I had such a lovely time being part of The Beijing October Literary Festival online recently. I had the pleasure to visit and read in Beijing in 2016 and made friends there who remain correspondees to this day and so this was, for me, a reconnection. The online festival has two themes - the city and tradition with modernity. I gave a talk on London, on its relationship to my writing, reflecting on how physical space, proximity, alters the reality of the writer, and how the modern city demands a modern literature, that looks forward, future facing, rather than looks to history for writing. History is for history. It seems to go down well, which was gratifying, but for me, the other speakers were exceptional and this was arguably the best online event I’ve done. It was especially cool to watch the Chinese poets and writers talk about Beijing and the modern Chinese megacity. It was a frank and playful conversation at times.
