Lyndall Gordon’s DIVIDED LIVES out today

Lyndall Gordon’s richly-layered memoir DIVIDED LIVES: DREAMS OF A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER is published by Virago on 19 June. The award-winning biographer turns her insightful writer’s eye to her own life and her relationship to her mother – an extraordinary and intensely realised tale of loyalty and division; breakdown and recovery; migration and home.

The book has already received excellent reviews, with Susie Orbach in the Observer calling Lyndall ‘a biographer with soul, she reaches into the hearts of those she brings alive for us’.

There are  several chances for readers to catch her around the UK talking about the book in coming months.

On 9 July, Lyndall will be at the Telegraph Way With Words Festival at Dartington Hall. She will be talking about Mothers and Daughters, in the Barn at 5pm. Tickets cost £5 and can be booked online.

On 26 July, she  is reading at the Women Writers’ Salon with Maggie Gee, author of VIRGINIA WOOLF IN MANHATTAN, at the Upper Wimpole Street Literary Salon. The event starts at 7 with readings beginning at 7:30. 

Later this year, Lyndall will be appearing at Ilkley literary festival, among others.

Lyndall Gordon was born in 1941 in Cape Town, to a mother whose mysterious illness confined her for years to life indoors. Lyndall was her carer, her “secret sharer”, a child who grew to know life through books, story-telling and her mother's own writings. Moving and beautiful, DIVIDED LIVES is a poetic memoir about the pain and joy of being a daughter, that is also an intriguing social history and feminist text, rich in literary reference.

Lyndall Gordon's earlier memoir SHARED LIVES, about her group of young friends growing to womanhood in 1950s Cape Town, is now also available in ebook for the first time.

Visit Lyndall's Website

 Praise for Lyndall Gordon:

'An inspired and unconventional biographer' - Independent on Sunday

 'Gordon is one of the best biographers writing today.' - -  Catherine Hollis, Sacramento Book Review

 'Lyndall Gordon is known for the thoroughness of her research and meticulous attention to detail… a fine researcher's eye… an exceptional and unusual mind.' - -  Janet van Eeden, The Witness

 Praise for DIVIDED LIVES

 ‘A wonderful – and at times painful – memoir about the expectations of love and duty between mother and daughter.’ – The Bookseller, Editor’s Picks

 ‘Daughterhood, as Lyndall Gordon demonstrates in her intense and semi-poetic family memoir, is a complex and demanding role. In prose both lyrical and meticulous, Gordon describes a relationship … from which no woman is exempt. A disturbing and often beautiful book that confronts heritage, selfishness, infidelity and obsessive secrecy, and which explores and ultimately celebrates the lifelong emotional seesaw between parent and child.’  – Juliet Nicolson, Evening Standard

 ‘A biographer with soul, she reaches into the hearts of those she brings alive for us. She makes the meaning of their lives sing and sweat as she invites us into their experiences, their longings, their struggles and their disappointments. In preparation, she has learnt the anguish and the heartbeat of another, the other, her mother, Rhoda, whose presence rules the pages of this memoir. …In this fascinating mix between memoir and biography, we see the struggle of a daughter, to keep an attachment with her mother that is both close and yet boundaried, separate and connected, an attachment in which each can live their dreams.’ – Susie Orbach, The Observer

Team Stockwin and The Silk Tree

Julian Stockwin is the author of the Kydd Naval series and his latest novel, THE SILK TREE, will be published in late 2014 by Allison & Busby and is now available for preorder here. Julian's partner, Kathy, has become an integral part of the writing process. Below, the author explains the creative development behind THE SILK TREE, where planning and research are the essential ingredients for a compelling story and great writing. 

Team Stockwin!

Team Stockwin!

THE SILK TREE is a new departure for me, a stand-alone historical adventure fiction that is not maritime at its heart.  Its genesis was my wife Kathy’s discovery of a rather lovely silk scarf in the ancient Kapali Carsi, the Grand Bazaar, in Istanbul during a recent research trip to Turkey.  While she was chatting with the merchant I idly wondered just how silk had been brought from China to the West. Intrigued, I did some research and the creative juices started flowing – I knew I had a story I had to tell.

So we got to work, drafting up a list of topics to investigate; a very pleasant task over a meze of various delicious morsels – then on to kepab – all in the name of research, of course...

As usual, local museums and libraries were a major resource. I always travel with a small pocket dictaphone and a compact camera that can take high-quality images of textual material. At the end of the day it’s our strict rule to go through the photos and notate each one. I also transcribe the notes I took verbally and Kathy and I work up any changes to our itinerary as a result of the day’s research.

Of all the iconic architecture in modern Istanbul, Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace are the most memorable.  At the time of THE SILK TREE the former was a Christian shrine but Topkapi was yet to be built. Part of the task of a writer of historical fiction is to recreate city landscapes of the past in his mind’s eye and for THE SILK TREE this meant  sixth century Constantinople (as it was called then).

