Reading x Writing

Last week was the Newcastle Writers Festival. It was good to catch up with writer friends and to meet a few people I have admired from afar.

In the first three months of this year, I have noticed a shift in what I want to read. I find it difficult to read novels about ordinary people living ordinary lives. What I mean by this is that I find myself putting aside books which are primarily about characters where the focus is about their jobs, relationships, marriages, etc.

I am drawn to books that grapple with war and conflict. I have written about this subject in Politica but I know that if I were to write the stories that make up Politica today, it would be a very different book.

So what am I reading then?

I have had my eye on Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (translated by Jonathan Wright) for a while. After the 2003 US invasion, there were many car bombings and explosions in the Iraqi capital. One man wants to take the remaining body parts from these explosions to assemble one complete human being who can then be given a dignified burial.

The premise of Saadawi’s book is dark but it is also quite funny. It shifts between various characters as the stitched together “monster” comes to life and lumbers around Baghdad getting revenge on those who are responsible for contributing to the monster’s body parts.

Frankenstein in Baghdad was listed for the International Booker Prize in 2018 and it was listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in Arabic in 2014. Last year around Halloween, I started to notice it in bookstores and it is one of the most memorable books I’ve read this year.

What else is there? I finally started The Arab Shakespeare by Sulayman Al Bassam. It includes three plays: The Al-Hamlet Summit, Richard III: An Arab Tragedy and The Speaker’s Progress which are Al Bassam’s versions of Hamlet, Richard III and Twelfth Night respectively. I first came across The Arab Shakespeare because it is on the NSW HSC curriculum.

Other things: Goodbye, My Love is released on the 28th of April. There will be an event on the 1st of May at Harry Hartog in Penrith.

I will also be at What Makes a Writer, a panel at the Sydney Writers’ Festival featuring Maxine Beneba Clarke and Eda Gunaydin on the 22nd of May.

I’ll also be interviewing Raaza Jamshed, the author of What Kept You? and the editor of Guernica. The March issue is fantastic!!!!!!

Lastly, Parramatta: A Dictionary of Place and Memory has a cover. It will be released on the 1st of July this year.