In which Switzerland approves a law against the construction of minarets

This is gravely disappointing. A proposal to introduce a clause in the Swiss constitution that would ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland has been passed by 57% of the vote, and by 22 out of Switzerland's 26 cantons. I was sure it would not pass, because it is not only naked, blatant discrimination but completely unnecessary. The idea that the voices of muezzins calling the faithful to prayer will ring across the Alps from a thousand pointing minarets is just ridiculous. It is encouraging that the Swiss government itself was opposed to this, and it is good to see other countries speaking out. As Justice Minister Widmer-Schlumpf says: "A ban on the construction of new minarets is not a feasible means of countering extremist tendencies:"

It is dismaying that Switzerland is becoming more and more closed to outsiders, witness the infamous poster of the black sheep being kicked off the Swiss flag last year, and the resulting restrictions on who can get nationality, and this poster, which was used by the SVP party to campaign for the anti-minaret intiative. I urge you to read Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss and Muslim scholar who has a thoughtful essay on this subject in today's Guardian.

Eighteen highlights from an unplifting, inspiring and scintillating three days in Oslo

1. Cathrine Bakke Bolin, my editor at Gyldendal and the whole Gyldendal team. They are Ibsen's publishers. Yes, that Henrik Ibsen, whose portrait dominates one of that far walls inside the Gyldendal building. There are conference rooms dedicated to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, the Nobel laureate with the coolest name in the world, (and the man who wrote the words to Norway's national anthem), Amelie Skram and Orhan Pamuk, among others. I fell in love with the building ... the internal space was designed by architect Sverre Fehn, who created this amazing interior with skylights that gives the idea of infinite possibility. I felt cosseted and happy at Gyldendal, and once again, I must thank my foreign rights agent Rebecca Folland, who has taken great care to place me with editors and publishers that seem a perfect match for my work.


2. Aslak, Eline, Andreas, Celia and the team at the Litteraturhuset, a house devoted to the promotion of literature. What a programme it was, eleven writers from six countries: Chimamanda Adichie, Ama Ata Aidoo, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Chenjerai Hove, Alain Mabankou, Niq Mhlongo, Tolu Ogunlesi, Chika Unigwe and Binyavanga Wainaina. As my friend Emmanuel said, so much talent in one place should be declared illegal.

3. Klagesang for Easterly, the Norwegian version of An Elegy for Easterly. It is purple, it is beautiful, it is a hard cover on the outside and inside, it has lots of Norwegian umlauts and Norwegian vowels, and lots of Norwegian consonants. That could, perhaps, be because it is in Norwegian.


4. Meeting Guro Dimmen, my vidunderlig translator, who is responsible for all the Norwegian.

5. The great reviews and publicity from Aftenposten, Dagsvisien and NRK. The support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


6. The wonderful people who came to the Africa Literature Week, who supported us and cheered us on, and who bought our books.

7. Chenjerai Hove. He is just as you imagine him, but more alive. Much, much more alive.

8. Tsitsi Dangarembga. I had met her before, in Harare, but this was the first time that I had seen her "perform". Tsitsi paved the way for a lot of us.

9. Tolu Ogunlesi, the kindest, nicest and most modest man this side of eternity, who took upon himself the unenviable task of photochronicling our escapades and debaucheries.

10. Chika Unigwe telling a delighted audience why it was exactly that the Nigerian prostitutes she talked to while doing her research for On Black Sisters' Street much preferred not to have black clients. As this is a family blog, let's just say the brothers, according to these ladies, take their own sweet time coming to the point of it all. Yeah! came the echo from the black Norwegian brothers in the audience. Heh heh.

11. Chimamanda Adichie who is luminous and lucid. Most people who write about her or review her work echo that Achebe comment about her being "endowed with the wisdom of the ancients", so I expected someone terribly severe who talks mainly in Igbo proverbs. But she laughs! A lot! She is also, cliché alert, much smaller than you would think.

