Lydia Syson's Blog, page 2
February 23, 2018
2018 news
A book cover, an expedition, a story.
At long last I can show off the cover of my adult debut novel, which will be out on May 17th this year. . .
Enormous thanks to Alexandra Allden and for such exquisite design and illustration. I think the jacket is stunning, and captures the book perfectly.
is set in the late nineteenth century on an imaginary version of the main island in the , an exceptionally remote volcanic chain about half way between New Zealand and Tonga, where the Pacific and Australian plates collide. Its seed was sown the moment my aunt-by-marriage told me the story of her uncle, ‘King� Bell, who was born on Raoul; his family were once the island’s only inhabitants. I have been imagining this place � re-imagining it as Monday Island � for three years now, never really believing I would ever get there to the Kermadecs myself.
And now I’m going � I’ve just finished repacking my gear bag! I’ll be one of the crew of a wildly exciting expedition organised by the Sir Peter Blake Trust to explore one of the most untouched and biodiverse places on our planet. There are twenty student voyagers on board who’ll be working with a range of scientists and conservation experts, learning why this extroardinary marine regionis so critical to understanding climate change and ocean health.Meet everybody and find out more about what we’ll be up to.Our adventure begins early on 26th February � after our first night on board � and you can follow it here. Find out more about how schools and classrooms can connect with the expedition , where you can also subscribe to the daily blog. And of course I’ll be writing about it and talking about it wherever and whenever I can when I get back.
While I’m away, do look out for a new story on a completely different subject . . . which you can read in the March edition of, the fabulous printed magazine for 8-12 year olds � available by subscription and in many good bookshops. If you’ve not seen it yet, I urge you to get hold of a copy, or ask your school library if they subscribe. It’s beautiful.
Twenty years ago, I made a BBC radio programme about Britain’s worst maritime disaster, a little known tragedy which happened during the ‘darkest hour� in June 1940. Even after the Dunkirk rescue, thousands of British troops were stranded in the west of France. Operation Ariel followed Operation Dynamo, but HMT Lancastria, a cruise ship turned troop carrier, was bombed before she could leave St Nazaire. Churchill was so concerned about the effect this news would have on British morale, he kept it secret. Emilie Henrotin, who was thirteen at the time, and had escaped Belgium with her family was one of the survivors who shared her memories with me. ‘The Secret Sinking�, in this month’s SCOOP, tells Emilie’s story.
June 23, 2017
Authors for Grenfell Tower auction
Raise money for residents affected by the Grenfell Towers fire through the Red Cross and get a bookish bargain at the same time. There’s so much on offer here from tea with authors, a cookery lesson � even your entire family in a children’s novel!
Bid generously and frequently. Buy for yourself! Buy for others! Get ahead with Christmas, birthday, wedding presents…endless options. It’s incredibly easy to bid and you can do it from all over the world. Just enter the amount you’d like to pay in sterling in the comments section.
I’m offering help with your writing � fiction or non-fiction. Full details .
Thanks for your support and for spreading the word.
June 6, 2017
World Book Week writing competition results. . . and other news
Authors aren’t just for World Book Day, and the positive effects of an a school continue to have an impact long after books and banners have been packed up. (Here I am at Sidcot School, Somerset, where bookseller l kindly looked after sales and signing.) Not that the author always sees this. Happily, some of the schools I visited in March this year have sent me a selection of the writing their students produced in response to our sessions. I promised to send a hardback copy of the USedition of to the author of the story I liked best. Little did I realise how hard it would be to choose.
