Me, Writing & Place: An Introduction

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Head Space/Geographical Place

I was born in Woolwich, which was an unspeakably boring place to grow up for this young girl. Perhaps if I’d been born somewhere more attractive, dynamic and interesting, like Camden, Brixton or Notting Hill, I wouldn’t have developed my imagination. In the boring world of my childhood I escaped into the world of my imagination through reading books and the local youth theatre. There was nothing else to do. No mobile phones. No Facebook. No internet. No computers. No money. No cafes. Only 3 television channels, all operational for a few hours in the evening only. Yes, it was the deep, ancient past for some of you. But the making of me. Because of all this, because I had time on my hands to think and dream and imagine, because I needed to combat boredom, I became a writer and traveller for whom place and space is at my very core.

Today I see how so many people, especially the youngsters, are entertained all the time. If they’re not texting or talking on the phone, playing phone games and listening to music on their ipods, they’re watching something on a screen, engaging in social network facilities, or playing computer games. You might think I generalize, but this is what I see around me. I remember when people used to sit on public transport and daydream. Where is the mental space to develop the imagination? Where is the mental quiet to read books? Where is the empty space to write them?

How place features in my novels.

My verse novel LARA, based on my family history, traverses time and space, ranging from 19th century Brazil, Ireland and Germany to 1995 London, and in between every decade of the twentieth century London is covered.

In THE EMPEROR’S BABE, also a verse novel, I re-imagined Roman London of 1800 years ago through the eyes of a black woman called Zuleika. Employing liberal doses of anachronism, the ancient city also feels extremely modern.

SOUL TOURISTS, a novel with verse, begins in London but travels through Europe at the end of the 1980s. The two main characters, Jessie and Stanley, drive through France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Iraq and Kuwait. En route hidden historis of Europe are brought to light.

BLONDE ROOTS, my last book and first prose novel, is set in an alternate universe where Europe is located where Africa lies and vice versa. The Ambossan country of the United Kingdom of Great Ambossa is located where the UK is. It’s a topsy turvy world in which Africans enslave Europeans.

Check out my work on my website:

http://www.bevaristo.net or my blog: http://www.bevaristowordpress.com

BUT remember to come back and follow this blog
and my posts too which will appear over the next few days.

tagged under: alternate realities.bernardine evaristo.books.britain.brixton.camden.history.notting hill.novels.novels in verse.social network sites.woolwich.world.writer

Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Reddit

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Bernardine Evaristo

6 Comments

subscribe comments feed

Charlie
July 10th, 2009

Welcome, and I totally agree about us all needing space to daydream….. without always being distracted by technology. I was on a train from London to B’ham the other day listening to my ipod and writing on pen and paper and I could see the teenage guy opposite wondering why I hadn’t got a laptop like him:) Can’t beat pen and paper for a first draft poem though….. and less worry that someone may want to steal it on a train after midnight:) I saw a pen on display a shop today advertised as being ‘Secure for your writing’, ”lock down your words’ it said…. such a bizarre concept, I’ve not found mine slipping off the page when I use a cheap biro – have you?!
Love the Q and A section of your website – especially the questions where the answer is all of them! Great idea, you’ve intrigued me so I’ll be picking up one of your books this summer to find out more.

Reply
Bernardine Evaristo Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Hi Charlie, Nice to e-meet you. I’ll check out your work too.
I’m not 100% convinced that my concerns about ’space to dream’ are correct. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe people do have this space when listening to music, at least.
Time will tell, as they say!

Reply
Jay Bernard
July 12th, 2009

A) Yes, re: space to dream. I think this is part of the discipline of writing. At uni I have stopped writing my essays on computer because they make me lazy, and I find that writing by hand means I regularly think through the whole argument of the essay, updating and editing with each sentence. On a computer, because I’m aware that I can cut and paste I rarely think beyond the paragraph.

B) As someone who comes from Croydon I empathise with you re: Woolwich. As I get older I appreciate my suburb for its bleakness and talk about it with a mixture of pride and contempt: pride because I know it well, and know there’s another side to it that few outsiders will explore; contempt because I feel so far away from the centre. But this is the wrong attitude to have. I’m always irritated by the time it takes to get in and out of central London, but I am beginning to appreciate the act of looking in, as opposed to looking out…

C) Charlie – re: cheap biros. I have yet to find a pen, expensive or otherwise, that writes better than my £1.99 plastic Berol fountain pen. I’ve been buying the same one since I was thirteen and woe betide Berol if it’s ever discontinued.

Reply
Bernardine Evaristo Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Ladies, I recommend blue High Tech Point / V5./ I’ve been writing with them for about 20 years Such a smooth roller action and not to thick or too thin.

Jay, Interesting to hear about your typing/handwriting experience. I’ve realised for a while now that it is only through the act of writing on the screen (prose not poetry) that I know what’s on my mind, Prior to the act of writing something down I often how no idea what I’m going to write, and then magic happens. I think this is my way of creating. That my mind is empty (shame!), until my writing produces stories, opnions, analysis, ideas. I begin a book review, a novel, an essay or an article with some vague ideas and then it materialises before my eyes. I don’t actually have to think things through first. But what if I did? Am I being intellectually lazy?

Re Croydon – oh so much hipper than Woolwich, don’t you think? (Let’s have a suburbia rivalry.) All my life I have referred to Woolwich with derision, as if to admit I am from there is somehow to diminish my identity. I am the same way about the suburb I live in now. ‘I live in X but it’s only because I HAVE to. It was only through investigating my deeper family history into c19 Woolwich for the new version of LARA; a German ancestry (surprisingly that goes back to about 1868, that I’ve begun to modify my behaviour a little – or mature. Ah, but such resistance to my geographical origins…

Would you be a writer, Jay, and as focussed as you clearly are on a creative life if you came from somewhere less provincial.

Reply
Bernardine Evaristo Reply:
July 12th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Sorry for all the typos! I type quickly and then re-read and groan inwardly!

Reply
Charlie
July 12th, 2009

I drool over the wide nibbed black rollerballs that are in diminishing numbers in market stalls and stationers…. everyone seems much more precise and wants the fine tips to write with! Once you find one that works for you… it’s a long term love isn’t it? I’ll look out for the Berol fountain pens next time I’m browsing in WHSmiths, thanks for the tip:)

Reply

Listen

The Poetry Archive

Poetry in the Press

My Place Or Yours