The new meets the old

Seamus Heaney walked on stage to rapturous applause, which, when it showed no sign of stopping, seemed to embarass the Nobel prize-winning poet. Waving modestly for quiet, it was clear that he was greatly touched by the affection and admiration of his audience. The audience listened, without moving, as Heaney read from his latest collection of poetry, Human Chain, interspersed with older poems.

He began with a eulogy to Edwin Morgan, the great Scottish poet who died last week. “I’ve felt a great kinship with Scottish poets, he said. He described Morgan as “a great presence, and the whole poetic community became more aware of his guardianship.” Reading Morgan’s poem, ‘The Coin’, Heaney said he agreed with Stanley Kunitz’s definition of poetry as “the story of the adventures of the soul”.

Several poems were written in memory of his father, ‘Lick the pencil’ being one attempt to capture his memory through his habits and mannerisms. Heaney also read poems which attempted to come to terms with his recent experience of waking up paralysed down one side, the loss of control he experienced and the suffering of his friends and family. 

Heaney’s humanity was apparent throughout his new collection, which seems set to become as loved as his previous works.

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An astonishingly prolific writer, Alexander McCall Smith spoke about the inspiration for his books, the problems of sea voyages, and the abundance of pushy mothers in Edinburgh in his usual fast-paced, witty manner. Andrew Sachs, the voice of the Corduroy Mansions audiobook, was unfortunately unable to attend. But McCall Smith, who was also celebrating his birthday, had a surprise for the audience: a cellist and saw-player who played music which features in his novels. 

He admitted to “not knowing what writer’s block is”, and to always working on more than one book at a time. “I suspect what writer’s block is is having nothing to say,” he said. “I’ve got the opposite problem, which is serial novelism.” 

McCall Smith’s books are often serialised in newspapers. He said he always aims to be four weeks ahead, as a “psychological buffer” - but that once he got down to only two weeks ahead, when the ship he was on lost email communications off the horn of South America. The serialisation offers readers the chance to write in with their suggestions, which he says he takes very seriously. “They have strong romantic tendancies,” he said. “They want central characters to get fixed up with each other.”

Writing four or five novels per year requires great discipline. He described his working day as starting in the early hours of the morning, and going back to bed between 6am to 8am.  He then continues to write into the afternoon. He described going into a sort of trance as he writes. “I think that fiction comes from the subconscious mind,” he said. “It just has to be accessed.” 

After the wall: the new Europe

Five young Russian authors, shortlisted for the Debut Prize, discussed their work and the future of Russian literature. Alexander Gritsenko, Arslan Khasavov, Gulla Khirachev, Polina Klyukina and Victor Puchkov are all under 25, but between them they have already published an impressive number of novels, plays and critical works. 

Natasha Perova, the publisher of an anthology of Debut Prize entries, said: “They were born after the Soviet Union collapsed, and are very different to the post-Soviet generation. If you want to know what Russia will be like in 10 years, read their work.” 

The shortlisted authors were selected from over 50,000 submitted manuscripts. Olga Slavnikova, the prize’s director and a well-known author in her own right, said that the prize was founded to help young people get their work published, and to support the next generation of writers.

The main preoccupations of the young writers are identity and war. Khirachev, from Dagestan, described the “split personality” of many young people growing up in the region, who are torn between a secular state, globalisation, and the increasing influence of Islam. Khasavov, from neighbouring Chechnya, said: “I prefer people who fight for freedom and truth, who are not afraid of imprisonment or death. It doesn’t matter if I share their views or not.” Gritsenko, who had fought in Chechnya, said his book describes the war there: “All sides of the confict must have their say.” Puchkov, who described the life of a diabetic, and Klyukina, who wrote about Russia’s failure to reintigrate convicted criminals, were concerned with representing wider problems in society through individual lives.

Perova admitted to being skeptical at first of this project. “I thought, ‘What can these young people tell me, a middle-aged woman who has read thousands of books? But they described a new Russia which I don’t know - a foreign land. I’ve learnt so much from these books.”