‘Second-person narration, in which the author uses the pronoun ‘you’ to seemingly address the reader and draw them into the story, can be a bit of a high-wire balancing act. Or, to apply an analogy more suited to my West Coast background (I’ve never tried … Continue reading You and the Story
Josh Powell from Cardiff University’s School of English, Communication and Philosophy will be joining us to discuss Ann Quin’s Passages. Writing about Quin for the journal Textual Practice, Powell notes her interest in psychoanalytic theories, particularly the object relations theory of Melanie Klein. The article, … Continue reading ‘A certain smoothness in day to day living. But never laughter’ – Josh Powell on Ann Quin
Guest host Nonia Williams from the University of East Anglia will be leading our discussion of Ann Quin this week and has written about Quin’s work in an article entitled About/of madness: Ann Quin’s The Unmapped Country for the journal Textual Practice. Throughout her life, … Continue reading ‘…the question is not only what madness might mean, but what it does.’ – Nonia Williams on Ann Quin
Writing during the 1960s and early 1970s until her death by drowning in 1973 at the age of 37, Ann Quin’s highly innovative writing was of her time, but not in it. Her writing has had little critical attention as it was difficult to categorise. … Continue reading ‘Why Read Ann Quin?’ Arwa F. Al-Mubaddel
‘I’d grown up halfway between London and Brighton, and chosen Brighton as ‘my’ town: her representation of it in Berg was bleak, brutal and hilarious, attacking British holiday culture and patriarchal society as much as it opposed social realism. ‘With a range of contemporary British … Continue reading Tome on the Range: Contemporary writers reflect on Ann Quin
‘Kindred was kind of draining and depressing, especially the research for writing it. I now have a talk that begins with the question, ‘How long does it take to write a novel?’ and the answer is, as long as you’ve lived up to the time … Continue reading ‘How long does it take to write a novel?’
Susan M. Gaines will be with us this Wednesday 17 February to discuss her novel Accidentals. Gabriel is a young birdwatcher who returns with his mother to the family estancia in Uruguay. The novel pitches us into an absorbing drama of environmental science against a … Continue reading ‘No busques lugar más bello, porque no lo encontrará’
More from author Susan M. Gaines in advance of her appearance at Cardiff BookTalk on 17 February – here she shares a few thoughts on one of the unintended consequences of writing a novel where the real protagonists are non-human. ‘We don’t have to read … Continue reading All the Birds in Accidentals
A Nandu, an Uruguayan flightless bird like an Ostrich, stalks through grassland.
Among the books on alchemy and philosophy in the library at Llys Rhosyn, did Aunt Megan think to include the works of that most philosophical alchemist, Douglas Adams? And if so, did our anonymous narrator, in the course of his eclectic studies, ever happen upon … Continue reading ‘The universe shall change, but I may not, thought I with melancholy vanity.’
