From Angola to the Arctic

Wednesday Evening

One of the key points to make about New Writing Worlds, and this is as an outsider, seeing it for the first time,is the interface between the public and the private. Yes, its to some degree, a private conversation - albeit with some eavesdropping such as this blog - but it is also open, with a range of high quality literary readings for the public. I've sometimes been to places where there's a conference or something on, and you've felt excluded, almost embarassed at asking if you can come to something of interest, only to be asked, "are you a delegate?" The public readings in the library earlier in the week, were followed on Wednesday by a range of events in the Sainsbury Centre at UEA. Like a large glass-and-steel shoebox, this impressive Norman Foster-designed building was a cornucopia of wonder, from the walkway by which we entered, through its impressive art collection, down to the readings themselves. I'd spoke briefly with Mia Couto and Jose E Agualusa earlier in the week; Portugeuse language writers from, respectively Mozambique and Angola, they'd just flown in from Africa via an event in Lisbon, and had a packed few days. Tonight's event "Connecting Worlds", seemed an entirely appropriate title. A little later, in another part of the building, we moved from the heat of Africa; to talk more about nature itself - from Geoff Dyer's exploration of Walter de Maria's "Lightning Field", to Gretel Ehrlich reading vividly from her travels with the inuit. I don't know if it was the building or the displacement of the subject, but at some point I felt a little disorientated, and looking back on it now, I seem to be looking down on them both speaking, seeing vividly their readings, as if I was almost - but not quite - a participant.