On these particular visits, we spent time together looking at the various different sources that fed into the writing ofThat Burning Summer -family stories and obsessions, a familiar landscape, maps, artefacts in local museums, and above all WW2 propaganda material. Particularly important to this novel was a 1940 leaflet called,which, through an alarming set of ‘rules�, told citizens how they should behave if the country was invaded. I wanted to inspire students to think creatively about the relationship between history and fiction, research and the imagination. We considered a question all story-writers constantly ask themselves � ‘What if?� - and also why writers of historical fiction have to be particularly alert to another: ‘Where are we in time and space?�*
I’ve enjoyed a truly splendid mixture of scenes, beginnings, letters, complete stories, and, in one case, what could only be described as a novella. I’m sorry I can’t mention all the entries, which included a a great deal of beautiful and ambitious writing, or give everyone prizes, but I hope this round-up will illustrate the quality and variety.
Many of the entries took one or other of the leaflet’s rules as their starting point. The order to ‘stay put� in Rule No. 1 seemed to have made a particular impression, but Hannah Walton-Hughes (The Mount School, York) wrote a particularly chilling story of betrayal inspired by Rule No. 2: ‘Do not believe rumours, and do not spread them.� It ends with these words:
‘One lesson I have learned from this experience is that you can never fully trust someone unless you know their whole story. I suppose you could say that I should have read between the lines, and I should have realised the rumours she was spreading. But that is easier said than done. Because there isonly one thingsthatblinds us more than poison gas. Love. And friendship.�
With pupils at The Mount School, York
Most writers set their stories in World War Two, but quite a number dealt with other times and places altogether, from the Easter Rising to the Velvet Revolution, from Nairobi to Vienna. The impact of war and violence on the lives of individuals was thoughtfully realised, often in unexpected ways: Indeigh Winterson of Sidcot School addressed the hopelessness of fleeing from the atom bomb in Hiroshima. There were entries that stood out for sheer drama � special mentions here to Stanley Wiseman, Charlotte Fuller & Louise Colechin (Rainham Mark Grammar School). I also enjoyed some very recognisable depictions of Kentish marshes. Sophie Lofthaire and Isla Brown, both of The Mount School, wrote stories that were impressively atmospheric and poetic in their lyricism. Isla’s bold treatment of schizophrenia was both original and arresting, while Sophie’s story had an other-worldly air:
The marshes are blank and exposed in Winter. They are made up of criss-crossing lines of green and white and brown and black. The green is the low, scrubby grass. The white is the snow that swirls around in the chilled air. Thebrown is the mud which sticks to everything it can get its gloopy, grasping hands on. The black is the night sky dotted with brilliant stars that lurk on the horizon and spreads like a blanket over your head. The lines intertwine as I run over the marshes.
Others moved me because they evoked so well the intensity of chance emotional connections between strangers in wartime (one example is Luca Cuckson of Sidcot). Anna Sties (The Mount School) retold a true story from her family’s past, hauntingly recreating an encounter between Hitler and her own grandfather in Munich when he was a boy. Matthew McCue (Rainham Mark) wrote a convincing portrayal of the family reaction to a young man’s decision to join the RAF, like his absent father, and ‘do his bit�. Hearing his Dad’s voice on the radio-com becomes a highlight, especially on the first ‘real� field mission to drop supplies in France:
‘We were having the time of our lives, felt like the whole sky was ours, until dreaded news came in. . .�
I was impressed by the sophistication of the ideas expressed in Jacob Perry’sA Conflict of Interest,while Sarah Carr’sTwenty Reasons to go to Viennaappealed as it reminded me of two of my own favourite childhood stories, National Velvetand Airs Above the Ground. Sarah and Jacob are both at Sidcot School.) So thank you, everybody, for letting me read your writing, and thank you also to the librarians and teachers who made it possible and welcomed me so warmly to your schools.
And that novella I mentioned?Huge congratulations to James Barber of Sidcot School, forThese Talking Walls,a political thrillerset in Prague in the early days of the Velvet Revolution.Astonishingly mature, this intricately plotted, well-researched and genuinely suspenseful tale of heroism and betrayal wins James a copy of the US hardback edition ofThat Burning Summer, and my profound admiration. You can read it.
