Dennis Cooper has picked Unwords as one of his nonfiction books of the year — what an honour! This (below) was posted on his blog on 9th December 2023:
A Nonfiction Book of the Year!
Tag Archives: 2023
Two Languages
Alex Marshall, “Jon Fosse Wants to Say the Unsayable”, The New York Times, 7 December 2023
The perspective he gained in the moment of his accident, Fosse explained, made its way into his writing: “I often say that there are two languages: The words that I wrote, the words you can understand, and behind that, there’s a silent language.” And it’s in that “silent language,” he added, that the real meaning may lie.
In a lecture in Stockholm on Thursday, a ritual that all Nobel laureates observe before getting their awards, Fosse expanded a little on the idea of a silent language. “It is only in the silence that you can hear God’s voice,” he said. “Maybe.”
Making Silence Speak
Jon Fosse, The Observer, interview by Chris Power, 28 October 2023
Playwriting allowed Fosse to employ silence in a way he couldn’t in prose. ‘I could use the word “pause” a lot, and “he or she breaks off”, and somehow make the silence speak and establish a second silent language behind the spoken language.’ …’I think basically writing resembles drinking to me. When you drink you become someone a bit different, and you get rid of your normal self. And to me writing … it’s not to express myself, it’s to get rid of myself.’
The Squiddity of Sam Mills 11
Paris, November 2023
The Unwords Campaign
Visiting bookshops, London, November 2023.
Je est un autre
St Pancras, London, November 2023.
Je est un autre
Sketch by Sam Mills, Antibes 2023.
The Squiddity of Sam Mills 10
“Meaningless violence may be the true poetry of the new millenium. Perhaps only gratuitous madness can define what we are” – J. G. Ballard, Super-Cannes
The Mirror Stage
Me and Sam Mills, National Gallery, May 2023.
London Hartfields
The wine bar we used to go to so often is no longer there — and neither are you, Mum, or Amis.
ANDREW GALLIX 