SIR ISAAC NEWTON PURCHASED SHARES IN THE SOUTH SEAS COMPANY WHICH TRADED IN SLAVES I recently learned that the University of Sheffield in England was considering canceling Sir Isaac Newton, or stringing him up in effigy (It turns out he is dead) so … I took it upon myself to write this morning to the …
Somebody asked me about Writer’s Block – Not being able to write: I replied: Okay, I have written lots – as a journalist, diplomat, economist (even), and PR person working in the Italian film and cultural industries, and then as a TV and radio writer and producer and occasional narrator, and finally as a writer …
Martine and I came to the end of the narrow, dusty road and found ourselves in a little fishing village – it consisted of a few houses strung out along the beach and huddling close under the cliff. There was a small beach-front path, and a tiny bar that looked like it was made entirely of bamboo, out on the sand, colorfully painted fishing boats pulled up onto the beach, cantilevered over on their sides.
Here. I’m Gwendoline. Let me introduce my friends. Martine Aubin – my girlfriend. Martine is French and she’s a film star. She is blond, blue-eyed, in super form, beautiful, always a golden tan, always mischievous, affectionate, and loyal, and almost always – even when she’s rip-roaring mad about something – in good humor. She’s very …
ANDREA MANTEGNA’S HOUSE IN MANTUA: Andrea Mantegna, the court painter to the Gonzagas of Mantua, had a talent for conjuring magical spaces out of square boxes – his “bridal chamber” – or camera picta – in Mantua’s Ducal Palace, with its trompe-l’œil oculus, is one example, creating as it does a complex sense of space, …
While writing the novel “Son of Two Fathers” – (2019 House of Anansi Press) – set in the Renaissance between 1536 and 1543, I plunged into the life of Isabella d’Este, ruler of Mantua, a brilliant, talented, highly cultured woman, an effective ruler, a promoter of women’s education, and one of the great patrons of …
I may be old-fashioned, but I believe that bodily, visceral energies are essential for writing fiction. When I was asked to complete the late Jackie Park’s historical novel Son of Two Fathers, I had a few chapters she had written and some ideas she had sketched and discussed with me. But, with Jackie gone, I …
A few small insights from my recent visit to Sicily. Unlimited migration or immigration is not necessarily a delightful thing. In Palermo, sub-Saharan Africans were camped out next to people’s homes, and in public parks and public squares, cooking their food, washing, defecating, etc. Improvised tents. Quite a lot of this. Little hygiene, little or …
John Ralston Saul recently wrote a paean to Canadian multiculturalism indicating that multiculturalism is a panacea and that the ‘nation’ is an outmoded concept. I commented as below: John Ralston Saul makes a number of good points; however, I think we are a bit complacent and smug about our superiority as Canadians as regards multiculturalism: …
This is a nice lively dialogue and as I am someone who is decidedly secular (agnostic in theory, atheist in practice) and as I have written about France and frequently lived there, I am tempted to comment. First, the link between France and Christianity is very deep, from King Clovis to Joan of Arc and …