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Deane backs Derry culture
bid
27.04.10
ACCLAIMED Derry poet,
scholar and novelist Seamus Deane has given his
endorsement to the Derry bid to become UK City
Culture 2013.
During a visit to his home town on last week, Deane,
whose first novel ‘Reading In The Dark’ was
nominated for the Booker Prize and won the Irish
Literature prize in 1997, called into the City of
Culture Office in the old Northern Counties building
to give his backing to the bid.
“I think Derry has a combination of history and
geography that makes it a border city between two
conditions as well as two countries," he said.
"I knew Derry before the Troubles, during the
Troubles and much less so since the Troubles. When I
come back now, the difference between what Derry is
now and was then, seems to me the more remarkable,
the more noticeable. Just for achieving that kind of
transformation itself makes Derry merit the award of
city of culture."
The writer said the most lasting change in his home
city was the atmosphere. |
"The atmosphere is a
great deal more relaxed, a good deal softer than it
used to be. And the conversations I have with people
are less spiky than they used to be.
"That sort of atmospheric change indicates a deeper
change that has taken place in the community at
large and frankly it’s not one that I thought I
would live to see. It has the historical depth and
reference and it has the reputation which was won, |
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alas, during the
Troubles but has also been won during the
reconciliation.
Deane is currently Keough Professor of Irish Studies
at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and a
co-editor of the Field Day Review literary journal.
He says Derry has a "critical mass of cultural and
historical depth that other cities simply can’t
match".
“They don’t have that critical history, if there are
other cities in the UK that are in competition,
whatever their virtues maybe, and they may be many,
they don’t have this kind of history which is
important for the UK and for Ireland both.”
Meanwhile, he said he believed that a successful
campaign would see the city become a "magnet for
visitors" attracted to experiencing a place that has
undergone a fundamental transformation.
“I would say there would be a lot of people who are
originally from here or who knew this place during
the Troubles who would find a magnetic pull to come
back here and see it in a transformed state.
"As I say, the transformation is not just physical
but atmospheric and therefore a psychological
transformation, and it’s not often that you get an
opportunity to see something like that.” |
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