Writers Blocked Michael Rosen Diane Roberts Lionel Shriver
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2 PROSPECT Foreword by Sameer Rahim oetry makes noth- with profoundly is the rediscovery of her people and her country and finding ing happen.” That insitutionalised racism in the US that feels no comfort. line in WH Auden’s more relevant than ever.” What about those targeted by poem dedicated to the For US writers, the elephant in the populists—such as migrants? I argue that memory of WB Yeats room (or bull in the china shop) is Presi- the UK has seen an upswing in great writ- “Pis often taken to endorse the idea of an dent Donald Trump. But how should they ing about its ethnic minority communities. apolitical approach to literature. Auden, approach such an outlandish personal- This is only likely to increase as demo- once a committed Marxist, had by 1940 ity? Miranda France argues they could graphics change. “Mixed-race” is now the given up trying to change the world. (Who do worse than turn to their Latin Ameri- fastest-growing ethnic category in the UK, can blame him?) But that didn’t mean he can counterparts, who have had to deal which means more of the older generation thought the world was now off-limits; just with “preening strongmen” for decades. than ever have grandchildren with a differ- that we should expect something different The Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa and the ent racial background. from that form of communication. The Dominican-American Junot Díaz tackled Linked to these changes we have seen line continues, poetry “survives in the val- the dictator Rafael Trujillo with contrast- more accusations of “cultural appropri- ley of its making.” Auden’s lines, read this ing styles: one realist, one fantastical; but ation”—authors writing about cultures way, are defiant, not meek. both used satire to expose his lies. they supposedly don’t have the right to. In All the modern writers discussed in Bad leaders often reflect the flaws in her punchy essay, novelist Lionel Shriver these pages engage with the biggest issues their societies. In her essay on Harper argues that accepting such limits on a writ- of our day. 2015’s Man Booker winner, Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, an early draft of er’s imagination goes contrary to the free Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, was a wicked To Kill a Mockingbird, published shortly spirit of fiction—and that giving “offence” is satire on US race relations. As Emran before Lee’s death in 2016, Diane Rob- a vital part of the novelist’s armoury. Mian argues, “what the book connects erts says that we see Lee struggling with Sameer Rahim is Prospect’s Managing Editor Contents 03 Can fiction lead the 05 When fiction trumps 08 The year of the migrants 09 What does it mean to fight back? El Supremo sameer rahim be a man? emran mian miranda france anthony cummins 11 Brief encounter 12 The war’s not over yet 16 Writers blocked michael rosen diane roberts lionel shriver Listen to Prospect Follow Prospect Hear all about the biggest issues in this edition by @prospect_uk facebook.com/prospect.mag downloading Prospect’s free podcast from iTunes or soundcloud.com/prospect-magazine prospect_magazine PROSPECT 3 Can fiction lead the fight back? American novelists are doing a brilliant job engaging with politics. Their British counterparts need to catch up fast, argues Emran Mian t has been a year of extraordinary over into writers’ contempt and condescen- naive idealism and the messy real world. In political events. In June, the United sion for political leaders (rarely the stuff addition, literary fiction rarely provides a Kingdom decided to leave the of good fiction); or the challenge of hack- happy ending. This doesn’t mean that it has European Union and in November ing through clichés learned from politi- to dismiss politics, but it will focus on its fail- the United States elected Donald cal thrillers, or newspapers, of how power ures and follies. ITrump as its first reality-television presi- is exercised in Washington or Westmin- One way to disguise that feature of the dent. Our instant storytellers—columnists, ster. Notice how Beatty sets his political genre is to retreat into the past. Garth Risk news anchors, other politicians—are still novel a long way from the seat of govern- Hallberg’s novel City on Fire (Vintage), pub- reeling from the shock. But what can real ment, closer to what the philosopher Iris lished at the end of 2015, ends in 1977. The writers do to respond to politics—if any- Marion Young has catalogued as the social city in question is New York and the fire thing? Fiction, by its nature, cannot move movements outside formal politics. Young includes homophobia, racism, status anxi- at the speed of