Festival Reviews: Week 1. at the Book Festival

There’s no better way to get a flavour of a Festival than to attend the Opening Gala. While the Military Tattoo flew a flotilla of fighter aircraft masquerading as entertainment overhead, the Edinburgh International Book Festival featured a kaleidoscope of writers (and a pair of musicians) who tackled the real global issue of ‘Repair’ – the theme of this year’s Book Festival.

The evening began with Angus Robertson, Secretary of Culture, talking about repair in a fractured world. Angus highlighted our status as the first UNESCO City of Literature (without which there would be no Edinburgh Literary Salon) and spoke of how a festival with over 700 writers from 35 countries could encourage reflection, renewal, and imagination. As the Red Arrows roared by, Festival Director Jenny Niven addressed the importance of looking for words to heal this divided world, and introduced the first readers of the evening, Rachel Kushner, Robert MacFarlane, and Amitav Ghosh.

In her long monologue on healing and repair, among the many threads of Rachel’s reading was an anecdote about a child who, trying to help in the garden, accidentally cut a garden hose. So the mother, rather than replacing it, went about repairing the hose, adding “Guilt is corrosive for a child… so they fixed that also.” With a very different tone, but equally radical, Amitav spoke about ‘Gut Repairs.’ Due to cultural ‘advances’ some people no longer have the necessary bacteria to prevent intestinal problems. There is one possible solution in a hookworm found in ‘developing’ countries unaffected by modern diet and medicine, but the method of sifting through ‘matter’ to discover this was presented, in spite of the material, as an extremely amusing route to repair.

After a musical interlude more writers presented their take on the Festival Theme, with poetry from Najwan Darwish spoken in Arabic, then read in translation by Marjorie Lotfy, preceded by Jenni Fagan whose moving account of a childhood spent in an endless stream of care institutions led onto the broader issues of repair: the importance of words. “Somewhere inside of us, there is an expanse as vast as the stars,” she told us, but adding a salutary note, “There can be no repair when words are illegal.” In a culture of cancellation and fakery, Jenni has proven that resilience and refusal to compromise truth are vital to repair. If anything, a Book Festival should uphold this aspiration.

Saturday 9^th  of August 12:00 - 13:00

Sara Sheridan is a good friend of Edinburgh Literary Salon (not least as a contributor to our first anthology, Lost Looking & Found) so it was a pleasure to see her in conversation with Lin Anderson. Sara’s book On Starlit Seas is in fact a re-issue, on the back of the success of The Fair Botanists, which allowed for a wide-ranging discussion on writing history. “History is not just for the people who make it; we are all part of the rainbow of humanity,” Sara warned, while assuring us that “We all have amazing Grannies.” This comment harked back to her book Where are the Women which remembers many of the forgotten women from the past.

As Sara once pointed out at one of our Salon Events, there was once a full day of BBC broadcasting celebrating the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that took until 2pm for someone to mention Mo Mowlam, the ‘architect’ of this historic event. And so, Sara’s warning – indeed, another route to repair – is not to rely on what’s in the papers, but to dig into the past and write against the grain. “If you don’t understand where you come from, you won’t understand where you are.”

Monday 11^th  of August 18:00 - 19:00

Our Mother Tongues was an excellent showcase of writers whose language came from many lands and yet was unified through collaboration. Peter Mackay, the first Gaelic-speaking Makar, believes that being immersed in language is a good thing, so he brought together pairs of writers to collaborate in more ways than just translation.

The first writers, Andres N Ordorica and Roshni Gallagher presented their coupling through mutual translation and then, in discussing how their work influenced and complemented each others’. Gabriela Milkova Robins and Colin Bramwell shared their experience of bringing up a young child with different languages – Macedonian and English in Gabriela’s case – to which Colin responded in Scots.

