Michael Rosen, Diane Roberts, Emran Mian, Miranda France and Anthony Cummins on How Novelists Are Taking on the World 2 PROSPECT
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Writing with punch Michael Rosen, Diane Roberts, Emran Mian, Miranda France and Anthony Cummins on how novelists are taking on the world 2 PROSPECT Foreword by Sameer Rahim oetry makes noth- nects with profoundly is the rediscovery of and her country and finding no comfort. ing happen.” That insitutionalised racism in the US that feels What about those targeted by line in WH Auden’s more relevant than ever.” populists—such as migrants? I argue that poem dedicated to the For US writers, the elephant in the the UK has seen an upswing in great writ- memory of WB Yeats, room (or bull in the china shop) is Presi- ing about its ethnic minority communities. “Pis often taken to endorse the idea of an dent Donald Trump. But how should they This is only likely to increase as demo- apolitical approach to literature. Auden, approach such an outlandish personal- graphics change. “Mixed-race” is now the once a committed Marxist, had by 1940 ity? Miranda France argues they could fastest-growing ethnic category in the UK, given up trying to change the world. (Who do worse than turn to their Latin Ameri- which means more of the older generation can blame him?) But that didn’t mean he can counterparts, who have had to deal than ever have grandchildren with a differ- thought the world was now off-limits; just with “preening strongmen” for decades. ent racial background. that we should expect something different The Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa and the Politics begins at home, says Anthony from that form of communication. The Dominican-American Junot Díaz tack- Cummins, in his essay on how chang- line continues, poetry “survives in the val- led the dictator Rafael Trujillo with con- ing gender relations are being reflected ley of its making.” Auden’s lines, read this trasting styles: one realist, one fantastical; in modern novels. And rounding things way, are defiant, not meek. but both used satire to expose his lies. Bad off, Michael Rosen, the children’s writer All the modern writers discussed leaders often reflect the flaws in their soci- and political campaigner, tells us that ine- in these pages engage with the biggest eties. In her essay on Harper Lee’s Go Set quality is the biggest problem of all. And issues of our day. Last year’s Man Booker a Watchman, the early draft of To Kill a also, because politics isn’t everything, that winner, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, was a Mockingbird, originally published before he’s changed his mind about going to the wicked satire on US race relations. As Lee’s death in 2016, Diane Roberts says beach. Emran Mian argues, “what the book con- that we see Lee struggling with her people Sameer Rahim is Prospect’s Arts and Books Editor Contents 03 Can fiction lead the fight back? 08 The year of the migrants 11 Brief encounter emran mian sameer rahim michael rosen 05 When fiction trumps El Supremo 09 What does it mean to be a man? 12 The war’s not over yet miranda france anthony cummins diane roberts 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 Headspace 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 polit- fiction); or the challenge of hacking through mean that it has to dismiss politics, but it will ical events. In June, the United King- clichés learned from political thrillers, or news- focus on its failures and follies. dom decided to leave the European papers, of how power is exercised in Washing- One way to disguise that feature of the genre Union and in November the United ton or Westminster. Notice how Beatty sets his is to retreat into the past. Garth Risk Hallberg’s States elected Donald Trump as its political novel a long way from the seat of gov- novel City on Fire (Vintage), published at the Ifirst reality-television president. Our instant ernment, closer to what the philosopher Iris end of 2015, ends in 1977. The city in question storytellers—columnists, news anchors, other Marion Young has catalogued as the social is New York and the fire includes homophobia, politicians—are still reeling from the shock. movements outside formal politics. Young sug- racism, status anxiety and inequality. The polit- But what can real writers do to respond to pol- gests that such movements have three main pur- ical movement in the novel initially expresses itics—if anything? Fiction, by its nature, can- poses: to challenge decision-making structures itself through music and situationist stunts and not move at the speed of current events. But directly; to organise autonomous services; and gradually pivots towards the use of terror. But those novelists who are willing to engage with evolve cultural identity. the folly we observe isn’t merely in the choice of the world can bring a unique set of insights into Benjamin Markovits’s novel You Don’t Have tactics; it’s in how the egoism of Nicky Chaos, the state of a nation. to Live Like This (Faber), which won the James the leader of the movement, supplants the sol- Fittingly, in the year of Trump’s racially- Tait Black Memorial Prize in August, also idarity the movement supposedly believes in. charged triumph, both the UK’s Man Booker acutely observes the intersection of all three Chaos comes to a sticky end—as does his mirror Prize and the US’s National Book Critics’ Cir- of these. Markovits, a US writer living in Eng- image Amory, the scion of a massively wealthy cle Award were scooped by Paul Beatty’s The land, has his narrator, Marney, along with family. What we’re observing is the lose-lose Sellout (Oneworld). Beatty is an African-Amer- others help to take over a left-behind neigh- politics of domination and resentment, the ican writer born in Los Angeles in 1962, and bourhood in Detroit. Marney is white and the master-slave dialectic with a punk-rock beat. The Sellout imagines a world in which Amer- city he is now living in mainly black, and the Forty years later, Hallberg might be asking, can ica unwinds 40 years of political progress. The novel tackles issues of gentrification, racial pol- we avoid the same mistakes? high-jinks, low-concept idea at the heart of the itics, poverty and the way in which outsiders Can we? The progressive view in poli- book is the re-segregation of a Los Angeles sub- can help—or not help—struggling communi- tics usually claims that we can. But one strik- urb called Dickens—the catch being that it is ties. This is the stuff of politics, but politicians ing characteristic of politics in 2016 is that the black narrator who wants to divide the races play little part in it. President Barack Obama “the shipwrecked mind,” as the historian of once again. “Me,” as he is known, develops his makes a fleeting appearance in the book—play- ideas Mark Lilla calls it in the title of his new stunt into a political programme with the aim ing basketball rather than making speeches or book on reactionary politics, has fixed its eye of creating public spaces in which black people negotiating amendments. Even the money to on us. Whether there’s a shock of orange hair can feel more confident by living only with their redevelop Detroit does not come from govern- above that eye and a roaming mouth below own kind. “I’m not advocating segregation,” ment but instead from tech entrepreneurs and it, or it takes some other form, the impera- Beatty has explained, “I’m having fun ponder- hedge fund managers. The mission is inevita- tives of “bring back…” and “things were better ing it.” bly economic as well as social—though for Mar- when…” are now incredibly powerful. The trou- On Beatty’s telling, the plan works: the ney it is as much about proving himself as it ble for writers of fiction is that faced with such restriction is a form of liberation that improves, is about helping others. In a melodiously frus- an outlandish phenomenon as Trump, they for example, the school results of black chil- trated tone, signalled by the book’s title, he generally respond with superficial satire. dren. (The book starts with “Me” on trial at the remarks: “There should be a better test of who On Trump himself, the US-based Nige- Supreme Court, the elite taking its revenge.) I am than middle-class American life.” rian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has What the book connects with profoundly is the This is politics, not as the Trumpian art had a go, in a short story published this sum- rediscovery of institutionalised racism in the US of the deal, but as the dilemma of how to live mer in the New York Times Book Review. Writ- that feels more relevant than ever. a good life with others. That said the politi- ten from the perspective of the presumptive Beatty’s success in writing about poli- cal schemes in both Beatty’s and Markovits’s First Lady Melania Trump, in the second par- tics is unusual in modern novelists. We might books are riddled with problems. The difficulty agraph, we are told that “taste, for him, was hope that writers of fiction would catch some- of re-segregation as a basis for political utopia something to be determined by somebody else, thing that pollsters, commentators and politi- is obvious enough.