Other news:
Stanisław Duszyński
Czesława Wyszinski, née Dombkowska
- I’ve been able to update my blog post on the in the Battle of Britain with some wonderful photographs of the vanished pilotStanisław Duszyński and his wartime fiancé,Czesława. Many thanks to her granddaughter for getting in touch.
-Last weekend I visited an exhibition now on at the Islington Museum called ‘� (in collaboration with the Marx Memorial Library), which tells the story of Islington’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War and illustrates the reach of the Aid Spain movement. Catch it if you possibly can before July 8th. Full details and related events, including guided walks,.
- My Paris Commune novel,Liberty’s Fire,has recently been picked out in two different round-ups. InBooks for Keepsit’s among � while the US Barnes and Noble teen blog selected it as one of : ‘Even if you know nothing about the Commune of Paris or the Franco-Prussian War (before reading this, I certainly didn’t), Lydia Syson’s incredible worldbuilding will have you feeling as if you’re right there with them—running through the streets and crying revolution while Paris is burning.�
- Don’t forget the first evertakes place this month on June 21st. I’ll be taking part through CWISL’s schools writing festival, at London’s South Bank university, June 19-20th. This video for our sister festival, !, will give you a good feel for what we’re planning.
*This is question I’ve stolen from Jenny Offili’s,although I should point out her use of it is both layered and ironic.
January 30, 2017
US publication
The new edition ofThat Burning Summer will be onthe shelves of American bookshops from today, in beautiful hardback, introducing a whole new set of readers to the tensions, excitement and quirks of life in Britain in World War 2. Invasion, spyfever, fear of flying, pacifism, betrayal…and love, all in a corner of England so close to France you could hear the fighting across the channel: Romney Marsh, often referred to as the Fifth Continent.
This new edition doesn’t just have a striking new cover. It’s got a whole new penultimate chapter, and it has also been carefully ‘Americanised�. This was a fascinating process, which involved an extraordinary amount of headscratching and much consultation on both sides of the Atlantic. Many thanks to friends, family and fellow writers for all their thoughts. Although it’s fairly routine for British authors to have spelling and slang changed for North American readers (see Keren David’s blog post on the subject: ‘�) I quickly realised that ‘Americanising� period fiction opens a whole new can of worms, particularly for a novel set so squarely in England, and one which is partly about language itself. My editor was extremely patient as I weighed each word and considered its nuances. We moved from ‘pram� to ‘stroller� (surely too modern?), settled on ‘baby carriage�, and exchanged endless emails about underwear, which proved a mine field. (Pants, french knickers, vests, nappies, diapers�)
Unfortunately you won’t find these final changes in the NetGalley edition, as the ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) had to be rushed through while I was out of contact in a rainforest in Nicaragua last summer. So none of the reviews so far are based on the finished book people will (I hope) be buying from today! Nonetheless, reaction has been very encouraging so far.
The influential (Voice of Youth Advocates) magazine has just awarded the book a generous 9/10 rating, describing the book as ‘an engaginghistory/mystery/romance�:
5Q 4P J S NA
[5Q= quality (hard to imagine it better written),5P= popularity (every young adult who reads was dying to read it yesterday). Only 3% of reviewed books published in 2016 got a 'perfect 10'.]
This many-layered story offers much to consider. The father’s conscientious objection and the pilot’s desertion raise antiwar messages and discussions about courage. Peggy’s “love� may come from guilt over her father’s choices and her own naiveté. Ernest illustrates how one can grow a mental monster from a few facts shaped by fear. Syson even explores how war energizes the local bully and challenges his victims. Yet, with all these issues, she produces a page-turner mystery that has the reader rooting for all her multidimensional characters. The audience will be primarily female, but the book is an excellent addition to any library collection. —Lucy Schall.
