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So here I was at the Adelaide Literary Festival along with fifteen international writers, hand picked, cellophane wrapped and air-freighted half way around the world. Ready to frolic in the South Pacific Sea. Well… almost. Flying that 747 more or less single-handedly had not been easy.
“Well done,” texted the family. “Another triumph!”
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In December I travelled to the Antarctic aboard the Orlova. The continent is a truly great wilderness area, possibly the most important and the most spectacular in the whole world. But there are problems, too.
Nicholas Pearson, Publishing Director of Fourth Estate, is in Sweden to read Doris Lessing’s Nobel lecture.
Stockholm is decorated for Christmas. The windows of the magnificent buildings that border the waterfront are lit with triangles of candles, the Christmas tree near the Royal Palace is ablaze with lights, and the shops and restaurants have oil candles on their doorsteps.
You know things are serious when the lawyers get involved.
Last week I spent two days in Paris, the first time I had been back since Sarkozy was elected, and since the new vélib scheme has brought 20,000 bicycles to the streets. Two weeks previously the metro and train drivers had staged their strikes, enthusiastically supported by the students who had barricaded the Sorbonne and marched with a multitude of banners in the spirit of ’68. Continue reading »
Research for my book The Long Exile took me to the Arctic twice, once to Inukjuak and once on a more complicated journey first to the Nunavut capital, Iqaluit, then to Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island, from where most of the North Pole expeditions now begin. From Resolute I flew on a tiny Twin Otter cargo plane to the world’s most northerly permanently inhabited settlement, Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island, where Josephie Flaherty and his family were exiled half a century ago. Continue reading »
Last night at the British Press Awards Christina Lamb was again named Foreign Correspondent of the Year. This marks her fourth British Press Award – she’s been Foreign Correspondent of the Year twice, News Reporter of the Year and Young Journalist of the Year. This is in addition to receiving the Foreign Press Association award for the best foreign story and the Amnesty International award for periodical writing. She’s also the only roving foreign correspondent for a British newspaper who is also a mother. Continue reading »
The 23rd International Jerusalem Book Fair took place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel high up on the hills that surround the old city walls. The hotel is nondescript save for the balcony on the 20th floor, which offers a panoramic view of the old city, the Temple of the Mount and the nine-metre-high security wall and runs chaotically through the city, separating the Jewish and Arab communities. From here you can see the layers and tectonics of the city and how they have developed and collided over the millennia. What becomes immediately clear is that everything in this city from architecture to archaeology is political. Continue reading »
It’s literary love-in time here in Toronto, with the arrival of over 100 writers participating in the 27th annual International Festival of Authors. There are 10 days of readings, panels and interviews scheduled, and the atmosphere is everything you’d expect from a literary festival sponsored by Starbucks (among others): civilised chatter over filter coffee, or perhaps a green tea; polite reverence, the occasional titter or gasp, and respectful applause. Continue reading »
