Nine Books Set in Edinburgh - Zimbabwe links

adapted from: https://onestepwanderer.com/books-set-in-edinburgh/?fbclid=IwAR1xfDS3eQEZgGD7uXdIx3RHMGnPWHhkkoRJwoFXMKcNF-KtDqO0qY-JDT4

Edinburgh’s literary prowess runs deep. Home to Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, JM Barrie and JK Rowling, there’s no shortage of literature that has come from the minds of this UNESCO City of Literature. Edinburgh has not only provided the home to these literary minds, but has also set the setting for many works of Scottish literature.

And three of the writers featured have Zimbabwe links: Alexander McCall Smith was born and educated in Bulawayo in 1948, before moving to Scotland aged 17 to attend university; Tendai Huchu is Zimbabwean, but is now based in Edinburgh; and Muriel Spark lived for several years in Bulawayo before and during the Second World War.

amaBooks  published Tendai Huchu's novel featured here - The Maestro, The Magistrate and The Mathematician - as well as Shane Strachan's Nevertheless: Sparkian Tales in Bulawayo, which is a series of short fictions about Spark's and his own time in Bulawayo.

These 9 books set in Edinburgh explore a range of different literary works that have been set in Scotland’s capital city. From classic historical novels by Sir Walter Scott to modern literary stories by Irvine Welsh this list covers titles that tell the stories of the city itself.

1. 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith

Welcome to 44 Scotland Street, home to some of Edinburgh’s most colourful, yet ordinary, characters. There’s Pat, a 21-year-old who has recently moved into a flat with Bruce, an athletic young man with a keen awareness of his own appearance. Their neighbour, Domenica, is an eccentric and insightful widow. In the flat below are Irene and her appealing son Bertie, who is the victim of his mother’s desire for him to learn the saxophone and Italian – all at the tender age of five.

These witty and very real portrait of Edinburgh society brings out love triangles, a lost painting, intriguing new friends, and an encounter with a famous Scottish crime writer. It feels like you’re reading through a sitcom and you’ll leave the pages of the novel with a soft spot for each of the characters.

2. The Fanatic by James Robertson

Andrew Carlin takes his job as a ghost very serious. Part of one of Edinburgh’s famous ghost walks, Carlin is paid to play the ghost of Covenanter Major Thomas Weir, who has been executed on charges of witchcraft, in 1670. Carlin dives deep into the history of his ghost and the period that he lived in, becoming entangled in deadly events of the past.

The Fanatic switches back and forth between the 1990s of Carlin’s time and the events he becomes so obsessed with in the late 17th century. This book set in Edinburgh marks an engaging and enlightening historical read on a crucial time in Edinburgh’s (and Scotland’s) history. 

3. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Miss Jean Brodie, a teacher at an elite Edinburgh girl’s school is in her prime, make no mistake about it. Through her prime she uses unorthodox teaching methods to mould the minds of young girls in 1930s in this book set in Edinburgh. Her prized pupils become known as the Brodie Set and through the eyes of these six girls we learn about the downfall of Miss Brodie.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a short, but powerful novel that switches back and forth between past and future to unfurl the complex events and personalities involved in the story.

4. The Heart of Mid-Lothian by Sir Walter Scott

It would be a crime to Scottish literature to not include a novel from Sir Walter Scott (one of Edinburgh’s most celebrated writers) on this list of books set in Edinburgh. Named after the infamous Tolbooth Prison in the centre of Edinburgh, The Heart of Mid-Lothian is one of his most popular novels.

The novel opens against the backdrop of the infamous Porteous riots that rocked the city in the 18th century and through its protagonist Jeanie Deans, explores the complex meanings of justice in mid-1700s Edinburgh. When her sister comes to trial for infanticide, Jeannie does everything she can to try to prove her sister’s innocence and bring justice to her family. While the novel does get slow at times, it’s an important look at Edinburgh’s lower classes in a time of immense change in the city.

5. The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson

You can’t go on a walking tour in Edinburgh without hearing of the urban legend that surround the murderous body snatchers that terrified the city – Burke and Hare. The pair lurked the dark alleys of the Edinburgh slums, look for “bodies” to kill and take to Edinburgh physician Robert Knox for practice.