It’s a book of the month for:
‘The novel, told from alternating points of view, addresses the complicated moral grounds of desertion, cowardice, and compassion. Peggy, Ernest, and Henryk all have layered emotions about the war and each other that they must work through in the aftermath of Henryk’s accident. Trust at times runs thin, and shifting loyalties complicate their relationships. Despite the characters� obvious sincerity, the culture of the war leads to an aura of suspicion that further disturbs the precarious peace. And while the novel starts off slowly, it soon picks up the pace, rapidly moving toward a final, explosive conclusion.That Burning Summeris a surprisingly sweet read, ideal for fans of historical fiction. The story takes a serious tone, but will pay off for those willing to take the thoughtful journey with Peggy, Henryk, and Ernest.�
And here are some other bloggers� responses:
‘This is a fantastic book and a must read for historical fiction fans.�
‘I fell in love with the story�
‘Looking for a character-driven WW2 novel? Look no further!�
‘It’s beautiful and sad and sweet, and sometimes all these feelings are felt at once and you want to burst. But don’t! Trust me. This book is too good to have your burst right in the middle of it and never finish it.�
(This last was one of my favourite reviews, because it celebrated the effect that fiction about yesterday’s politics can have on today’s. It was tweeted by blogger Bree Garcia with the words: ‘It’s a great time for THAT BURNING SUMMER by because we need strong, brave women like Peggy.�)
I’m looking forward to hearing how the new version of novel goes down with other readers in North America. If you’re in the US, you can buy it from an independent bookshop here at or from . Or . And of course you can review it yourself.
Meanwhile, over on , I’m celebrating my US publication day by exploring love and war in a number of highly recommended recent and upcoming historical novels for young readers set during times of conflict.
US publication day
The new edition ofThat Burning Summer will be onthe shelves of American bookshops from today, in beautiful hardback, introducing a whole new set of readers to the tensions, excitement and quirks of life in Britain in World War 2. Invasion, spyfever, fear of flying, pacifism, betrayal…and love, all in a corner of England so close to France you could hear the fighting across the channel: Romney Marsh, often referred to as the Fifth Continent.
This new edition doesn’t just have a striking new cover. It’s got a whole new penultimate chapter, and it has also been carefully ‘Americanised�. This was a fascinating process, which involved an extraordinary amount of headscratching and much consultation on both sides of the Atlantic. Many thanks to friends, family and fellow writers for all their thoughts. Although it’s fairly routine for British authors to have spelling and slang changed for North American readers (see Keren David’s blog post on the subject: ‘�) I quickly realised that ‘Americanising� period fiction opens a whole new can of worms, particularly for a novel set so squarely in England, and one which is partly about language itself. My editor was extremely patient as I weighed each word and considered its nuances. We moved from ‘pram� to ‘stroller� (surely too modern?), settled on ‘baby carriage�, and exchanged endless emails about underwear, which proved a mine field. (Pants, french knickers, vests, nappies, diapers�)
Unfortunately you won’t find these final changes in the NetGalley edition, as the ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) had to be rushed through while I was out of contact in a rainforest in Nicaragua last summer. So none of the reviews so far are based on the finished book people will (I hope) be buying from today! Nonetheless, reaction has been very encouraging so far:
It’s a book of the month for:
‘The novel, told from alternating points of view, addresses the complicated moral grounds of desertion, cowardice, and compassion. Peggy, Ernest, and Henryk all have layered emotions about the war and each other that they must work through in the aftermath of Henryk’s accident. Trust at times runs thin, and shifting loyalties complicate their relationships. Despite the characters� obvious sincerity, the culture of the war leads to an aura of suspicion that further disturbs the precarious peace. And while the novel starts off slowly, it soon picks up the pace, rapidly moving toward a final, explosive conclusion.That Burning Summeris a surprisingly sweet read, ideal for fans of historical fiction. The story takes a serious tone, but will pay off for those willing to take the thoughtful journey with Peggy, Henryk, and Ernest.�
And here are some other bloggers� reactions:
‘This is a fantastic book and a must read for historical fiction fans.�
‘I fell in love with the story�
‘Looking for a character-driven WW2 novel? Look no further!�
‘It’s beautiful and sad and sweet, and sometimes all these feelings are felt at once and you want to burst. But don’t! Trust me. This book is too good to have your burst right in the middle of it and never finish it.�
(This last was one of my favourite reviews, because it celebrated the effect that fiction about yesterday’s politics can have on today’s. It was tweeted by blogger Bree Garcia with the words: ‘It’s a great time for THAT BURNING SUMMER by because we need strong, brave women like Peggy.�)
I’m looking forward to hearing how the new version of novel goes down with other readers in North America. Meanwhile, over on , I’m celebrating my US publication day by exploring love and war in a number of highly recommended recent and upcoming historical novels for young readers set during times of conflict.
