10 minute read
Hannah Lavery
Edinburgh’s Makar Hannah Lavery isn’t afraid to ask tough questions about what being Scottish means. Ahead of her Book Festival appearance, she talks to Neil Cooper about the hurt of not belonging
Hannah Lavery didn’t choose the title Scotland, You’re No’ Mine for her Edinburgh International Book Festival event. It comes from the name of a key poem in Blood Salt Spring, her debut full-length collection published earlier this year by Polygon, and is one of the oldest works in the book. The poem’s evocation of Lavery’s love/hate relationship with the country she lives in had already appeared in slightly different forms, both in her pamphlet, Finding Sea Glass: Poems From The Drift, and in her poetic drama, The Drift. It has become one of her most popular works and was named in the 2019 Best Scottish Poems list.
‘It’s a poem that people often request of me, so it’s obviously had a resonance,’ says Lavery. ‘But I suppose it’s quite a big poem, in that it’s talking about colonialism, Scotland’s history and its place within that. But within it, there is a kind of thread of the personal. It’s a love poem. It’s about vulnerability, and it’s about wanting to belong and the hurt of that. I think that a lot of my work is exploring the hurt of not belonging and as a woman of colour in Scotland, I always remember getting told to go back to where I come from, and I’d be like, “I don’t know where that is”, and almost kind of hoping that they would tell me, like, “oh, I’d love to know, can you tell me where it is I belong, because that would be nice?”.’ One key moment in her poem’s growing reputation came when Open Book, the organisation which runs shared reading and creative writing sessions across the country, passed out ‘Scotland, You’re No’ Mine’ to various groups, inviting written responses of their own. ‘That’s been amazing, seeing all these different responses to the poem,’ says Lavery. ‘But for me, it’s a love poem, and it’s a love poem to Scotland. I think most people who read it get that.’
Blood Salt Spring is dedicated to Beldina Odenyo Onassis, aka Heir Of The Cursed, the remarkable singer and songwriter who provided the score for Lavery’s play, Lament For Sheku Bayoh, and who sadly passed away in 2021, aged 31. A poem for Beldina, ‘Leaves Fall Gold’, forms one of BloodSalt Spring’s most poignant moments. While there is much grief and anger elsewhere in the book’s three sections, there is a lot of love as well, and by the end it feels like some kind of a purging.
Late last year, Lavery received the news that she had been appointed as Edinburgh’s Makar (or poet laureate). ‘My love of Scotland is always going to have a little bit of an edge to it,’ she says, ‘but the Makarship is defi nitely a welcoming-in. I think I’ve always felt like I’ve been at the window rather than inside. The heart of my work is belonging, whether that is just very personally with grief, or whether that’s bigger about country, or whether that’s belonging in the room and how you talk about yourself. It’s about belonging and the pain of not belonging, and the longing to belong. My work is deeply vulnerable, I suppose, because of that. But I suppose art is, really. Or maybe mine is.’
Hannah Lavery, 26 August, 12.15pm; Lavery also appears as part of Quines Cast: Live, 17 August, 8.30pm; both events at Edinburgh College Of Art.
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WALKING WITH GHOSTS
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Top 5Giles Foden’s favourite war novels
BURMA BOY BY BIYI BANDELE
This would always be first but is especially first as its author (my dear friend, the brilliant playwright, novelist and Netflix director of Blood Sisters and The King’s Horseman) died suddenly last week in Lagos. The novel tells the story of Ali Banana, one of the many African soldiers who fought for the British in World War II. Idi Amin, as in my own The Last King Of Scotland, claimed he too did this: it was a lie.
GREENMANTLE BY JOHN BUCHAN
The second of Buchan’s World War I novels, published in 1916, this followed the previous year’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. It’s a stranger, less conventional thriller, following contemporary events insofar as it involves German plans to use Islam to help them win the war, but also predicting, to an extent, the ‘war on terror’ that followed 9/11. The invitation to adventure with which the book begins has many parallels to my own work.
THE AFRICAN QUEEN BY CS FORESTER
Known for its 1951 film adaptation starring Humphrey Bogart, on a river in east Africa, pious Rose Sayer must escape German troops on the tinpot steamer of a hard-drinking cockney captain, Allnut. After much friction, they sink a German battleship. I followed the real-life story of that battleship in my book Mimi And Toutou Go Forth. Remarkably, it’s actually still sailing up and down Lake Tanganyika!