12. Binyavanga Wainaina breaking down for me in three brilliant minutes just why Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga is so important to understanding the political malaise of our continent. Basically, Nhamo is Kibaki , Nhamo is Mugabe, these, as Binya says, these little monsters, emerging from the privilege of a mission education, monsters who at the age of 10 had this tremendous power over their own parents. Basically, if Nhamo had not been killed off when he was, he would have had a promising future as another of Africa's Big Men. "I was not sorry when my brother died" suddenly takes on new meaning.

13. Niq Mhlongo. What a guy. "Chenjerai Hove!" he said to Chenjerai Hove. "You are Chenjerai Hove!", "Yes," said Chenjerai Hove. "He is Chenjerai Hove!" he informed Binya and me. "Yes," we said. "He wrote Shadows and Bones!" "Yes," we said. "You wrote Shadows and Bones!" Niq said. "Ei, ei! Chenjerai Hove!" There is nothing like watching a man meet his household god, this person he grew up with, argued over, wrote school essays about, maybe even derived nicknames from. (This, by the way, is the best thing about the writing circuit, the very best thing, that you get to meet your childhood gods, if you are lucky and they are alive. Especially when you find out that they are as you expected, but are much, much more alive, see number 7 above)

14. Niq and Chenjerai arguing, within minutes; actually, not arguing, just agreeing with each other in very loud voices, but so keen to make their points that they do not realise that they are in agreement. Heh heh.

15. Much scintillating and inspired talk, about, among many things, the dangers of mythobiography, from Ngugi talking about the police looking for his fictional Matigari to Dambudzo talking about his mother being a prostitute.

16. Binyavanga freaking me out, at three o'clock in the morning, with a story that he was told by a barman in the East village in New York, a story about Swiss anti-aging wonder drugs which involved, in a way that made sense at the time, Larry King's hands. And then Chenjerai going further and demonstrating the relevance of said Swiss wonder drugs to the fight for democracy in Zimbabwe. Oh man.

17. Following on from my discussion with the Binj and the Chenj, and inspired by Scandinavian monarchies, I am hit by a flash of genius: This is the solution to our problems. Create a life monarchy in Zimbabwe. Make Mugabe king with no power. Emperor, even. Sounds more grand. Better yet, call him the Mutapa, make him the new Mutapa. Trot Mutapa Mugabe out to open parliament and bury heroes. He can be a tourist attraction. Make Mutapa Mugabe rule Zim forever, but give him no power at all over anybody. Genius, that.

18. My "a-ha" moment, trademark Oprah Winfrey. So this is me, in a bar in Oslo, dancing to Take on Me by the Norwegian rock band a-ha. It is one of the anthems of my misspent youth, and here I am, dancing to it in the country of its birth, surrounded by these writers, these ferociously talented and driven forfattere who not only make me proud to be one of them but who also turn out to be these utterly and totally and delightfully addictive lunatics. Does it possibly get better than this?

"There is an old African proverb which I made up"

"There is an old African proverb which I made up - if you want to go quickly, walk alone, if you want to go far, walk together." - Al Gore in a brilliant cameo on 30Rock.

Just for that one line skewering Hillary Clinton, Alice Walker and others who have used fictitious African tribes and made-up African proberbs to project their truthandlightquests and their flimmyflammywishywashyearthgoddessymumbojumbo, Tina Fey and team, I will love you forever, forever be mine.

Some brilliant news from Russia: a permanent moratorium on the death penalty

Blog readers know how much I am opposed to the death penalty, so I am pleased to share the news that Russia's constitutional court has confirmed that the moratorium on the death penalty that had applied since 1996 and which would have expired on 1 January 2010, will not be revisited, meaning a permanent ban. As the BBC reports: "Russia's ban on the death penalty will remain when a current legal suspension expires on 1 January, the country's Constitutional Court has ruled." This is a wonderful example for some other first world countries and yes, America and Japan, I am looking at you.

