Glimpse at FGLF 2019 Day 2

The following captures highlights from Day 2 sessions of the Fairway Galle Literary Festival 2019.

By Ruqyyaha Deane

Justine Picardie
‘This was a woman however fragmented her history, however tragic her past, this was a woman who did so much. She never thought it was her last show, she always thought about what was next,’ tells Justine Picardie to the audience gathered at the Amangalla hotel. Picardie is a British novelist, fashion writer and biographer whose biography on Coco Chanel allowed her to delve deep into the secret life of Gabrielle Chanel.

Tishani Doshi
A writer, a dancer and poet. Tishani Doshi claims that poetry had always been an oral tradition. Poetry belonged both on paper and in your body in some way. ‘Poetry has always been this chant. I have had wonderful experiences of poets reading their own books.’ Doshi recounts just before she reads three of her poems to the audience. An Ode to Patrick Swayze, Girls are coming out of the woods and Find the poets. Speaking of Girls coming of the woods which is also the title of her recently launched book she tells the audience ‘Part of the poems in it are a reclamation to give back a voice to those who had
lost their voices.’

Sir David Hare
Sir David Hare is one of Britain’s best-known screenwriters and playwrights, with over 30 plays and 25 screenplays under his name. In his discussion ‘The play’s the thing’ held at Royal Court Spa Ceylon discussed pressure from society to change theatre, the role of women in theatre, the controversy behind his plays and much more.
Regarding the popularity of his plays, he says “If you’re writing against the grain of public opinion, it takes a long time for them to come around to it.” He believes his plays come from the ‘…phenomena of aftershocks of the first 10 years of the 21st century.’

Galle Literary Panel – Mothers and Daughters
For Day 2 of the Galle Literary Festival, a panel was arranged titled ‘Mothers and Daughters’
which was presented by Anne Enright, Nandana Sen and Rachel Johnson.
Enright explained the roles of mothers and how they differ in each of her books claiming that she does not judge her characters on a moral basis. Johnson digged into the difficulty of finding books about absent mothers. The incredible pressure on women to become mothers, and to be “motherly” - present and maternal was also discussed. Sen opted to read some of her mother’s poetry which she had translated on the sly whereas Enright and Johnson read excerpts from their own books.

Anthony Horowitz and Charles Cumming
A duet titled ‘Is this a Dagger?’ by English spy fiction novelists, Anthony Horowitz and
Charles Cumming related the intricacies of the Secret Service, Bond world and everything
related to spies. Horowitz related to the audience that ‘If you are writing contemporary spy stories, the world moves too fast and to keep it new and exciting it's a mud race.’ With Cumming adding in that
‘in a post 9/11 world, spying has lost its mystique.’

Both authors agreed that Fleming gave Bond a twisted dark nature that made him ‘a step between the Victorian hero gentlemen and the modern psychotic killer.’

The following images were captured from the session Galle Literary Panel – Mothers and Daughters and Sir David Hare's session 'The Play's the Thing' - pix by Sameera Weerasekera