December 14, 2016
Poems inspired by GUERNICA, 1937
A concluded that the number of civilians around the world killed by explosive weapons had risen by 55% in five years. The humanitarian crisis in Yemen has finally hit the headlines this week � a crisis that has been building for nearly two years due to a proxy war in which the UK government is . Today, the evacuation of Aleppo has been delayed, and airstrikes continue. It’s hard for young people in the UK to make sense of any of this. It’s harder still, now that what was once called ‘total warfare� has becomecommonplace, to imagine what it was like in the 1930s when, during the Spanish Civil War, the first cities in Europe were attacked from the air.
When I met year 10s earlier this term atto talk about my novelA World Between Us,and British involvement in the Spanish Civil War, we also discussed the difficulties many of them had in understanding the impact of the very first aerial bombardments. In small group workshops, we explored the response of poets and artists, including Picasso, to the bombardment of Guernica in 1937. After watching and listening to contemporary newsreel footage and press reports, the students produced their own, very immediate poetic responses. The poems below were all written in the last 10 minutes of a busy hour, packed with discussion, drama and group recitation. I’m delighted to be publishing them here now.
They fall,
Like dreams falling from the sky
Planting themselves in our lives
They fall,
Destroying everything in their path
Grasping anything near your heart
We fall
Nothing but shadows remain
Knowing nothing will ever be the same
Anya Travassos
Bombs
Bouncing and banging
The ground shakes
Homes break
It all comes crumbling down
Shadows stretch to encompass all
Forcing a world of black and white
Yet colours blend
We shall amend
And take back what is right
Elena Hornby
In an ancient town
Everyone’s been let down
Destroyed and destroyed
With people being killed, over killed
With the hole 25 feet deep
With a tragedy beneath our feet
It’s an emotional time for everyone around
Still. Everyone silent
As they hear the sound of wreck and death and threat in the air.
Safiyah Borde-Kuofie
Bricks crashing upon civilians
Unparalleled for destroying millions
Anticipation filling the air
Children crying in despair
Niah Hay-Henry and Sally Prifti
Silent and still lays the left over debris
Silent and still lay the devastated civilians
Loud and immense as the flames lit the town up
Loud and immense as the people demolish
The breeze runs through the ruthless place
Civilians� spirits going with it, full of grace
Martha Edwards
Stomach churning up
Eyes swelling with water
Heart beating fast
Fists start to clench
I can hear the screams in my head
The anger wants to explode out of me
Thinking how all the dead bodies lay
I felt as deep as the 25 foot hole
The gunshots make my ears bleed
Leaves me with sleepless nights
Tragedy overtaking our town
Terror left in our lives
The relentless banging
Sylvie Locke
Terror devours the city
Strangled cries and screams echo
Around the crumbling walls
The chorus of guns shatters down the street
Can you hear her?
She calls for her baby: ‘Where is she?�
The planes� hum drones on,
Their bombs peel off them.
Ester Schomberg
The bombs flying like birds
Swooping down and landing on houses
The light flashing from the window panes
But then came the crashing of the lanes
Mothers and children are heard screaming
While others in the world are day dreaming
The threat from the air is high
But when it gets to you � you sigh
Open your eyes and see the light
Before it turns to night.