The Alps grow red in splendour as Switzerland wins the youth World Cup

I only found out on the flight from Copenhagen this morning that Switzerland beat Nigeria 1-0 in the U-17 World Cup. I am sorry that I was not watching it with my football-loving Kush. This is brilliant for those young boys and for Switzerland. Here is a team that includes the sons of immigrants and asylum seekers, boys with distinctly un-Swiss names like Haris Seferovic and Nassim Ben Khalifa, playing their socks off for Switzerland. As the New York Times says: "They are the new Swiss, born in the country and raised in its soccer schools, but more than half of them have dual nationality. For they are the sons of immigrants, in some cases asylum seekers, who today make up one-fifth of Switzerland’s 7.7 million population."

There is worry in the jubilation, though, over whether Switzerland will be able to hold on to them ... some of these kids represent the new global citizen I was talking about in Oslo just last night, because there is, of course, the small matter of nationality -switching. According to FIFA rules, any player whose mother or father comes from another land is qualified to play for that country. As the New York Times explains: "FIFA ... recently changed its regulations so that playing for a national youth team no longer binds a player to that country. Until they represent Switzerland at senior level, those players may opt to play for another nation. So Switzerland might be undone by a rule signed by their countryman, Sepp Blatter, the FIFA President."

Ach weh!

(The picture above is of Pumas gone Swiss (nice) and the blog title is taken from the majestic words of Alberich Zwyssig's Schweizerpsalm, the Swiss national anthem.)

The paperback version of "An Elegy For Easterly"

Here is the cover of the paperback version of "An Elegy for Easterly". I love it in a million different ways. Thanks to the support of all my readers, we are approaching the end of the print run for the trade paperback (that's the Jacaranda trees cover), just in time for the launch of this paperback, which goes on sale on 7 January 2010. Zvaitwa!

Two videos to watch: Uwem Akpan on the Oprah Book Club and Marina Hyde in conversation with Charlie Brooker

I am interrupting my short hiatus to say please watch this webcast of the Oprah Book Club, featuring Uwem Akpan, author of the latest Oprah pick, the searing Say You Are One of Them. He is an absolutely lovely man, Uwem, his laugh is more infectious than the swine flu in Mexico City. I have said before how I much I admire writers with rich and busy lives unrelated to writing, writers who show that there is more than one way to be a writer, so it tickles me no end that here is this Nigerian man who is a Jesuit priest and a bestselling author. Magic.

A different treat is this video of a conversation between Guardian columnists Marina Hyde and Charlie Brooker. Fantastic stuff. I join all the below-the-line commentators who want a role reversal: now Charlie has to interview Marina. I am a huge fan of these two, they are my favourite columnists anywhere. My love for Marina reached new and dangerous levels of obsession when I found out that she is as much in awe of Chantal Biya, First Lady of Cameroon, as I am ... She crowned Madame Biya "your new favourite presidential second wife", thus dethroning Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. Hee! After that, I simply had to join the Facebook group called "Marina Hyde ... The Best Thing Since Refrigeration". Because she is.

I have nothing to post today, other than this picture of Martin Amis with lots of books

I have a folder on my computer of random things I intend to blog about, but I sometimes forget what I have in there, as happened with this picture of Martin Amis with lots of books. Why am I posting this now? Well, it is (almost) the middle of November, there are lots of things to talk about, from healthcare in America, the hypocrisy of the Afghan election, Alec Baldwin in 30Rock, partial boycotts in Zimbabwe, 30Rock and Alec Baldwin, Andre Agassi's wig in the 1990 French Open, and did I mention Alec Baldwin in 30Rock... so so so much to talk about, but rather than talk about things, I am concerned right now with the things I have to do, actually, I am rather overwhelmed by them, and I am also exhausted. I spent all my vacation time this year travelling and promoting my book, and I am beginning to more than feel it. I am desperately tired, but the year has two more months to go. So that is why, instead of a real post, I have posted this picture of Martin Amis with a lot of books. I will most likely not post again until I come back from Norway, and in the meantime, enjoy this picture of Martin Amis with lots of books.

Do you want to be a writer? Then read this, because here, I reveal the secret to success!

I have been getting a lot of emails and Facebook messages from people who want to write. A lot of people want to know what the magic thing is that you have to do to be a writer or get published. Is it the right agent? Luck? How do you get the right agent? The right publisher? How do you get a publisher? Others ask me to read their work or write introductions to their books. The most recent email I got was from a guy who said he had been working on his novel for years, and wanted to know at what point he should stop.

