The Manchester Review

Sex and the Cities, reviewed by Katie Blagden

“Sex and the Cities”

Reviewed by Katie Blagden

Friday 19th October

International Anthony Burgess Institute

697 words

When first given the ticket to review ‘Sex and the Cities’ my heart sank. I had horrible premonitions of having to listen to four ageing socialites talking about their latest sexual adventures in New York City. Thankfully, Sarah Jessica Parker and her harem were nowhere to be found; instead we were treated to three young international women writers discussing their work with an insight and warmth that left the eponymous television show in the dust.

Anjali Joseph, Grazyna Plebanek and Noémi Szécsi were the writers in question and together they brought a wide range of nationalities, styles and subjects to the table.  Hosted by local writer Sherry Ashworth, the writers were asked to read aloud a section from their novels before Ashworth quizzed them on their work and themes.

Anjali Joseph, whose book Another Country followed a twenty-something girl in her exploration of London, Paris and Bombay, apologised for her cold – ‘If there’s one thing worse than someone with a cold, it’s someone with a cold and a microphone.’  The audience didn’t seem to mind as, within a few beautifully crafted pages of description, Joseph introduced us to Leela, a woman searching for fulfilment. Joseph’s writing deftly created the sense of living space and claustrophobia in Leela’s Paris apartment and the throw-away sentence encompassing Leela’s morning masturbation revealed a depth of approach to female sexuality not often seen in literature.

Grazyna Plebanek followed, apologising for her Polish accent and rather charmingly describing her book Illegal Liaisons as ‘a story about a triangle’. However, this is not the next Flatlands, but rather a story of a love-triangle, set in Brussels and told from the point of view of the male protagonist Jonathan. Plebanek’s treatment of male eroticism, something that was discussed at more length during the Q&A session, was handled with a delicacy and understanding in the extract, leading to a poetic and poignant moment of intimacy in a church.

Noémi Szécsi was the last to read aloud from The Finno-Ugrian Vampire. Szécsi explained the context of her vampires with a straightforwardness that was refreshing – a vampire who doesn’t want to be one is being pressured by her vampiric grandmother, because vampirism is ‘the family business’. In the extract, Szécsi’s comedic tone came to the fore as the grandmother, too tired to climb the stairs, turns into a bat, only to be beaten with a broom by the janitor. Szécsi’s portrayal of a family argument incurred by the above incident is flawless – the absurdity of the context subverts the otherwise normal family spat.

Sherry Ashworth enthusiastically led the Q&A session, highlighting the importance of publishers such as Stork Press, who are translating and publishing international writers into English. Ashworth valiantly endeavoured to cover both cities and sex in her questions; however these two main topics only loosely tied together three very different books and authors.

From Anjali Joseph’s attempts to depict the dislocation and miscommunication of Leela’s life across three different cities, to Noémi Szécsi’s somewhat hesitant attempts to incorporate Budapest as a key theme in her fantasy-urban setting, it became clear that the three writers were not necessarily on the same page. Several questions almost managed to uncover some more important issues, but never quite succeeded.   For example, Grazyna Plebanek’s descriptions of how she attempted to write men and find ‘a language for the body and give it dignity’ weren’t followed up by Ashworth to the degree they could have been. However, the lack of depth to any one topic allowed for a wide-ranging discussion, especially when the questions were opened up to the floor.

Covering ethnicity, autobiographical inspiration, Bram Stoker, the privilege of English writers and the ‘looming spectre of America’, the audience kept the writers on their toes. Despite a few struggles with foreign name pronunciation and Mancunian accents, the audience was given a wonderful insight into the processes and issues with which these three very different writers constantly grapple. As Sherry Ashworth rather smugly put it, it was ‘a fantastically right and interesting evening’.

A great opportunity for British readers to discover new and exciting international writers.

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