Open Book Festival, Cape Town

Friday 21 September 3:30pm SAST

A National Literature?

Keynote address by: Anjali Joseph

Since the first Edinburgh Writers’ Conference in 1962, there has been a renaissance in Scottish literature, bringing the voices of Scottish people of different backgrounds into groundbreaking novels.  Have there been similar developments in other countries and do their combined voices amount to a ‘national literature?’ This event was Chaired by Imraan Couvadia.

Read The Anjali Joseph Cape Town Keynote Transcript

Author Biography:

Anjali Joseph: Anjali Joseph was born in Bombay and grew up in England. She has lived and worked in London, Paris and Bombay. Her first novel, Saraswati Park, won the Desmond Elliott and Betty Trask Prizes and the Vodafone Crossword Book Award for fiction. Her second novel, Another Country, has just been published.

Reading, writing, and living in India and England has left her sceptical of the idea of simple, linear literary traditions that remain politely within national boundaries. The real lines of affinity between readers and writers, and writers and other writers, are elective, and sometimes unexpected.