Dr Jerome de Groot, chair of the steering committee, Manchester UNESCO City of Literature, discusses Manchester’s literary heritage and identity, and the importance of global recognition.
ON October 31, 2017 Manchester was among those cities which became part of the Creative Cities Network, and were designated Cities of Literature, including Durban, South Africa; Lillehammer, Norway; Quebec, Canada; Utrecht, the Netherlands; Seattle, US; Milan, Italy; and Bucheon, Republic of Korea. These cities have shown commitment to the pursuit of excellence whilst attempting to engage all citizens through a ‘dynamic culture of words’, and Manchester’s bid was another collaboration involving the city’s diverse literary community.
The bid was co-ordinated by a consortium of literary influencers within the city including Manchester City Council, Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Manchester and the Manchester Literature Festival, alongside those representing the city’s writers, publishers, creative and literary organisations. Dr Jerome de Groot, chair of the steering committee, Manchester UNESCO City of Literature, spoke to Pan European Networks about Manchester’s literary heritage and identity, as well as the impact of worldwide literary recognition.
How integral is the literary community to Manchester’s cultural identity?
Manchester has always been a place that has been excited by radical, interesting, innovative, and experimental writing – a place that’s interested in using writing to challenge, and try to change, the world. For instance, writers like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who were in Manchester in the mid-19th Century, used their writing to change the world; as did Elizabeth Gaskell, who wasn’t born in Manchester but spent most of her time in the city, using her writing as part of a wave of social campaign. Manchester is such an important place – people come to Manchester and see that writing was important, to either document the social ills and to try and make a difference, as Charles Dickens would have done, or to respond to the vibrancy of the place, as well as the madness of Manchester in the 19th Century.
There’s still an incredible vibrancy throughout the city, where all different types of writing and creative communities can be found. For some, that might be focused upon a writer like Anthony Burgess, who was a great writer with a clear sense of importance of the literary – but also a practitioner interested in innovation, change, and shifts.
In terms of how important the literary community is, two of those writers currently have centres dedicated to their work in Manchester. Gaskell House, the former home of Elizabeth Gaskell, was opened as a museum in 2014, whilst the International Anthony Burgess Foundation has a thriving event space, an archive where his work is studied and a library of his many books, papers, records and objects.
What role did literary influencers, such as the Manchester Literature Festival, play in the campaign to recognise Manchester?
There were many people involved in the bid. We had several consultation meetings to ask people what they thought about the bid, there was an incredible warmth and positivity coming from all different sectors – from libraries, publishers, and from other festival events. One of the reasons for that warmth and can-do attitude is that Manchester is the kind of place where people do work collaboratively quite a lot.
The Manchester Literature Festival was central as one of the main drivers. Over ten years, the Literature Festival has established Manchester as a place where a lot of collaborative work takes place in terms of literary culture, as well as other members of the community throughout the city. The Literature Festival has 60-70 events each year, and there’s no focused space. Therefore, the festival always takes place in different areas around the city. I’ve been to poetry readings in nightclubs, as well as events in more obvious places like libraries.
What that has meant is that there is a clear sense that you can do whatever you want, anywhere, in Manchester – not just in obvious post-industrial spaces but more interesting areas. There is a value to collaborative work around the city for making things better by working in partnership. The Literature Festival has worked in partnership with countless organisations within the city, apart from being involved in driving the City of Literature as an idea, but there was already a network of relationships established, and everyone knew that they could work alongside the festival whatever their interests. Effectively, counterparts recognised that it was a useful, powerful way of making Manchester better.
Why are writers, publishers and academics attracted to the city?
Its a strong, cultural city with a large number of creative people and organisations. There’s a lot happening all year round and a real sense of new and innovative work being produced and presented here. I think that’s definitely a draw for new writers. There’s also a palpable sense of possibility in the city culturally and particularly in literature, and a growing audience for live literature and spoken word nights. Writing shades into filmmaking, which shades into music making, which shades into a night using theatre or performance. There’s an enormous amount of grassroots activity happening from the writing schools – The Manchester Writing School at MMU and the Centre for New Writing, The University of Manchester – and from the culture of the city being both vibrant and fun. I think there’s a lot of people coming to Manchester for that reason, with apologies to other cities in the north of England, it is the biggest and most booming city at present in terms of culture and creativity.
Manchester is only two hours from London by train and is more affordable in terms of housing and transport than the capital. That’s not an inconsiderable thing for a writer, independent publisher or literature organisation to think about. It’s also a thriving city with its own identity, history and cultural heritage. There’s also an innumerable number of readers, which we focused upon in our application, which turned out to be the innovative aspect about our application for the City of Literature. We are really interested in not only celebrating writing – that is, Manchester as a city of writing – but as a city of writing – but thinking about how we can encourage more people to read; develop and expand their reading; be involved in the literature scene and work together to create a stronger, more diverse literature community that reaches more people.
If you’re a young creative, there’s an enormous number of people here, and an enormous audience, as well as a desire and thirst for these kinds of things – and quite a thirst to be challenged. On the one hand, there’s a lot to do, there’s a lot happening, and that’s always creative, but at the same time there’s a lot of people who want you to do things.
Will recognition from UNESCO advance Manchester’s literary identity? If so, through which means?
It will, definitely, for all the kind of obvious things about profile, about international reach and being part of this amazing network that we suddenly have. It offers incredible access to hundreds of cities around the world, but particularly the other cities that are Cities of Literature, which are already starting to talk to us about co-sponsoring events and collaborating; that is in itself a quantum leap for the capability of the city to do all kinds of amazing things. It gives us a narrative – a way of collecting the narrative together and for us to say this is what we stand for as a city of writing, as a city of literature.
I think it’s a great vote of confidence in the city’s creative identity, it’s certainly recognition that the city is world-class, but that it also has the potential to do other things. At present, we’re in really good shape and, with the help of the network, we can become even better.
What plans, or projects does the city have for its future literary identity?
As we are interested in both reading and writing, one of our specific aims is to encourage more people within the city to contribute, to make attempts to ensure people are writing as much as possible, as well as offering them a forum for that – a kind of ‘Write Manchester’ initiative. However, we’re also interested in creating a space for people to read and write in, and to exchange cultural ideas. That might be in the form of a centre, or a network of centres, or a hub – we’re discussing in terms of what that might look like.
We’re interested in celebrating language diversity too. Manchester has the highest language density in the UK. Effectively, that means that there are more languages spoken per head than anywhere else in the UK. We’re extremely interested in encouraging language diversity and celebrating ways in which we can see our citizens write and communicate – those who might come to work with us or those who write internationally (not just in English but in multiple other languages, including sign languages). There’s a real excitement about that. We’re going to host our first event surrounding that initiative on 21 February 2018, which is a day dedicated to honouring International Mother Language Day.
In addition, organisations like Manchester Literature Festival are interested in commissioning and presenting more work that brings together new music and words.
Dr Jerome de Groot
Chair of Steering Committee
Manchester UNESCO City of Literature
www.manchestercityofliterature.com
This article will appear in Pan European Networks: Government Europa Quarterly 24, which will be published in January, 2018.
