Literature transcends gender, or so we choose to believe.
Authors Annabel Kantaria, Gill Hornby, Freya North and Ann Cleeves were part of a panel discussion at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and had an interesting perspective on whether women writers end up having a largely female readership.
British crime writer Ann Cleeves felt women definitely wrote from a different place, as compared to men.
“I was moderating a panel a couple of weeks ago and had quite an experience when I asked the writers on what made them select the genres they wrote,” she said.
Every woman who answered the question had a personal reason for selecting what they chose to write – from a child’s deteriorating health to the trauma of being sexually assaulted at a young age, Cleeves discovered that women were deeply influenced by their own personal experiences when selecting what to write.
But gender’s influence on writing was not the only topic on discussion at the Thursday morning panel. The writers spoke of travelling – arguable one of the biggest perks of being a writer – and how characters in their personal lives made their way into their books.
While most of the authors had people in their lives wrongly presume they were the inspiration behind a character, Gill Hornby had quite the opposite experience.
“I’ve had some fun with my books. I write about queen bees and I am surrounded by some myself. The funny thing is, they never know I am writing about them. That’s the thing about the monster, it never recognises itself as a monster.”
The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature will offer several panel discussion and talks through the weekend for book lovers.
— The writer is a freelancer with Gulf News