The final pair, Anne Pia and Niall O'Gallagher, spoke about the challenge of retaining clarity of language in translation, and also the complexity of differing identities. “Where do I stand,” asked Anne, “Being half Italian, half Scots? Sometimes in duet, other times in counterpoint, but always in harmony.”

As such, these couplings were far more than a polyglottic fancy; in the spirit of the Festival theme this event had a unifying and reparative effect.

Wednesday 13^th of August 13:45 - 15:00

Another showcase of multiple writers was billed as ‘sparkling.’ In Scottish Writing is Thriving Imogen Stirling presented six writers who seemed to be linked by various obsessions. Eilidh Akilade read from her hybrid pamphlet about the fear of nits! Abjection, disgust, can they speak? Yes, especially kids with associated stigma of neglect. Graeme Macrae Burnett, reading (a world premiere!) from Benbecula, due out in October, thematically linking back to His Bloody Project, and also, he said, to abjection. Graeme wants the reader to picture things in their head, and so tries to write with clarity rather than cleverness of language.

Victoria Mackenzie, whose debut novel For Thy Great Pain have Mercy on my Little Pain contrasts medieval mystics Marjory Kemp and Julian of Norwich, bringing out commonality and contrasts of each, amidst the Black Death. Written in lockdown, which allowed some writers extra time, Victoria noted that for Julian of Norwich, being an anchoress was like being on an endless writing retreat! Katie Goh’s hybrid memoir Foreign Fruit, is about the history of her mixed background and the orange. DNA tests are now a multi-million industry, yet this can simplify the past, presenting different experiences for people of colour as for former new world colonists with their desire to self-mythologise and gloss over the past.

Cal Flyn read from The Savage Landscape due out next year, where she explores strange lands, with an excerpt from her Icelandic trip. “Lands,” Cal reminds us, “Are always ‘peopled’ despite being wilderness.” Callum McSorley read from his sequel to Squeaky Clean about ‘Chuck’ in Paperboy who collected ‘paper’ to shred but instead used information to pay off his gambling debts. While balancing dark themes with great comedy, Callum noted the importance of editing after writing such extremes.

Inevitably there was an audience question on the push-and-pull of obsession, and how this affects the writing process. The consensus was that the strange minds of writers find ways to answer bigger questions: writing might not cure, nor answer, but can transform into ‘repair.’ Obsession is also a drive, albeit relentless, but we have to use this energy. When asked if they wrote as children, most of the guests answered what they read, since inspiration must come first, then you can turn it over and over in your head. With these obsessive traits, Scottish writing is certainly thriving – and sparkling.

Thursday 14^th of August 17:00 - 18:00

Our final visit to the Book Festival Village was to see crime writing royalty (deemed by Ian Rankin) Denise Mina. The Good Liar is her 20^th novel. Denise wanted to call it The Fuck-it Button but shops wouldn’t put that in the window! This seems to be the heart of the matter, that we all lie or cover up to protect: humans are adept at ‘palliative’ lies. As a former student of forensics, Denise knows that odontology (bite marks) is no longer good science, and yet the courts are so behind. Language has different meanings in law, and in mental health things often mean something different. Her book explores “that fungal bit” between those.

Writing about this is difficult – it’s like listening to people in parties spouting their bigoted views, yet we remain silent. Writing should help us stay connected with youthful optimism, but young people also think Denise has authority as she is so respected. She points out that we need more dissent in society; we need more arguments. Ultimately we read crime as it’s a good tale, it always comes right in the end, and it has to be satisfying.

Reading or writing won’t change the world. A novel about a serial killer may be a thumping good read about an extraordinary person, but it’s a lie: most murderers are knuckle-draggers. She’s not suggesting solutions for anything. “We can storm the castle but what about the castle keepers.” When asked about the fuck-it button, Denise explained it is when you “stop giving a shit and say what you think: embrace it!”

This seemed like a good end to a week of repair-themed events: things fall apart before they can be repaired. And that’s where the power of words enters in.

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