Anonymous
September 6, 2016
New Blood for the Republic: the Spanish Civil War, eighty years on
80th anniversary commemorations and conferences have been taking place up and down this country as well as Spain to mark the Spanish Civil War, initiated by a right-wing military coup in July 1936, followed by Franco’s long dictatorship. It’sa measure of just how involved Britain was in the conflict which many see as a rehearsal for World War Two. Giving a paper myself about the evolution of my YA novelA World Between Usat the fascinating ‘Spanish Civil War in World Literature� conference at London’s School of Advanced Studies, I mentioned the iBook edition which was put together in 2012 with the generous help of vast numbers of archives and libraries in the UK and US (thanks). The image above of a young female anti-fascist donating blood to be sent to the front lines for wounded Republican soldiers was provided by the London School of Economics. The iBook also features specially recorded interviews with leading historians Paul Preston and Richard Baxell and a rare and cherished contribution from the last International Brigader alive in Britain at the time, David Lomon, whose path to Spain was remarkably similar to that of my young Jewish hero, Nat. “It’s like a whole Digital Humanities project,� was the response of some Canadian academics when I showed it off.
Maybe not quite that grand or ambitious…but I’m still immensely proud of what Hot Key Books achieved with the iBook: text and extra features combine to give a clear, accessible and moving introduction to the war for all ages that costs no more than a paperback. This edition is illuminating on the role of journalists and medics as well as military volunteers. I can’t think of any equivalent. To be honest, I’m also still rather sad that all the confusion between ebooks, iBooks, epubs, apps, Kindles, Kobos, tablets etc etc etc � even worse three and half years ago than it is today � meant that the ‘multitouch’�A World Between Ussuffered from considerable marketing difficulties. It was just so hard to explain what it was!
But we have moved on in both understanding and technology � a little � and the iBook with music, photographs, original letters, cartoons, posters, pamphlets, propaganda and interactive maps, all once only accessible on an iPad, can now be downloaded for use on any up-to-date Apple platform. You can get a good sense of it , and buy it. So it’s not too late. Take up of both history and Spanish in schools is very much on there rise. Can you understand Spanish culture without knowing something of? Let me know what you think. Sales pitch over.
Almost. If you’re in London on the afternoon of October 1st, please join me and Michael Rosen at Rich Mix for a special family event commissioned by Philosophy Football as part ofThe Signal Was Spain.
July 18, 2016
New blood for the Republic: the Spanish Civil War, eighty years on
To mark the Spanish Civil War, initiated by a right-wing military coup in July 1936, and followed by Franco’s long dictatorship, 80th anniversary commemorations and conferences have been taking place up and down this country as well as Spain � a measure of just how involved Britain was in the conflict which many see as a rehearsal for World War Two. Giving a paper myself last week about the evolution of my YA novel A World Between Usat the fascinating ‘Spanish Civil War in World Literature� conference at London’s School of Advanced Studies, I mentioned the iBook edition which was put together in 2012 with the generous help of vast numbers of archives and libraries in the UK and US (thanks ). The image above of a young female anti-fascist donating blood to be sent to the front lines for wounded Republican soldiers was provided by the London School of Economics. The iBook also features specially recorded interviews with leading historians Paul Preston and Richard Baxell and a rare and cherished contribution from the last International Brigader alive in Britain at the time, David Lomon, whose path to Spain was remarkably similar to that of my young Jewish hero, Nat.”It’s like a whole Digital Humanities project,� was the response of some Canadian academics when I showed it off.
