Never Give Up

Diary of a London Writer

This is the cover of my eighth novel, Angelica, Paintress of Minds, which is published by Barbican Press in the UK and the US and is also available on kindle. My novel is narrated in the first person by Angelica Kauffman, the 18th century artist. I’m delighted to see that she is finally getting the recognition she deserves: there will be an exhibition of her work at the Royal Academy in London from March 1 until June 30 and her work will also be included in an exciting exhibition coming to Tate Britain on May 16 called “Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520 – 1920”. I first discovered her work a few years ago when I had the good fortune to be awarded a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship at the Courtauld Institute, then housed in Somerset House. I became fascinated by the history of the building itself and by the story of the foundation of the Royal Academy there in 1768. She was one of the founding members, and had a dazzling career in London and Italy. I became so interested in her life that I knew I had to write a novel about her.

My interest developed into a passionate engagement with Angelica and the many interesting people she painted and befriended. Every time I encountered a new name – Joshua Reynolds, Canova, Goethe, Madame de Stael, Emma Hamilton and many more – I had to stop writing my novel and read a book, or several books, about them. Thanks to a generous grant from the Authors’ Foundation, I was able to return to Rome, where she lived for the last twenty-five years of her life (and where I lived in my twenties). I also visited Weimar to learn more about Goethe, with whom I believe she was unrequitedly in love

In order to make a successful career as an artist Angelica had to battle against powerful waves of misogyny. Those battles are still being fought; it was not until 1936 that another woman, Laura Knight, was elected as an RA. Finally, generations of talented women artists are beginning to be recognised. This is the right moment to rediscover Angelica Kauffman’s life and work.

At an event I attended  at the Authors’ Club last October, the Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov said that his books are now banned in Ukraine because he writes in Russian, not Ukrainian. As Benjamin Franklin said, “If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.” I’ve since read two of his novels, Death and the Penguin, first published in the UK by Penguin (appropriately)in 2001 and The Gardener from Ochakov,first published in the UK by Vintage in 2014.  I love Russian literature and Kurkov’s novels continue the witty, fantastical tradition of Gogol and Bulgakov whilst being absolutely modern political satires. The penguin in the title of the first is Misha, abandoned by Kiev zoo when they can’t afford to feed him and adopted by Victor, an unsuccessful writer who makes a living writing suspiciously well-paid obituaries. He gradually realises that the subjects of his obituaries have a sinister tendency to die, and that he is being used by gangsters. Misha is a kind of alter-ego, it’s suggested that he teaches Victor to keep his feelings alive in a corrupt and dangerous world. Kiev in the mid 1990s, where the novel is set, is violent and dangerous and, in a way, Misha saves his life.

The Gardener from Ochakov is also very original and funny, brilliantly balanced between the surreal and the ‘real’ world. This Kiev and its suburbs is still violent and dangerous and incredibly boozy. Apart from in the novels of Patrick Hamilton I can’t think of a fictional character who consumes more alcohol than Igor, another lost, sympathetic young man. He finds an old Soviet policeman’s uniform and when he puts it on and drinks a particular kind of white wine, he returns to Soviet Russia in 1957, before he was born. He also finds an old gun and a gold watch, both of which work in the past but not in the present. Igor, like Victor in the earlier novel, is surrounded by danger and violence and when his friend is being pursued by a hitman he decides to save his life by sending him back to 1957.  They are both amazed when the boots and the old police uniform fit, because “the uniform and the boots represent the past and the past changes its shape and size to fit whoever tries it on.”

Kurkov’s deceptively simple language allows him to play with subtle and complex ideas in a very accessible way.