Authors Electric

Why do we tell stories?  That’s easy – to entertain. To lull our children to sleep. To give people a way of occupying their minds on long plane journeys. And, of course, to make a living, if you happen to be the writer of that novel picked up in the airport bookshop. It’s not as simple as that, though, is it? Because if you’re a writer, you can’t help writing, whether or not your stories ever get published. The urge to tell and listen to stories goes deep into our psyche and is common to all human societies, no matter how ancient. This was brought home to me forcefully – and wonderfully – on a recent visit to Arnhemland in the Northern Territories of Australia, a region of 37,000 square miles which has been returned by the Australian Government to its Aboriginal owners, the Yolngu. To visit this beautiful, wild (and very humid) landscape you need a special permit; or you book, as we did, with the only safari company allowed to operate there.  Our guide took us ...

Recently I’ve found myself wondering: Why did we start to write? I don’t mean, what made you or me want to write books/plays/poems/utter drivel – but the writing itself. What drove people to invent a system of setting words down for others to read? Aboriginal rock drawings, Arnhemland, Australia It can’t be just to transmit knowledge. Plenty of ancient cultures did this perfectly well by word of mouth; aborigines in Australia built up a wealth of learning vital to survival which they passed down through generations in this way, from the medicinal properties of plants to hunting techniques to how to find water. Wall paintings in the Northern Territories show how they used storytelling: wallabies and snakes interweave with figures holding weapons or performing rites. A kind of writing, perhaps – and not. When the pictures tell the story, you don’t need words. So what did make writing necessary? According to my anthropologist husband, the need to record ...