Hi y'all.
Here's to you some inspirations 'On History and Writing'. Enjoy.
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Until next time - Majken xx
The polka-dotted life of Kusama
Some years ago, I went to see an exhibition of Yayoi Kusama and I loved it. Especially her newer work. She’s lived a remarkable life, which you can learn more about in the short movie above. Also, it reveals why polka dots became a lifelong obsession for her. Kusama is still active, and recently, she’s done some work using AI - so cute!
Death of a Codebreaker
So, I’ve listened to the true-crime podcast “Death of a Codebreaker” about a very bizarre murder case that took place in London back in 2010. The Welsh-born young man, Gareth Williams, was found dead in his apartment. Not ‘only’ was he dead, his body had been placed inside a sports bag, which then had been zipped and padlocked. Apart from that, only a few traces were left. The story (obviously) landed in the news, and both the press and the investigators speculated who’d done it and why. As Williams was not what you’d call an ordinary guy, several theories started circling. He was highly gifted - especially in mathematics - and worked as a code breaker for the British intelligence service from a young age. So, did his job have a connection with his death? And how? Was the Russian secret service behind it? - Perhaps he’d dug up some information, and they wanted to stop him from diving deeper into it. Or was it a personal matter - a sex game gone wrong, as some suggested?
Williams' case was never solved, but we get to hear several interesting - and seemingly plausible - theories. In the end, a forensic scientist explains how scientific techniques have developed since then and how new investigations could throw new light on the case as it’s been seen in other cases. However, since Williams was working for the intelligence service, it’ll likely take many years before investigators will expose new details to the public.
A bit more on crime
Here’s a handful of very interesting - and not so often heard of - crime writers from around the world.
Bora Chung is from South Korea. She’s the writer of horror stories and in 2022 she was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize for her novel Cursed Bunny. The book is a collection of short stories, and one of the recurring themes is how unsuspected people are being haunted by unwelcome visitors (in one of the stories, a monster is living in a woman’s toilet). Why do unsettling themes like that reappear in her writing? - Chung is asked. Chung explains that her stories are inspired by various stages of her life, periods where she felt afraid, threatened and confused in the world she was living in, like back when her mother tried to set her up on different dates to get her a suitable groom. “Every single one of these dates I had”, Chung says, “was quite surreal. Every single one could become a story”. Setting up dates like this is quite common in Korea, Chung explains, and she adds that Korean women who’ve gone through this process know how dehumanising it is. “You’re essentially exchanging your ability to bear children for some guy’s money,” Chung says, “that’s the arrangement, and I was really angry about it.”
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In South Africa, there’s Deon Meyer, who reveals how South African crime novels often are full of humour and how he’s noticed that the crime genre in more ‘calm’ countries - such as the Scandinavian - actually are pretty brutal, (which I find rather interesting). Deon Meyer writes in Afrikaans, which apparently is quite unusual. You can check out his long line of work here.
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Awais Khan from Pakistan, on the other hand, has decided to write all his novels in English. This is mainly because, he explains, there’s strict censorship of books in his country and that crime stuff - especially if they somehow comment on society (which his books do) - can make people do harmful things to the author. So, Khan concludes that when he writes in English, fewer people in his country can read his books, and therefore potentially fewer people’d get the idea to harm him. Also, he is not affected by censorship. Khan speaks about his novel No Honour, which deals with honour killing. Khan was inspired to write this when a young celeb Pakistani woman was murdered for this reason in 2016
You can listen to the writers being interviewed here.
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‘On History and Writing’ is a blog post from me to you in which I share historically rooted real-life stories from around the world - told in exciting and creative ways - along with thoughts that circle the creative process of writing non-fiction texts. I post an email once every fortnight. If you're not already a subscriber, you are welcome to join the list. Thanks for reading! Majken xx
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