"To write is to never be zero"
The Edinburgh International Book Festival is over now, but I will not forget in a hurry the opportunity I had to see First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in conversation with the incredible author Arundhati Roy.
I started crying as soon as the two women walked through the doors of the big New York Times-sponsored marquee. I had never heard cheering as well as applause before at that terribly middle-class event, so obviously everyone else was as moved as I was. Though not such big cry babies.
Anyway.
Yes. Nicola Sturgeon and Arundhati Roy. That was an hour very well spent. Sturgeon is famously an avid reader, and she is an excellent interviewer on these occasions. And Roy, petite and delicate looking, is an incredible orator, her answers to questions echoing the way she writes – painting vast, colourful, elaborate pictures with her words.
I took some notes, but committed so many typos in my typing that some are utterly untranslatable. What, for example, does, "Doesn’t nrhNcelike a teadinablewoam" mean?
But here are some titbits I managed to record and remember, for your delectation...
Sturgeon: What sort of impact did the success of The God Of Small Things have on your life?
Roy:... I had a dream that I was a fish in a stream, and a big green hand plucked me from the stream, and said, "Yes, you are special," and I said, "Put me back!"
[That doesn't need much training in psychology to interpret, does it?]
Sturgeon: Why was there such a long gap between the writing of The God Of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness?
Roy: I don't plan my life. Life isn't planned. And when you are writing something rich and complex, you need to immerse yourself in that world.
Sturgeon: The God of Small Things is about caste, class, colonialism and communism... Is that fair to say? How would you summarise it?
Roy: Oh, never write a novel that can be summarised!
Roy also talked at great length about the current situation in Kashmir, which is being shockingly underreported by Western media, though my 12yo son did say he had read about it in The New York Times...
Kashmir is in military lockdown, with phone lines and internet blocked, and no-one allowed to enter or leave the territory. Muslims, intellectuals and the left are being assassinated on a daily basis, seemingly without any intervention from the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who himself revoked the agreement which had given the state of Jammu and Kashmir special autonomous status.
The violence has been terrifying, said Roy. "We cannot sleep at night," she said, "we are worried all the time. Kashmir is being run by soldiers and India is being ruled by the mob."
She must fear for her safety, an audience member suggested.
Roy: To write is to never be zero. When you write, you do not disappear. To put it politely, fuck you. [Applause and laughter]
Sturgeon: I think you speak for all of us. Certainly as a politician, I often wish I could say that...
The final question from the floor was addressed to Sturgeon, which made her squirm a bit. But the question was a fairly benign one, asking her how and why she can embrace both literature and politics, and it gave her the opportunity to reply with such an impassioned comment that the audience cheered again.
Sturgeon: I read literature to learn, and to learn how to empathise. And, to be honest, if more politicians read more literature, the world wouldn't be in such a state.
That went down a treat with the Book Festival audience. And, just as I cried when the two women walked in at the beginning, I cried again that I could have shared breathing space with these two incredible intellects.