Pleurisy, Nabokov and me

I recently wrote this short piece for the Vintage books blog about how I got into writing fiction, which I largely put down to a nasty lung infection contracted in the Andes at the age of twenty. The accompanying pictures, put through my rather rudimentary scanner, have come out looking like they were taken about 100 years ago using a Box Brownie, but maybe that all adds to the general sense of ancient history... 

Digging them out, I found myself wondering what happened to my two companions on that journey, Vanessa and Julia, both then students at New Hall. One I know spent a long time in Madrid working for Reuters (we met up there c.1990 when I too was journalistically employed there). The other became an expert on China, a while before it became a manufacturing superpower. More than that, I do not know...

Small girl, BIG greenhouse

Katja at the Palm House, Kew Gardens, last Saturday. For my part, a nice break from First World War murder and mayhem... And the children love it there.

Sharing the I-phone

They were watching a YouTube video of a song from Guys and Dolls... Nice to know the classics haven't lost their magic.

A new slant on 'The Valley'

The new Vintage paperback edition of The Valley of Unknowing comes out just after Easter. This is the new cover, front and back (below). I don't know whether this photograph was taken in Dresden or not, but I do know it was taken in the former GDR. At my suggestion the figure in the foreground was 'enhanced' - which in this case means made to look less fat.

If only life could be Photoshopped as easily as a black & white photograph, we'd all be much better off. Or would we ...?

The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Watch the trailer for this upcoming feature documentary No Fire Zone. It reports on the mass slaughter of civilians by the Sri Lankan government in 2009 - a crime to which much of the world, including the UN, wilfully closed its eyes.

Well, it's about time they were opened. Tell your friends.

Five books for 'The Wall Street Journal'

Following the publication of The Valley of Unknowing in the United States, I was invited to contribute a piece to a regular arts column in The Wall Street Journal. In 'Five Best' writers describe five favourite books on a particular theme; in my case 'Life behind the Iron curtain'. Encouraged by the editor to delve deep into the dustiest recesses of the bookshelf, I came up with these titles, each one from a different part of the former Soviet bloc. In their very different ways they're all superb, and you can read why I think so in last Saturday's column here. Annoyingly, my copy of Sandro of Chegem disappeared years ago, and copies are now quite hard to find in the UK. Even my agent, whose knowledge of these things is famously encyclopaedic, was unable to remember the publisher.

Leo creates an Installation

But then we needed the table for lunch... So much for Ars Longa and all that...