Maybe not quite that grand or ambitious…but I’m still immensely proud of what Hot Key Books achieved with the iBook: text and extra features combine to give a clear, accessible and moving introduction to the war for all ages that costs no more than a paperback. This edition is illuminating on the role of journalists and medics as well as military volunteers. I can’t think of any equivalent. To be honest, I’m also still rather sad that all the confusion between ebooks, iBooks, epubs, apps, Kindles, Kobos, tablets etc etc etc � even worse three and half years ago than it is today � meant that the ‘multitouch’�A World Between Ussuffered from considerable marketing difficulties. It was just so hard to explain what it was!
But we have moved on in both understanding and technology � a little � and the iBook with music, photographs, original letters, cartoons, posters, pamphlets, propaganda and interactive maps, all once only accessible on an iPad, can now be downloaded for use on any up-to-date Apple platform. You can buy it . So it’s not too late. And take up of both history and Spanish in schools is going up all the time. Can you understand Spanish culture without knowing something of ? Let me know what you think. Sales pitch over.
May 8, 2016
The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia: book review
Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with , teacher, poet and revolutionary heroine of the 1871 Paris Commune, but she’s not exactly a well-known figure in the English-speaking world. Yet. If The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia, the new graphic biography by Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot, has anything like the success of their remarkable first collaboration, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes � and it certainly deserves to � that could be about to change.
Michel is hardly obscure. In fact she’s legendary. She’s iconic. In France (and indeed New Caledonia) there have been schools and streets and squares named after her, not to mention two International Brigade battalions and a Metro station. She romanticised her own life in her memoirs, and has been mythologised ever since. She was a saint, but a trying one, as an imagined contemporary in The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia admits. By embedding her biography within not one but two other narratives, the Talbots subtly acknowledge all this and simultaneously reframe Michel in an entirely new way. She emerges as an inspiring if imperfect visionary, whose utopian dreams and desires for a more perfect world might actually, by implication, be one day within our reach.
I won’t give away its surprising outer envelope, but the main story begins with Michel’s death, and the arrival of her coffin at the Gare de Lyon in Paris on January 22nd 1905. Michel’s formidable face is framed by a wreath of red carnations, but she’s not named, and the reader is left to work out why crowds are gathering, and red flags flying. As the ǰè leaves the station, in a scene which somehow looks both forwards and back to the proclamation of the Commune at the Hôtel de Ville on March 26th 1871, we see a young woman holding up a sign for Mrs Charlotte Perkins Gilman. America’s famous feminist is on a European lecture tour. Michel’s story will emerge in conversation between Gilman and Monique, the daughter of fellow revolutionary who stood on the barricades with Michel. A little later, the unnamed one-eyed Communarde joins them.
The double narrative hinges on an imagined meeting in London. As far as I’m aware, Gilman only once encountered Michel and her fellow anarchists, Kropotkin and Reclus (‘desperately earnest souls�), at the alternative meeting arranged in London 1896 after the anarchists had been banned from the International Socialist and Labour Congress. She was impatient with what she perceived as the weakness of the anarchists� philosophy. In the Talbots� version, Gilman, who will eventually write Herland,instead recalls a delightful evening spent with Michel around that time discussing their shared obsession with utopian novels. (‘She was full of fantastical ideas.�) Monique and Gilman reflect on fiction’s potential as ‘food for the mind�, and sci-fi becomes a creative lens through which The Red Virgin can view the life of a nineteenth-century political radical.
In an otherwise almost exclusively black-and-white visual narrative, splashes of red link flowers, flags, banners, scarves, pens, books, and a giant octopus. There are a few other significant shifts in colour. The sky turns rosy at the pivotal moment on March 18th when the French government sent the regular army soldiers to steal Montmartre’s canon from the city militia, the National Guard. Later, in two wordless images, a missile hits a cherry tree: chassepot on her shoulder, Michel looks up through an explosion of pink blossom. Here the Talbots exquisitely evoke the hope and destruction of the ‘temps des cerises�, and also Michel’s ‘curious aesthetic� � a slightly disturbing capacity to see beauty in bombs, to be enchanted by revolutionary destruction.
