THAT PROMETHEAN SPARK
THE BOTTLE IMP – Muriel Spark Special Issue
“With a writing career that included biography, criticism, drama and short fiction as well as novels, Muriel Spark was never one to do things by halves…”
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“I advocate the arts of satire and of ridicule. And I see no other living art form for the future. Ridicule is the only honourable weapon we have left.”
—available on BBC Sounds: Alan Taylor & William Boyd join Mariella Frostrup to share their love of Muriel Spark’s writing
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“Spark had just passed on to me an unexpected gift: the gift of the future. I’m beginning to think her books are themselves a kind of fruitfulness.”
—Ali Smith on how Muriel Spark gives us the gift of the future
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“As far-right ideas spread, and misinformation abounds, her books are a piercing reminder of how extreme politics can appeal to the sanest-seeming people—and that half-truths and malfeasance are as intrinsic to human nature as breathing. Spark is a bard of nastiness and lies.”
—The Economist on the continuing relevance of Muriel Spark’s fiction
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“Muriel Spark gave me a new model for a feminist hero […] It was about loitering—about the quiet subversiveness of simply existing in public as a woman.”
—Beth Jellicoe on Muriel Spark’s LOITERING WITH INTENT
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“What hash Spark’s characters make of those eternal debates over unlikable characters or unlikable women. These women aren’t unlikable, these women are monstrous… Spark looks at her women like a wolf.”
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AFTERWORDS: Muriel Spark
“One’s prime is elusive…”
—On BBC Sounds: writers Ian Rankin & Zoë Strachan discuss Muriel Spark’s life & work with National Library of Scotland curator Colin McIlroy, & Spark’s friend & memoirist, Alan Taylor