Author of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson, couldn’t resist taking this story and adapting this legend into a short story about grave robbers. The Body Snatcher will keep you on your toes throughout reading this horror story set in Edinburgh.

6. Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin

The English have Detective Sherlock (ironically, written by a Scottish author), the Scottish have Inspector Rebus. Crime novels are a big deal in Scottish literature and Inspector Rebus is a household name across the homes of Scotland.

Based in Edinburgh, Knots and Crosses is the first in a long series of novels that follow the life and investigations of this beloved Scottish detective. With the city of Edinburgh being terrorized by a string of murders, Rebus must put his own problems to solve the crimes being committed by someone connected to him by an invisible knot of blood.

7. The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician by Tendai Huchu

Struggling to adapt to live after leaving their homes in Zimbabwe, three men look for a place for themselves in Edinburgh. There’s the Magistrate who one doled out justice in Zimbabwe now cleans toilets for a living. The Mathematician holds onto the belief that he want be here for long. And where the Maestro used to direct beautiful music, he now directs shopping carts back into Tesco from the car park.

The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician explores the complicated lives of immigrants in Edinburgh, diving deep into the feels of love, loss, belonging and politics of being forced to call a new city (and country) home.

8. Filth by Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh is well-known for his novel turned movie Trainspotting, a story of Edinburgh youth coming out of the darkness. Filth is very much the opposite type of story. Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson marks everything that could be wrong with a man –  he’s a misogynist, a racist, a drug user, and an abuser. He will lie, cheat, steal, manipulate and back-stab his way there if he has to – an he’ll enjoy it the whole way there.

9. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner tells the story of the fervent and utterly self-righteous young Calvinist Robert Wringham amidst the backdrop of Edinburgh. Raised in a highly religious household, where the speakers of god’s truth could do wrong, Wringham is easily corruptible by his mysterious companion, Gil Martin. He manipulates Wringham, assuring him that God’s true elect are not to be held to the law and his predestined place in heaven cannot be overturned by any of Wringham’s actions on earth.

Shane Strachan interviewed in The Wee Review about Muriel Spark and Nevertheless

https://theweereview.com/interview/shane-strachan/

Shane Strachan

We chat to the writer behind a new fictionalised account of Muriel Spark’s life in the former Southern Rhodesia.

INTERVIEW / SHANE STRACHAN

RAE COWIE | 17 NOV 2018

Shane Strachan has been writing short fiction in the North of Scotland for several years while working on theatre projects with the National Theatre of Scotland and Paines Plough. This year has seen him receive a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship from the Scottish Book Trust to work on a novel inspired by the life and work of fashion designer Bill Gibb, and also mentor on the Queer Words project from which a new anthology We Were Always Here will be published by 404 ink in January 2019. In September, he also published a collection of short fiction as part of the 2018 Muriel Spark centenary celebrations. The collection Nevertheless: Sparkian Tales in Bulawayo, is published by Zimbabwe-based publisher amaBooks and explores Spark’s years in former Southern Rhodesia alongside a modern-day narrative.

When did you first become interested in Dame Muriel Spark and her work?

Like many people, my main engagement with Spark had been with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which I read as part of my degree and went on to teach to undergraduates at the University of Aberdeen. What always surprised me about such a slim novel was that at first it seems like a straightforward schooldays story, but each time I re-read it I’d uncover another layer of complexity and another way of interpreting the events that unfold. I read a few more Spark novels around that time, but it was the centenary celebrations that led to me uncovering Spark’s connection with Africa and the fantastic short stories she wrote in response to her time there.

Nevertheless: Sparkian Tales in Bulawayo is a new collection of short fiction pieces you were commissioned to write. Can you explain how this came about? Tell us a little of the research required?

In response to Creative Scotland’s call-out for new projects, I discovered that Spark had given birth to her son in the same hospital where I’d previously ran an arts-in-health project in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. It was all very serendipitous and unexpected. Spark’s connection with Bulawayo opened up the door for me to finally be able to write stories about my own impressions of Zimbabwe after a couple of years of feeling unsure about how was best to approach them.

