Wasafiri Event: The Books That Made Me

On 18th May, I went to the above event presented by Wasafiri, in celebration of their silver anniversary activities, held at the British Library's Conference Centre. In lavish surroundings, comfortable theatre style red seats and atmospheric lighting, five distinguished writers Helen Cross, Diana Evans, Aamer Hussein, Caryl Phillips and Marina Walker discussed their key literary influences. Each writer selected two books that inspired them in significant ways to embark on a writing career.

Diana Evans, who won the Orange Prize for New Writers in 2005 for 26a, the story of twin sisters which, at the beginning, appears as just a well-observed story of a multicultural family in multicultural London at the end of the last century, but quickly becomes a darker and more troubling story of depression and repression, discussed one of her favourite books, Heaven Coast, a book about loss, which is poetic and made her realise how important it is to write about bereavement.

Caryl Phillips, who was born in St. Kitts, grew up in Leeds and read English at The Queen's College, Oxford and whose novels include The Final Passage (1985), which won the Malcolm X Prize for Literature, selected the book, Native Sun by Richard Wright, set in inner city Chicago during the 30's and the play, Ghost by playwright Henry Gibson, which caused much controversy in its time and was finally produced in 1881.

Helen Cross, who was born and brought up in the village of Newbald in East Yorkshire and whose first novel, My Summer of Love won a Betty Trask Award and became a BAFTA award-winning feature film, directed by Pawel Pawlokowski, selected Charlotte's Web, which she read as a young girl, that made her then want to write as she realised how powerful words and writers were, and Loving by Henry Green a novel about secrets.

The event was thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring and I look forward to attending more Wasafiri events in the future.

For more details about Wasafiri's 25th anniversary and general information about the magazine, visit their website at:

http://www.wasafiri.org/