Back in the UK Kathy and I flow-charted the basic story on a large white board that we find invaluable at this stage.  Then we had a number of sessions working up the personalities of the main characters, Nicander and Marius. Once this was done we developed sub-plots around the main story – the quest for the secret of silk. Kathy thought we should have a love story element in the book and we had to find a way to bring two people of very different cultures to mutual respect then a deep attraction. But I don’t want to give the game away as to how this happened...

I’m a firm believer in the old saying that no life experience is wasted for the writer and for THE SILK TREE I was able to call upon my admiration of Chinese calligraphy which goes back to the time I lived and worked in the Far East. And all those hours of dry study of ancient Greek and Latin at grammar school came in handy, too!

When we were satisfied with our planning for THE SILK TREE a detailed synopsis was created, and I wrote the first three chapters, which I sent off to Carole Blake. She loved the idea and I then set out to write the rest of the book.

Kathy is a very integral part of my writing process. Once we have agreed on a strong beginning and a satisfying end, along with the thrust of the middle of the book, we walk and talk segments, making sure the right elements of tension, stakes, detail etc. are there before I write.

Kathy is also my live-in ‘blue pencil’, fine-tuning my writing with her very considerable editing skills as I go along. At the end of the process she does what she calls her helicopter editing, looking at the work as a whole.  Then we both go through the manuscript very, very carefully a number of times before it’s ready to submit.

I realise I am very privileged to be able to earn my living as a full-time writer – and to be able to work so closely with my life partner in this is a wonderful thing indeed!

The Anatolian Plateau, the last stage for the great camel caravans of the Silk Road.

The Anatolian Plateau, the last stage for the great camel caravans of the Silk Road.

Hagia Sophia at dusk

Hagia Sophia at dusk

 

Catch Ivan Vladislavic on a rare visit to the UK!

Photo copyright: Minky Schlesinger

Photo copyright: Minky Schlesinger

Acclaimed South African author Ivan Vladislavic will be in the UK for the next fortnight so be sure to catch him at one of his events.

During the week of 16 June Ivan will be taking part in the Norwich Worlds Festival. On Thursday 19 June he will join JM Coetzee, Xiaolu Guo and Julia Franck for an evening devoted to the very best in world literature. The event takes place at 7.30 at the Norwich Playhouse and is organised by the Writers’ Centre Norwich. Tickets are available here.

On Saturday 21 June, Ivan will be Guest of Honour at Lunch with And Other Stories, a lunch event for And Other Stories subscribers at Hardy’s Brasserie in London. To book, contact nicci@andotherstories.org

He’ll be reading at the Peckham Pelican on Sunday 22 June at 12.30 p.m. as part of the Literary Kitchen Festival. This is a free event.

Ivan’s work is studied on various university courses and he will be visiting a couple of universities on this trip. On Monday 23 June at 3.30 p.m. he’ll be at the University of Sussex, where, in honour of his retired proofreader, Aubrey Tearle, from THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET, they are holding their own ‘Proofreader’s Derby’. There is still time to enter! It’s a free event, more details here.

Described on the Africa in Words blog as ‘one of the great prose stylists in the world today’, Ivan will be reading from DOUBLE NEGATIVE and THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET and will be in conversation about the subtleties of balancing editing and creativity, and the mechanics and the artistry of creating written work.

On Tuesday 24 June, 5:00pm - 6.30pm, the Faculty of English at University of Cambridge will host Ivan for a reading from THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET and discussion after. This is a free event, open to the public and there is no need to book. Details here.

On Wednesday 25 June, Ivan will be appearing alongside Patrick Flanery and Neel Mukherjee at Camera Obscura: A View of South Africa.  Each author will be bringing their own work and experiences to the table and you can expect readings alongside stimulating conversation. The event is at Diorama Arts Studios at 7pm and tickets cost £5 – to book contact Charlotte at Slightly Foxed enquiries@foxedbooks.com Tel: 0207 370 3503

Ivan Vladislavic’s hilarious and poignant novel THE RESTLESS SUPERMARKET was published by And Other Stories in April 2014. Neel Mukherjee gave it a stunning review in the Independent: ‘A work of such immense imaginativeness, of such extraordinarily serious playfulness, comes along very rarely. Let us celebrate it.’  

A multiple prize-winner in South Africa, DOUBLE NEGATIVE was published in the UK in 2013, also to wide acclaim, and has been chosen by Writers’ Centre Norwich as part of their Summer Reads programme.

See more on Ivan’s website here.

Praise for Ivan Vladislavic:

‘Vladislavic is internationally recognized as one of South Africa’s most significant living writers.’ – Kenyon Review

'One of South Africa's most finely tuned observers' - Ted Hodgkinson, The Times Literary Supplement

'Ivan Vladislavic is one of a handful of writers working in South Africa after apartheid whose work will still be read in fifty years.'  - Jan Steyn, The White Review