Alongside reading a lot more of Spark’s works, particularly her short stories, the research was primarily digging through the extensive Spark archive at the National Library of Scotland, which was one of the key aims of the Endless Different Ways grant – to shed light on this archive and to explore ways it could be used creatively. I also did a fair amount of reading about Southern Rhodesia in the 1930s and 40s, as well as academic essays on Spark’s stories set in Africa, especially their exploration of female experiences in the colonies during this time.

Which interesting titbits did you find in the National Library of Scotland archives that didn’t make it into these stories?

The thing that stood out to me most was that Spark seemed to do a fair amount of her own research on what life was like in Africa at the time she lived there. It was as though she didn’t quite trust her own memories to be accurate, which is understandable given how young she was when she was there and how traumatic a time she had. This sense of trauma was also clear in several post-its in the archive which start to tell something about her past, then cut off unexpectedly. To write about her own experiences for her autobiography Curriculum Vitae, I get the sense that Spark was in a sense already treating this time like a work of fiction, stitching together the fragments of memories she could recall with facts from encyclopaedias to make it as authentic as possible for the reader.

You’ve visited the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, which is twinned with Aberdeen, a number of times. How many of your experiences did you share with Duncan, the young doctor who features in your stories?

The Duncan stories were something of a vehicle to share some of my own experiences and impressions from my visits to Zimbabwe, particularly the awkwardness I suddenly re-felt around my sexuality in a culture where it’s predominantly frowned upon or misunderstood. However, I heightened a lot of this in the fiction for the sake of bringing about more dramatic tension – Duncan is even more stifled than I ever felt, and much more affected by the experience of hiding part of himself away. I wanted to heighten this so that there is a sense of release near the end of his story when he realises that a lot of his fears have been unfounded, or rather, come from an overly anxious white British perspective, rather than the reality of everyday lived experience in Zimbabwe.

As well as this, both Spark and Duncan move through places and spaces that I myself visited while in Zimbabwe. I particularly wanted to get across the beauty of the country, especially in the national parks and at Victoria Falls, places that greatly impacted on Spark’s sense of wonder and spirituality.

Overall, it’s worth saying that of course Duncan isn’t me, and my version of Spark isn’t 100% the real Spark. Stories take on their own life and sometimes the sentences that appear on the page are unplanned and unexpected, but are necessary for finding a new “truth” as such. This tension between fact and fiction is something I’m continuing to explore through my current work-in-progress, a novel based on the life and career of fashion designer Bill Gibb.

All proceeds from the sale of Nevertheless go to The Lady Rodwell Maternity Hospital in Bulawayo. How will the money raised improve conditions? 

Since writing the stories, the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe has worsened meaning that food, medical supplies, and various other essentials are not getting into the country due to a currency crisis, so it’s very hard right now to say in what ways the money from Nevertheless will be used in these testing times, but I’m sure the hospital will put it to use in the areas of most need. The situation in Zimbabwe is rarely covered in the UK press, but a LinkedIn blog by Zimbabwe-based writer Cathy Buckle has been providing the greatest insight for me of late.

Finally, Nevertheless: Sparkian Tales in Bulawayo was created as part of a project to remind readers of the importance of the legacy Spark left to Scottish literature. After reading Nevertheless, where should readers who wish to try Spark’s work begin?

I would definitely recommend Spark’s short stories, particularly the ones inspired by her time in Africa. If readers want to know more about what happened next to Spark, her autobiography Curriculum Vitae covers her life from childhood up to the publication of her first novel. My own favourites of her novels are The Comforters, The Driver’s Seat and Memento Mori, but there’s so much more to read and explore, and Spark fans tend to mention a different book from each other when asked for their favourite!

Nevertheless: Sparkian Tales in Bulawayo is available in paperback online from  africanbookscollective.com or as an ebook from amazon.co.uk, with all proceeds of sale being donated to the Lady Rodwell Maternity Hospital in Bulawayo.