current events. But those suggests that such movements have three ety and inequality. The political movement novelists who are willing to engage with the main purposes: to challenge decision-mak- in the novel initially expresses itself through world can bring a unique set of insights into ing structures directly; to organise autono- music and situationist stunts and gradually the state of a nation. mous services; and evolve cultural identity. pivots towards the use of terror. But the folly Fittingly, in the year of Trump’s racially- Benjamin Markovits’s novel You Don’t we observe isn’t merely in the choice of tac- charged triumph, both the UK’s Man Booker Have to Live Like This (Faber), which won the tics; it’s in how the egoism of Nicky Chaos, Prize and the US’s National Book Critics’ James Tait Black Memorial Prize in August, the leader of the movement, supplants the Circle Award were scooped by Paul Beat- also acutely observes the intersection of all solidarity the movement supposedly believes ty’s The Sellout (Oneworld). Beatty is an Afri- three of these. Markovits, a US writer liv- in. Chaos comes to a sticky end—as does his can-American writer born in Los Angeles ing in England, has his narrator, Marney, mirror image Amory, the scion of a massively in 1962, and The Sellout imagines a world in along with others help to take over a left- wealthy family. What we’re observing is the which America unwinds 40 years of political behind neighbourhood in Detroit. Marney is lose-lose politics of domination and resent- progress. The high-jinks, low-concept idea white and the city he is now living in mainly ment, the master-slave dialectic with a punk- at the heart of the book is the re-segregation black, and the novel tackles issues of gentri- rock beat. Forty years later, Hallberg might of a Los Angeles suburb called Dickens— fication, racial politics, poverty and the way be asking, can we avoid the same mistakes? the catch being that it is the black narrator in which outsiders can help—or not help— Can we? The progressive view in politics who wants to divide the races once again. struggling communities. This is the stuff of usually claims that we can. But one striking “Me,” as he is known, develops his stunt into politics, but politicians play little part in it. characteristic of politics in 2016 is that “the a political programme with the aim of creat- President Barack Obama makes a fleeting shipwrecked mind,” as the historian of ideas ing public spaces in which black people can appearance in the book—playing basketball Mark Lilla calls it in the title of his new book feel more confident by living only with their rather than making speeches or negotiating on reactionary politics, has fixed its eye on own kind. “I’m not advocating segregation,” amendments. Even the money to redevelop us. Whether there’s a shock of orange hair Beatty has explained, “I’m having fun pon- Detroit does not come from government but above that eye and a roaming mouth below dering it.” instead from tech entrepreneurs and hedge it, or it takes some other form, the impera- On Beatty’s telling, the plan works: fund managers. The mission is inevitably tives of “bring back…” and “things were bet- the restriction is a form of liberation that economic as well as social—though for Mar- ter when…” are now incredibly powerful. improves, for example, the school results of ney it is as much about proving himself as The trouble for writers of fiction is that faced black children. (The book starts with “Me” it is about helping others. In a melodiously with such an outlandish phenomenon as on trial at the Supreme Court, the elite tak- frustrated tone, signalled by the book’s title, Trump, they generally respond with super- ing its revenge.) What the book connects he remarks: “There should be a better test of ficial satire. with profoundly is the rediscovery of institu- who I am than middle-class American life.” On Trump himself, the US-based Nige- tionalised racism in the US that feels more This is politics, not as the Trumpian art rian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie relevant than ever. of the deal, but as the dilemma of how to live has had a go, in a short story published this Beatty’s success in writing about pol- a good life with others. That said the politi- summer in the New York Times Book Review. itics is unusual in modern novelists. We cal schemes in both Beatty’s and Markovits’s Written from the perspective of the pre- might hope that writers of fiction would books are riddled with problems. The diffi- sumptive First Lady Melania Trump, in the catch something that pollsters, commen- culty of re-segregation as a basis for politi- second paragraph, we are told that “taste, tators and political incumbents have been cal utopia is obvious enough.