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Hay in Cartagena: Days 3 and 4

by Edward Davey / February 3, 2009 / Leave a comment
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claustro-de-santo-domingo

A charmed circle

Day 3 began (for me) with Junot Diaz and Alma Guillermoprieto in discussion about their work. Guillermoprieto’s beautifully written essays for the New York Review of Books will be well known to many Prospect readers: she spoke about her coverage of the conflicts in Colombia and Central America in the 1980s and 1990s, where she reported for the Guardian (Jon Snow and Gerald Martin admiringly recalled her bravery throughout the period). Among her other commitments, she teaches at Garcia Marquez’s school for young Latin American journalists in Cartagena, and spoke of how she has always aspired to write in such a way that her readers feels as though as they are accompanying her to the places she is describing. Diaz spoke about Obama’s decisive Latin American vote, expressing his fear nevertheless that “immigration will be sacrificed for political capital” by the Obama administration over the next few years.

Then a privileged 40 minutes sitting in an armchair next to Martin Amis, hanging on his every word while he was interviewed by a freelance journalist, Toby Muse. Amis spoke of the novel he is currently writing, The Pregnant Widow, about the sexual revolution in the 1970s, and quoted substantial passages from Updike, Nabokov, Conrad et al, while simultaneously rolling cigarette after cigarette between gently trembling hands.

In the afternoon, there was a good debate between Matt Frei, Jon Snow and Alejandro Santos, editor of Colombia’s pre-eminent news weekly, Semana (a bastion of independent journalism), on the state of the world’s media.  Frei reflected wryly about how he and others had failed altogether to see the current economic crisis coming but, then, so had the head of the central reserve; Snow, of his sense of moral responsibility—more vivid than ever  before—to question and interrogate every step now taken by bankers and our political leaders.

Fittingly, night then fell, and the melancholy, soulful, raging, unique voice of Sarah Jane  Morris— accompanied by the epiphanous guitar-playing of Dominic Miller—cast a spell over a full Claustro de Santo Domingo.

On Day 4, Jeremy Leggett—ex-Greenpeace, now head of Solar Century—spoke at once gloomily and inspiringly about climate change: such a challenge, so terrifying in its implications, and yet so much that can be done.  His message was seconded by Juan Pablo Ruiz, the World Bank’s man on the environment in Colombia, who also…

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Comments

  1. The Bolter
    February 3, 2009 at 20:05
    Davey's glowing word-pictures are positively inspirational - much more enjoyable than the banal tripe such events can attract. ( This former fan will be buying Amis's next book after all ). Prospect, Amazon & the Cartawotnot Tourist board should keep him on a retainer The festival itself seems in snow-blinding contrast to our insultingly dumbed-down BBC4 ( barring a recent screening of Herzog's ' The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser 'easily his best film , all the more relevant in light of the Hans Fritzl nightmare ) are the producers on the drugs ? Not that ITV is faring much better - the eternally arrogant Melvyn Bragg sounds like Charlie Drake on helium in his old age .. Last night, a BBC4 show called the Book Quiz included a painfully immodest panel of pen pushers ( Will Self, Victoria Glenwotsit, Germaine Greer ) along with the staggeringly handsome art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon ( the latter excused - anything - for his own brilliant contributions to BBC past ) none of whom recognised an obviously classic passage from Nabokov , despite it being read aloud by the unmistakable Maestro himself ( Amis would have got it at the first syllable of the first word ) proving 'celebrities are but gluttonous cuckoos in the cultural nest http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hd1mp/b00hd19m/The_Book_Quiz_Series_3_Episode_2/ In his defence - Self sounded genuinely gutted - the near deafening, pneumatic drill delivery of her lines by the quiz mistress ( a sometime Newsnight presenter with all the aesthetic subtlety of a pantechnicon ), clearly no fan of Bamber Gascoine , would have been enough to put Hitler off his stride . Bring back Michael Ignatiev - bring back Hermione Lee !
  2. John Martin
    February 6, 2009 at 08:48
    "Snow, of his sense of moral responsibility—more vivid than ever before..." His sense of saintly superiority - more vivid than ever before, you mean.

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About this author

Edward Davey
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