The Power of Literary Writers

This is something that I was in awe of recently: the Power of Literary Writers. Some people are a able to conceptualise problematic issues in special ways and deal with them accordingly. A select few of those are able to go one further and write about them in interesting and engaging ways. Yet fewer of those are able to write about them through the medium of a novel.

Three different examples that I have read about recently help emphasise my point. These are: the Man Booker Prize, Toni Morrison's endorsement of Barack Obama and a selection of 42 Writers who have each written pieces arguing against the 42 day detention proposal being debated in the Lords today.

The Man Booker Prize 2008

The shortlist for this year's prize was published at the beginning of September and the winner will be announced on Wednesday. I have nearly finished reading all the shortlisted books. My dream choice to be awarded the prize would be Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole. I thought it was a tremendous epic novel. This 700 page masterpiece dealt with a variety of themes, including: betrayal, love, rebellion against accepted norms in society and a fantastic exploration of a father-son relationship.

This is the first novel that the author has published. I have read a couple of interviews by this author since being shortlisted and the thing which struck me was just how successful a philosopher he is on the aforementioned oft-appearing themes in his novel.

Toni Morrison's endorsement of Barack Obama

Toni Morrison was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She famously called former President Bill Clinton America's first black president. Morrison is supporting Barack Obama this year and has done so since early on in this year's election season.

Why is this particular endorsement special? Well, it came in the form of a letter that she wrote to Senator Obama; here is an excerpt taken from the New York Observer:

In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?

Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.

Good luck to you and to us.

I agree with all of what Morrison writes and think that it is an excellent precis of why Obama is a special candidate. The level of understanding that Morrison reaches in her letter is something that I haven't really seen elsewhere.

42 Writers against 42 day detention proposal

Visit 42writers.com and you will be able to read several well-known writers take on the government's proposals for 42 days detention of suspected terrorists. Its not just their views, though. They are all against the proposal; but the point is that they have such valid and interesting reasons for opposing it. For some, like Hardeep Singh Kohli, its about the length itself. For others, like Linda Grant (a short-listed author for this year's Booker prize), its the additional words 'without trial'.

My favourite is the writing by Sadie Jones. In such a short piece, Jones is able to demonstrate the different interpretations of the phrases: terror, war on terror and war on terrorism and why this is problematic.