I cannot always review people's work; when I have time, I am happy to do it because I love editing, I love it when I can help someone make their work better. I used to be very active on the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, and one of the thrills was when I lit upon a story that showed promise, and I helped to make it sing. I am also happy to recommend writers to my agent, she does not take many new people, however, so I will only do this when I feel the writer has a reasonable chance to be taken on. I was delighted earlier this year when she took on someone I consider one of the most talented writers I have read and whom I had recommended to her.

But it is easy to give this sort of guidance to people who have something in the hand, easy to recommend them to an agent, easy to help them make their work better so that it is accepted by an agent. A lot more people just want to know how they can be "real" , and that word keeps coming up, how they can be "real" writers. It is to these aspiring writers that I now reveal the secret to writing success.

Write.

That's it.

Just write.

A writer is a person who writes.

Talent is overrated. Luck is overrated. The right agent is overrated. It helps to have all three, but they are all worthless without that thing in your hand, the manuscript, the thing in your hand that may become a book for which trees will die and that will be published and primped and pampered and put on bookshelves and paid for by people.

And this is what is underrated: the sitting down and grinding it out part. Because that is what writing is. You, at your computer or with your notebook, writing, and writing, revising and writing, and revising again.

As Henry Fielding says, examples work more forcibly on the mind than precepts, so let me introduce you to two of my writing friends.

Meet Zoey and Xavier. They live in two different countries, one is tall and fat, the other is short and thin, one is black and blue, the other is yellow and green, one has a low but loud laugh, the other a high but quiet one ... they could not be more different to each other. They have this in common though, they are both outrageously, ridiculously talented at turning out a sentence. Xavier, is, quite frankly, one of the most musical writers you will ever read, his is the kind of writing that flows into itself and then out at you ... like Pachelbel's Canon in D, it wraps itself around your head and enters your blood stream and speeds up your heart rate. If his writing could be patented, it would cure heart disease. Zoey has a brain larger than the Grand Canyon, she can generate ideas faster than your nearest McDonald's churns out Happy Meals, she is brilliant and brain-buzzingly original.

Xavier has written a couple of stories. Zoey has published three stories, including one that was chosen in an internet poll as the best story to be published on the internet in the last 1000 years. It was that good. Both of these writers were headhunted by agents. This was 7 years ago.

They have not written much since then.

What have they been doing in those 7 years? Well, Xavier had a bit of a set back when he applied to the creative writing programme at Iowa and didn't get in. It took him more than three years to recover from the disappointment. In fact, he is still recovering. Zoey fell in love, but not with Xavier, even though they were in love with each other's minds. She got marrried, she had a baby, and then fell out of love and then had a divorce. Then her country collapsed and she spent all her time writing angry, brilliant and brain-buzzlingly original short essays about that. Then she set up a blog and wrote short but brilliant and brain-buzzingly original posts about the chaos of her life. In between, Xavier and Zoey sent each other emails mocking those who had published books. Xavier was inspired by these emails to set up a blog in which he reviewed, usually scathingly, books published by other writers, concentrating his vitriol particularly on writers who had been on the Iowa writing programme.

The clunkiness of the prose, exclaims Xavier!

And talk about passé, says Zoey.

You would be so much more original, Xavier says to Zoey.

And you can write better than that in your sleep, says Zoey.

They could do so much better, they agree.

Well, maybe.

Possibly.

Very likely, in fact.

Except they won't.

They won't do better and they haven't written anything better because they haven't written at all.

A writer is a person who writes.

So, this is the answer in its beautiful and stark simplicity. You can have all the talent in the world, but this is nothing if you do not actually write.

So write. Just write.

The rest can take care of itself, but without that thing in your hand, that manuscript that could be a book, that thing in your hand that comes only after hours of sitting down and doing it, you will never give yourself the chance to be a "real" writer.

Just write.

Because a writer is a person who writes.

That is the beginning of everything.

