused a stir by launching a scathing attack at the Brisbane Writers Festival on the concept of cultural appropriation. In particular, she rejected the idea that writers should not write about characters from backgrounds different from their own, that it is exploitative, for example, for a white, male, British author to write from the point of view of a 14-year-old Nigerian girl. As a white, male, British author who wrote much of That Existential Leap from the point of view of a young American woman of Indian origin, I had to agree with Shriver. Continue reading “The ways they are like us all”
Category: Arts
Last year’s Bollywood hit film Rustom was just the latest fictionalised retelling of the story of Indian Navy Commander KM Nanavati. In 1959, Nanavati shot his wife’s lover dead, only to be found not guilty by a jury that seemed convinced not so much of his innocence as his righteousness. Continue reading “Rustom: populism and prejudice in the age of ‘post-truth’ politics”
The Politics of Culture, by Munira Mirza
By promoting diversity through culture, UK policymakers have ignored precisely what makes art so valuable: its universality.
Continue reading “UK cultural policy: using art to divide us”
Generation Kill, directed by Susanna White and Simon Cellan Jones / produced and written by David Simon, Ed Burns et al (HBO)
The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, Wilton’s Music Hall, London
The audience new music needs
Continue reading “D’you wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang?”
An interview with Adriano Shaplin, the Riot Group
What Good Are the Arts?, by John Carey (Faber 2005)
An interview with Danny Morrison, Irish republican and playwright
Continue reading “You’ve got a tongue in your head after all”
An interview with David Jubb, artistic director, BAC
Continue reading “BAC-chat: critics, audiences and the importance of the café bar”