The graphic format lends itself particularly well to interacting narratives: hard white frames seperate the Gilman/Monique conversation from the soft blurred edges of the story it narrates. But when it comes to the massacre in Paris that followed the invasion of the Versailles army � the paving stones ran with blood � all borders vanish. The horror can’t be contained. A fog of ash descends like snow, and the flies gather over thousands of lime-sprinkled stinking corpses.
The Commune only lasted 72 days, and rightly takes up about half of this book. Naturally I’d hoped the rest would take in a little more of , including perhaps her school in Fitzrovia, and her houseful of cats, but tight selection is precisely the art of a biography like this. The sequence depicting Michel’s deportation to New Caledonia and her support of the indigenous Melanesians� revolution more than compensates. It cleverly reveals the double-standards and blindspots not only of her fellow Communards-in-exile but also Charlotte Perkins Gilman, showing just how unusual Louise Michel was in her empathy for all the oppressed of this earth, regardless of race, class or gender. She was equally zealous in her attention to needy animals.
Published on the 400th anniversary of More� Utopia, this book both simplifies and complicates the story of the Commune and its thinkers and activists; it does so beautifully, by putting the imagination centre stage, and looking at the past with an eye always on the future.
by Mary M Talbot and Bryan Talbot was published by Jonathan Cape this month, and, like, was supported using public funding by Arts Council England. More Paris Commune reading recommendations .
April 11, 2016
April news
A quick update�
Over at , April isShakespeare month, though not exclusively. My contribution has been of the many different ways in which the Bard has been used by writers of children’s fiction, for which I enlisted the help of Tig Thomas, a friend, an editor and an anthologer who knows more about both Shakespeare and period children’s literature than anybody else I know.
The enviable precision of her memory always astonishes me. If you have any thoughts of books we’ve left out, please do let us know by adding your comment (which does involve becoming a ‘follower� of the site, but don’t worry � that only means you’ll easily be able to enter competitions on the blog in future and it won’t clog up your inbox.
On Saturday I joined fellow
Margaret Bateson-Hill and a young supporter with signs made using illustrator Sarah McIntyre’s marvellous designs:
(including Jo Franklin, Mo O’Hara, Margaret Bateson-Hill, Amanda Lillywhite and Sam Osman), friend and family, and over 2,000 other library supporters on the march from Carnegie Library, via Minet, to Tate Central Library in Brixton to protest against the undemocratic and unwanted closures of ten library branches by Lambeth Council. The ten-day occupation of the Carnegie preceding this demonstration has had unprecedented press coverage, and huge support from writers and illustrators up and down the country, many of whom also attended the vigil and/or the march. Today’s good news is that the Department of Culture Media and Sport is now (finally!) going to investigate Lambeth Council’s plans: thePublic Libraries & Museums Act of 1964 means the DCMS hasa legal duty to intervene if a council is failing to provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient� library service. Let this be a source of hope to library campaigners nationwide! Find out more on the websites of and .
Readers of this blog will be aware of the close relationship that has long existed between CWISL and Lambeth Libraries, particularly the Carnegie, and the important role South London libraries play in our bi-annual children’s writing festival, ! As I wrote on National Library Day , Lambeth and Southwark Councils have taken completely different approaches to their library services since austerity measures began: all credit is due to Southwark for making libraries a borough-wide priority. Here’s the latest , produced by Carnegie campaigner Amanda Lillywhite, including a report on Library Day and some shivering Wallys. (It’s not too late if you’d like to help support CWISL’s fundraising efforts of the National Literary Trust, by the way…just step . Huge thanks to everyone who’s contributed already.)
And finally, another library related story…here’s a piece I wrote last month for the Morning Star in anticipation of an event held at the Marx Memorial Library on March 31st. The MML is the home of the archive of the British Battalion of International Brigade, and I spoke to archivist Meirian Jump about the importance of this collection in my research. You can read theMorning Star‘s review ofLiberty’s Fire.
