Book Club: Sunday 29 May 2011
In May we are reading the most recent works of poet and writer Jackie Kay. Book club members can select either the memoir Red Dust Road or its companion piece, the collection of poetry entitled Fiere. Or they can do both.We shall be meeting on Sunday 29 May at 3pm, at Waterstone's Piccadilly branch, on the 5th floor.
Red Dust Road
'What makes us who we are? My adoption is a story that has happened to me. I couldn't make it up.'
From the moment when, as a little girl, she realises that her skin is a different colour from that of her beloved mum and dad, to the tracing and finding of her birth parents, her Highland mother and Nigerian father, the journey that Jackie Kay undertakes in Red Dust Road is full unexpected twists, turns and deep emotions.
In a book shining with warmth, humour and compassion, she discovers that inheritance is about much more than genes: that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells, and that our internal landscapes are as important as those through which we move.
Taking the reader from Glasgow to Lagos and beyond, Red Dust Road is revelatory, redemptive and courageous, unique in its voice and universal in its reach. It is a heart-stopping story of parents and siblings, friends and strangers, belonging and beliefs, biology and destiny, and love.
FiereJackie Kay's new collection is a lyric counterpart to her memoir, Red Dust Road, the extraordinary story of the search for her Nigerian and Highland birth-parents; but it also a moving book in its own right, and a deep enquiry into all forms of human friendship. Fiere - Scots for 'companion, friend, equal' - is a vivid description of the many paths our lives take, and how those journeys are made meaningful by our companions on the road: lovers, friends, parents, children, mentors - as well as the remarkable and chance acquaintances we would not otherwise have made. Written with Kay's trademark wit and flair, and infused with both Scots and Igbo speech, it is also a fascinating account of the formation of a self-identity - and the discovery of a tongue that best honours it. Musical and moving, funny and profound, Fiere is Jackie Kay's most accomplished, assured and ambitious collection of poems to date.
About the Author
Jackie was born in Edinburgh. She is a poet, novelist and writer of short stories and has enjoyed great acclaim for her work for both adults and children. Her novel Trumpet won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and she has published two collections of stories with Picador, Why Don't You Stop Talking and I Wish I Was Here. Jackie Kay's full publication list on Amazon. She teaches at Newcastle University and lives in Manchester. More about Jackie on her Wikipedia page.
Reviews: Red Dust Road
Aminatta Forna in The Guardian.
From The Scottish Herald. No idea who the writer of this review is - but I guess that the phrase 'an unfashionably black child' is an oblique reference to the Angelina Jolie, Madonna and Sandra Bullock's adoptions. What do you think? Otherwise it is such a strange thing to say.
Daisy Goodwin's review appeared in The Times. [This one is not behind the pay wall.]
An interview with Jackie Kay from The Telegraph.
Reviews: Fiere
Jackie Kay interviewed by Mark Lawson on BBC Radio 4's Front Row - it is the second item and starts at 6.43 minutes into the programme.
Bill Greenwell's review in The Independent.
Tolu Ogunlesi's review from the The Lagos Review.
Praise for Jackie Kay
'One of the liveliest talents of her generation' Sunday Telegraph
'Kay's humour and optimism are transcendent' Sunday Herald
'Kay possesses a lyrical gift that infuses her prose with seductive colour' Scotsman
'She leaves the reader elated and amazed.' Daily Telegraph
First Impressions
I actually finished reading the book (Red Dust Road) about three weeks ago now, I think that Jackie Kay is a wonderful writer, her way with words is totally exquisite. Red Dust Road is dedicated 'For my family' and this book explores what is family - the reality and the reality that could have been. The care with which Jackie seeks to nurture relationships with the parents that gave her up is very moving and so generously written. The glorious bits are about the wonderful, loving, confidence giving people that brought her up, and I also particularly enjoyed the fact that this is also very much a love letter to the countries and peoples - family and friends - of Scotland and Nigeria.
In last Sunday's The Observer the journalist and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup responded to a a reader on her problem page as follows: 'Having recently read Jackie Kay's brilliant Red Dust Road, adoption has been much on my mind of late. Her description of being a mixed-race child in a white Scottish Marxist home offers a compelling argument for opening our homes to similarly abandoned children. For the past 20 years such blending of colour and culture has been frowned upon and children were considered better off in orphanages than in a culturally "alien" but loving home environment. Thankfully that obstacle has now been removed and in her homage to nurture not nature Kay makes a strong case for the benefits to all concerned of looking beyond our own biology for children to raise. '
You just know that this will be a rich and varied discussion at the next Black Reading Group. Hope that you can make it.