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT BY SÉBASTIEN JAPRISOT
This tells the story of Mathilde, a young woman who embarks on a desperate search for her fiancé, possibly killed during World War I. Little known in the English-speaking world, Japrisot re-combined components of the thriller genre in original and paradoxical ways.
THE LIFE AND EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF PRIVATE IVAN CHONKIN BY VLADIMIR VOINOVICH
A satirical novel about a soldier during World War II, it’s the Russian equivalent of Catch-22, exposing the daily absurdities of military life. n Giles Foden & Allan Little, Edinburgh College Of Art, 26 August, 8.15pm.
PROFILE
DIANA GABALDON
Having released nine books since the 90s (with book number ten on the way), there’s no doubt that Diana Gabaldon’s epic, slow-burn period romance Outlander has had fans in a chokehold for decades. In fact, the American author’s part-historical fiction, part-fantasy franchise is one of the best-selling book series of all time, with 25 million copies sold worldwide.
What started as a love story between an accidentally time-travelling nurse from World War II and a Jacobite rebel of 1743 has evolved into a staple of 21st-century pop culture. The television adaptation premiered on American satellite channel Starz in 2014, spreading Outlander fever far and wide. Dedicated fans can even attend three-day-long conventions which host meet-and-greets and Q&A panels with the cast.
The influence of this iconic franchise doesn’t stop at fan events either. Also contributing to the Outlander universe are two short stories, three novellas, a graphic novel and a musical. Scotland’s beautiful scenery, as captured in the TV series, has also done wonders for the country’s tourism industry; according to VisitScotland, in 2019 visitor numbers at sites related to the television show peaked at 3.2 million.
Returning to the Edinburgh International Book Festival for the first time since 2014, Gabaldon’s event promises to be a deep-dive into the complex characters and relationships of Outlander’s ever-expanding universe, giving devoted fans the opportunity to hear her true thoughts on all things Claire and Jamie. (Rachel Cronin)
n Central Hall, 23 August, 2.30pm.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival keeps motoring and in this selection are events about literary beginnings, career endings and clerical cops
MONICA ALI
She’s been quiet on the literary front for a decade, but the author of Brick Lane is back with Love Marriage, a tale of love, family and the modern world as a pair of junior doctors get set to wed. n Central Hall, 17 August, 2.30pm.
KEVIN BRIDGES
The Scotsman isn’t the first comedian to end up becoming an author, but few will have been subject to quite the same levels of curiosity and attention that he will receive for The Black Dog, a debut about a would-be scribe who sees a literary career as a way to dodge his problems. n Central Hall, 17 August, 5.30pm.
JENNI FAGAN
On the back of her successful Hex from earlier this year, Fagan is in town to chat with Sally Magnusson about the old Scottish witch trials and how they reflect upon the modern world. n Edinburgh College Of Art, 18 August, 4pm.
GEOFF DYER
Always a popular and regular figure around these parts in August, the author and commentator considers ‘endings’ in terms of elite performers (in the likes of sport and music) whose best days are perhaps behind them. n Edinburgh College Of Art, 19 August, 7.30pm.
ARMANDO IANNUCCI
The Glaswegian is behind some of the most influential TV comedy of the past 30 years in Britain and he is currently turning his satirical eye towards the pandemic and Brexit. n Central Hall, 19 August, 8.30pm.
BOOKS HIGHLIGHTS
Candice Carty-Williams (and bottom from left), Armando Iannucci, Kevin Bridges, Richard Coles
RICHARD COLES
He’s not made music with Jimmy Somerville for decades, but some people still see Coles as the guy who was in The Communards. These days, he’s a successful author and broadcaster and has just launched a new detective series. n Edinburgh College Of Art, 26 August, 1pm.
CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS
Author of the wildly successful Queenie, Carty-Williams is back with the tale of a lifestyle ‘influencer’ whose own world is slowly falling apart at the seams. n Edinburgh College Of Art, 28 August, 10.30am.
CABARET
JESUS L’OREAL
Long-haired and sharp-nailed, Jesus L’Oreal is returning to save us all with an hour of cabaret comedy in a short Fringe run. This high-energy act has performed at New York’s Club Cumming and dazzled audiences with previous outings such as Christ On A Bike! and Cross Fit. Resurrecting his 2018 show, NailedIt!, for this year’s appearance, expect more heavenly song and dance as the ultimate lifestyle guru tells a tale or two and gives away all his best life hacks. In the words of L’Oreal himself, it’s going to be ‘sacrelicious!’. (Megan Merino) Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 22–28 August, 9.15pm.
