A research trip of one’s own

Since the March update, I’ve had opportunities to discuss authorial strategies with writers, fellow researchers and public audiences in Essen, Amsterdam, Turku (online) and Utrecht (twice), but I also got to travel purely as an observer. Graz, this photo would suggest, is well-prepared for research trips.

The reason for mine was the premiere of Simone Dede Ayivi’s stage adaptation of Mithu Sanyal’s debut novel: Identitti Rezeptionista at the Schauspielhaus Graz. Truthfully I didn’t only observe, though, thanks to theatre educator Timo Staaks’ pre-play workshop for interested members of the public. Given my particular research interest in didactic modes, it was fascinating to engage with the issues raised through Sanyal’s novel and Ayivi’s play through Staaks’ theatrical exercises alongside co-participants of all ages.

I’m now looking forward to writing up my findings – regarding the workshop and of course especially the play itself. For this journal article I’ll be undertaking an interview with Ayivi to discuss shared and diverging approaches of written and staged Identitti, also building on my soon-to-be-published research conversation with Sanyal. As laid out in my last blog post, this entire project sprang from a comparative interest in British and German anthologies. Back then I couldn’t have foreseen this specific artistic response from one Your Homeland is our Nightmare contributor to the other, but am all the more pleased to think with it now!

One conversation I have been wanting to have since 2019, though, is a chat that brings together the editors of Your Homeland and The Good Immigrant. And that is now happening – or rather tomorrow, when I’ll host this panel discussion with Nikesh Chukla, Chimene Suleyman, Musa Okwonga, Fatma Aydemir and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah at the Goethe-Institut London (in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Hamburg and the University of Cambridge). In some ways it feels like a continuation of a 2019 conversation, too: this joyful public one with Vinay Patel and Mithu Sanyal at King’s College London, where we discussed both anthologies, their contributions to them and their artistic work beyond as writers for page, stage, and screen. It’s lovely seeing things come together like this and I couldn’t be happier to return to London now – in fact, I should go and catch my train!