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Ann Riley's avatar

I think you will get back to festivals soon Hanif and will realise how happy people are for you that you survived and are starting to thrive again . Will be v emotional.

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Sam Redlark's avatar

It has been heartening watching you and Salman Rushdie, in the wake of life-changing injuries, not resigning to fate but pushing back at it. The human spirit that is evident in your writings is also present in your recoveries, such as they are. The archetype of those professional writers who don't rise to the level of socialite is that of a desk-bound wraith. I still wouldn't want to back one of these wilful individuals into a corner. A.J. Ayer stood up to Mike Tyson in the flesh, defending the honour of Naomi Campbell. I bet Emily Bronte could marshal her bony knuckles into a serviceable uppercut.

During the 90s, I would attend the Reading Festival. I love music, many more magnitudes than I love the written word, even though I can't play a note. From my perspective a performing musician is effectively a sorcerer. I can't equate what comes out of an instrument with whatever they are doing to produce those sounds. A few years ago, a friend on mine died of a massive heart attack on his front doorstep. I inherited the acoustic guitar he was allowed to have towards the end of his prison sentence. There is a chunk missing from the bodywork. I attempt to tune it occasionally, but I never play it.

At the Reading Festival I would work out an itinerary where I would be continuously watching live music. I wouldn't eat. I would barely drink. I have allergies to practically everything in creation and, of course, hay fever. My body is a walking over-reaction. By the end of the three days, I would be in a terrible state, barely able to breathe. I loved the density of the crowds; when everybody starts jumping up and down in unison and suddenly there is no oxygen at eye level. Your lungs burn. Giant voids form spontaneously amidst the scrum of bodies. You brace yourself so as not to fall in, and get ready to haul up anyone who does lose their footing and go down.

I stood at the front of a stage surrounded by besotted young women who had assembled to watch Jeff Buckley. He was extraordinarily good looking, like something chiselled out of marble. I was there to see Morphine who were on after. They were a beatnik jazz trio – a saxophonist, a drummer and home-made two-string bass guitar. Jeff Buckley drowned in the Mississippi in 1997. A couple of years later, Mark Sandman – the lead singer and bass player for Morphine – suffered a heart attack on stage in Italy and died.

At the end of a set by Mogwai – the sonic equivalent of a temple roof being pulled down on our heads – the drummer stood up and hurled one of his sticks into crowd. Everyone around me dived down to retrieve it. I regarded myself above such things and remained standing. A second later the other drumstick came spinning out of the darkness and hit me squarely in the mouth. At the moment of contact I locked eyes with a member of the stage security team, who visibly flinched. I ran my tongue along my teeth to make sure they were all still there, spat out a globule of blood and flesh and went on my way. The entire lower part of my face swelled up. My right cheek felt like a rotten orange that was about to collapse in on itself.

I felt a sense of purpose and belonging at music festivals. At literary events I feel adrift; a stranger in a strange land. I don't know how to talk about books. My ignorance and the limitations in my comprehension are too close to the surface to conceal. I sometimes feel like I am holding back the conversation.

Reading is something that I do in private. I consider it a solitary pursuit that is both solipsistic, while also allowing the possibility to study the human condition from a distance. Like one of the angels in Wings of Desire, you observe life but take no part in it. I have just finished 'Everybody Loves Our Town' – Mark Yarm's oral history of Grunge, which is by turns hilarious and incredibly sad, given the talent that was lost to hard drugs, suicide and murder. This evening, or maybe tomorrow, I will begin The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning.

My attempts at writing are a private thing too. I am trying to work out what I think about things. It's transformative – autobiography beaten out of shape, buried under so many layers that you would never know the inspiration, nor would I want anyone to know.

If there is ever a literary festival for morons, where you can play 'pin the tale on the Brothers Grimm', then I'll go to that.

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