In which I look forward to "Changing My Mind", Zadie Smith's new book

When I was a student at Cambridge, one of my closest friends was an African-American girl who could not understand what I found to enjoy in books with only white people in them. She wanted to read books in which she found her experiences reflected, she said, which I understood, but found a little limiting, because I read partly to understand experiences that I will never have. We argued about this, we had many good natured arguments about why we read, and how we read. You might also see yourself reflected in people who do not look like you, I argued, Jude Fawley, for instance, has always reminded me of my dad (not the bit where Jude lives in sin with his cousin Sue and his aged kid kills his siblings and then tops himself, but the hunger for an education and the learning Latin by candlelight bits) And I cannot tell you, I told her, the number of Austen and Dickens characters who remind me of people I know in Zim, to the extent that I sometimes think that my relatives and teachers at school all modelled themselves on some of these characters. (I was even taught by Uriah Heep, only he was not quite as tall, nor quite as creepy.) And there is an interview with RK Narayan that fills me with great delight, where he talks about meeting characters from his imaginary Malgudi everywhere he went. New York, in particular, he said, is full of Malgudi characters.

I came close to giving my friend a heart attack when I said that given a choice between Alice Walker and Jane Austen, I would choose Jane Austen any day.

Now, I have tried to like Alice Walker, I really have, because she is AN IMPORTANT WRITER but I am sorry to say that I cannot take to her earth mother grandmother-spirit philosophy, her feeling centred narratives, and her oversimplification, exotification and romanticisation of Africa and black experience more broadly. I did not know then quite how to express my sense that there was something false, something off, about Walker's vision. I wish I could have come across this passage, from Zadie Smith's latest book, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, as it captures so acutely my discomfort with Walker:

"In place of negative falsification, we have nurtured, in the past 30 years, a new fetishisation ... Black female protagonists are now unerringly strong and soulful; they are sexually voracious and unafraid; they take the unreal forms of earth mothers, African queens, divas, spirits of history; they process grandly through novels thick with a breed of greeting-card lyricism."

This is wonderful. I can't wait to read the rest of the book. I have always enjoyed reading Zadie's essays in the New York Review of Books. To succeed as an essayist, says Philip Marchand in his review of her latest, an author must be concise, vigorous and have something to say. Zadie Smith has plenty to say.

Sefi Atta wins the Noma Award for "Lawless"

Some fantastic news: the tireless people at Book SA report that Sefi Atta has been awarded the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, for Lawless, her collection of stories which was first published by Farafina of Nigeria. The Noma Award, which is funded by the Japanese company Kodansha Ltd, is a brilliant initiative - it rewards African publishers, and gives a needed boost to writers who do not have as much exposure as those who are published in the main centres of publishing.

This is what the jury had to say about Sefi's winning book:

This collection of short stories and a novella represent the work of a first class writer. The gripping stories of the Nigerian quotidian are of consistently high quality and uniformly outstanding. The writer has an immense gift of language and mastery of narrative in which she redefines the Nigerian social imaginary. She tells her stories in different voices and from the perspective of a whole range of memorable characters, balancing content and form. She does not romanticise or demonise the world of her characters: her genius is to deprive the stories of their sensationalism, allowing her to display complete mastery of her craft. One of the most original, imaginative and gifted fiction writers in Africa, and arguably the best of her generation.

I am delighted for Sefi. She is one of the best short story writers in the business: I certainly learned a lot from reading her stories when I first started. I have said before that I particularly admire writers who have had or have other lives, and that is true of Sefi, who started writing after a successful career as a chartered accountant. You can read some of her stories on her website. I love that she is as interested in mechanics and drug couriers as she is in her better-off characters. She sees stories everywhere, and has a wonderful eye for absurdity. I have often been surprised that she is not more widely known and read, so it is wonderful to see her take a spot in the limelight. I hope that this award encourages Sefi to do more work in what I personally consider to be her natural medium.

Also commended in the Noma award was Chris Mlalazi, whose story collection Dancing With Life I liked very much indeed. Has this been a glory year for the short story or what?