A student of mine on the Masters in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia once summarised her idea for a new novel as ‘A house, a lake, a summer. That’s all I know.’
A house, a lake, summer. What more could be required for a novel?
Alexandria – this must be the most beautiful name for a city. Poised on the northernmost rim of Africa, it is a place I have been to only through literature, and through a literary and family association buried in official secrecy – but that is another story.
Being a writer is one of those no-guarantee professions: there are no guarantees that you will get published and, if you do, that you will be read and understood.
An extended version of this article is now published on the literary portal The Writers' Hub; see http://www.writershub.co.uk/features-piece.php?pc=2109
From the land of lions to the Lion City (all will be illuminated)… wilderness and the future were the perhaps unsurprising themes in a recent working trip to Singapore.
I have just returned from my third visit to Namibia. What keeps drawing me back to this desert country to the north of South Africa, where I currently live?
Cape Town’s Design Indaba (a Zulu word meaning ‘matter for discussion’) is an annual exhibition of the best of design, arts and crafts of southern Africa.
Three new poems set on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast are published on The Writer’s Hub today.
Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady is – along with Wings of the Dove – his most morally searching novel.
In the promotional trailer for BBC’s current showcase natural history series, Africa, Sir David Attenborough plants himself human compass-like at the top of a hill. In all directions are sweeping, majestic views, empty of human civilisation.