One of the many interesting facts included in Maryanne Wolf’s recent study of the reading brain, Proust and the Squid, is how getting stuck into a book can increase empathy. Whether you experience an event or read about it, the same part of your brain reacts in the same way. Clever.
That fact
sprung to mind as I got sucked into The Translator by Leila Aboulela, who’s
taking part in the Heavenly Pleasures event at the festival. Her descriptions
of Aberdeen (“a brief day, cold silver sandwiched between two nights”) and Khartoum
(“the sand, thick sand covering everything, whirls of soft sand on the tiles to
scoop up and throw away”) are so poetically, evocatively drawn, you feel you’re
there. The cities form the backdrop to a gentle, moving exploration of what it
is to love someone of another faith. For me, the first of this year’s festival
discoveries.
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