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Memory

Memory is a powerful force. Almost as significant as a sense, it is an element of the human mind that many writers call on to create some of their most powerful and poignant writing. Maura Dooley, M. Pinchuk, Sean O'Brien and Abdulrazak Gurnah all approach the different emotions that memory can invoke: consolation, pain, nostalgia, melancholy as well as more tangible elements such as music or landscape with a sensitivity and lingering thoughtfulness that brings back to the reader many of their own personal memories and an examination of things that speak to them individually.

 

The idea of memory in a futuristic location is at the centre of Maura Dooley's fascinating exploration of a cheerless dystopian universe in her novel extract Malachite and Verdigris. Explored through the recollections of a child, Dooley's work presents a bleak vision.

 

Abdulrazak Gurnah's short story My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa plays with the idea of memory and how it can be manipulated when seen through the eyes of others. Strengthening the resonance of the past is the reference made to previous work set in Africa and the powerful memories of writers other than Gurnah himself.

 

Sean O'Brien's moving poem 'Praise of a Rainy Country' is a tribute to the remarkable writer Julia Darling who died in 2005. It is an evocative piece of work that focuses on our sense of hearing and explores the way in which different music speaks to us.

 

M. Pinchuk's piece Memories Like Photographs examines the idea of repressed memories and explores the minds defence mechanism when attempting to deal with memorable moments that leave pain and anxiety in their wake.

 

M. Pinchuk

After working overseas for a few years, M. Pinchuk has spent the past nine years in London. In an ideal world, she would have lots more time to write and would divide her time between northern California, Turkey, Finland and the UK. This is her first published story.

Photograph:56 Neighbours

 

Sean O'Brien

Sean O'Brien is a British poet, critic, playwright and editor. Five award-winning collections were followed by Cousin Coat: Selected Poems 1976-2001 (Picador, 2002). His essays, The Deregulated Muse (Bloodaxe), and an anthology The Firebox: Poetry in Britain and Ireland after 1945 (Picador) appeared in 1998. He is Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University. His version of Dante's Inferno is published by Picador (2006). Please click here to read more about Sean on the Contemporary Writers website. 

 

Photograph: Moira Conway

 

Maura Dooley

Maura Dooley has published several collections of poetry, most recently Sound Barrier: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2002) and edited anthologies of verse and essays, amongst them The Honey Gatherers:Love Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2003) and How Novelists Work (Seren Books 2000). She is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths College, London.

Photograph: Maura Dooley

 

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in 1948 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. He is the author of the highly acclaimed novels Memory of Departure (1987), Pilgrims Way (1988), Dottie (1990), Paradise (1994), which was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize, Admiring Silence (1996), By the Sea (2001) and most recently Desertion (2005). He teaches English literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England.

Photograph: Mark Pringle

 

Illustration © Maurizio Marmorato
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Link to writing

Malachite and Verdigris * Malachite and Verdigris

Memories Like Photographs * Memories Like Photographs

My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa * My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa

Praise of a Rainy Country * Praise of a Rainy Country


Glossary for 'Malachite and Verdigris' * Glossary for 'Malachite and Verdigris'

Glossary for 'Memories Like Photographs' * Glossary for 'Memories Like Photographs'

Glossary for 'My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa' * Glossary for 'My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa'

Link to teachers notes

Teachers' notes for Memory * Teachers' notes for Memory

Link to readers notes

Readers' notes for Memory * Readers' notes for Memory

Link to author interviews

Interview with Abdulrazak Gurnah * Interview with Abdulrazak Gurnah

 

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