DARCY DUBELL discusses the London Literature Festival’s evening of Debut London Literature at the Southbank Centre.
This autumn, the Southbank Centre is opening their doors to literary enthusiasts and fellow creatives at the London Literature Festival. Last Wednesday, I had the chance to attend the Debut London Literature event, where a panel of four exciting authors—Kaliane Bradley, Hannah Regel, Tom Lamont and Varaidzo—shared their literary interpretations of London, and the ideas behind their debut works.
Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time imagines a not-so-distant future where historical figures are enlisted by the government to push the boundaries of time travel. This ambitious debut explores the power of history and the stories which we remember. In The Last Sane Woman, Hannah Regel navigates the manifestations of failure within the artistic world, layering themes of womanhood, history, and passion to paint a stunning debut. Tom Lamont’s Going Home is similar in its uncanniness. In his lyrical work, Lamont explores the central theme of grief through an intimate lens that focuses on fatherhood and friendship. In Manny and The Baby, Varaidzo transports readers between the 2012 Olympics and the jazz-filled nights of 1930s Soho, celebrating Black British identity with vivid, memorable characters.
From the start, the discussion emphasised the authors’ shared interest in place as more than mere setting: it’s a character. Seated comfortably in front of the audience, the authors discussed what London meant to them. Speaking candidly about the creative significance of the city, Lamont acknowledged Enfield, his hometown, as “lacking literary appeal”. Yet, in his novel, he transforms Enfield’s “ordinary” markers—a plaque over a Boots pharmacy, a familiar patch of woodland from his childhood—into emotional landscapes. Varaidzo spoke of a magnetic pull towards her London after moving from Peckham to Bath and spending her formative years there. The desire to transport back to nights spent in various London clubs led her to explore the history of Soho jazz clubs. She further explained that her inspirations for Manny and The Baby were born from the lack of literature about the pre-Windrush era London, which she describes as an “exuberant London”. Her work seeks to revive our memory of the jazz clubs of 1930s Soho.
Like Varaidzo, the other writers described an almost magnetic pull towards London’s history. Regel’s protagonist in The Last Sane Woman mirrors her own obsession with the past, rifling through archival letters that imitate and consequently replicate her own life. Regel, who began her career in fine art, described how her creative journey has led her to blend different forms of expression to explore her evolving relationship with the past. Bradley shared a similar synergy within her own creative process, whereby her personal research within historical archives led to a greater focus upon the exploration of character and narrative. Her fascination with polar exploration led her to discover a footnote about an explorer, whose mysterious name became the foundation for her main character, on whom she would then construct a narrative.
As debut authors who all admirably consider novel-writing their “side-hustle”, they all candidly discussed the practical realities of writing while balancing other commitments. The host, Barry Pierce, wryly noted the irony present within Virginia Woolf’s famous assertion: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” Smiling knowingly, and lamenting the shortage of funding in the arts, the novelists discussed the juggling of extortionate rents whilst dreaming of that coveted room. They also underlined the struggles of “making it big” in the urban metropolis and the fear of never quite making it in the creative world. With the benefit of hindsight, Bradley described her evolving relationship with London, where the city feels like a living entity, inspiring her as much as it challenges her. For Regel, London itself becomes a sprawling, malevolent force that inspires and pushes the limits of her creativity.
The evening concluded with a lasting impression of passion and persistence, as each author shared the hours, days and years invested in crafting their debut novels. Together, they showed that creativity thrives on complexity and that, with regards to London, there is so much more than meets the eye.
London Literature Festival runs annually. Going Home is released through Sceptre Books. The Ministry of Time is published by Avid Reader Press. The Last Sane Woman is published by Verso Books. Manny and The Baby is published by Scribe UK. For more events at the Southbank centre click here.
Featured image: Virginia Woolf’s writing lodge at Monk’s House.
