: ‘Writing has to show what can be otherwise’: 2021 Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah’s lecture #IndiaNEWS Writing has always been a pleasure. Even as a boy at school I looked forward to the class

@IndiaNEWS

Posted in: #IndiaNEWS

‘Writing has to show what can be otherwise’: 2021 Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah’s lecture #IndiaNEWS
Writing has always been a pleasure. Even as a boy at school I looked forward to the class set aside for writing a story, or whatever our teachers thought would interest us, more than to any other class on the timetable. Then everyone would fall silent, leaning over their desks to retrieve something worth reporting from memory and imagination. In these youthful efforts, there was no desire to say something in particular, to recall a memorable experience, to express a strongly-held opinion or to air a grievance. Nor did these efforts require any other reader than the teacher who prompted them as an exercise in improving our discursive skills. I wrote because I was instructed to write, and because I found such pleasure in the exercise.Years later, when I was myself a school teacher, I was to have this experience in reverse, when I would sit in a silent classroom while the pupils bent over their work. It reminded me of a poem by DH Lawrence which I will now quote a few lines from: Lines from “The Best of School�As I sit on the shores of the class, alone,Watch the boys in their summer blousesAs they write, their round heads busily bowed:And one after another rousesHis face...Read more

Intraday stocks under 50 NSE India Twitter of India

Vote Up Vote Down

Login to post a comment!