Focus 580; The Atlantic Sound

In this hour of focus 580 will be talking with Carl Philips. He is probably best known as a novelist. He's also written some works of nonfiction and will be talking this morning about his most recent. The title of that book being the Atlantic sound. It is a book that's difficult to describe in just a few lines. It is a trait it's partly it's travel writing. Partly it is a personal kind of story of a personal journey. And it's partly also social history because it is in part about the Atlantic slave trade. And about the the triangle that was created between Africa and the United States the southern part States and Britain which is a path. That the guest follows in writing about that but in a much larger sense it's really about the idea of identity as something that he has explored a good deal in his writing a bit more about him just

before we introduce you to him. He was born in Saint Kitts in the West Indies and then the year he was born his family moved to England. He was brought up there in Leeds and went to school at Oxford. He's written scripts for Film Theatre radio and television. He is the author of a previous book of nonfiction titled The European tribe. He's also written six novels. He has received a number of awards for his writing including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship he also was one point shortlisted for the Booker Prize which is the the top literary honor in Britain and his recent book The one here we're talking about is the Atlantic sound and it's published by Knopf. He makes his home in New York. But this morning he's talking with us from Chicago. And as we talk questions are welcome 3 3 3 WRAL or 9 4 5 5. And we also have a toll free line that means if it would be a long distance call for you use that number that's 800 to 2 to WY alone.

Mr. Philips Velo morning thank you for talking with us. Thank you for having me on the show. I found a quote that I think I'd like to ask you about and and might be a good way to start and this was actually I think it was at a point where you were spending some time at Barnard and there was a little material here that I got off of their website where they include this quote from you where you say that I'm very interested in people with multiple identities. Go you go on to say that's what I consider the state of the modern world. And it's certainly the prevailing condition in New York City. Why is it why are you interested in people with multiple identities. I think largely because I have a multiple. I dented to myself as you mention in your introduction I was born in the West and I am a British citizen I grew up in Britain. I also happen to be an American resident so in a sense my

the vaguest autobiographical outlines of my own life defy singular categorize variations of a sort of plurality to my own upbringing and the second reason I'm interested in this idea of multiple identities. I grew up in a country which doesn't easily accommodate people who have multiple identities or plural identities Britain is a very all eyes to perceive itself in a very homogenous country a country in which one doesn't hyphenate you know it's very difficult to think of oneself as an African Briton or as an Irish Briton in the way in which you can use utilize these terms in this country and of Irish Americans African American Swedish Americans and so on. Is this some help particularly acute the issue of identity being someone of with African roots or earth is that. Is that not so much an issue there anymore and it's

just as you say a very in every issue that's somehow real for everyone it doesn't matter where your roots are. Well I think it's an issue that is real for everybody I mean I listen to you talk in interest in there about the the idea of having somebody come on. Put a opposite point of view or a different point of view on the situation in Israel I mean you know that the situation there is that there are people who have problems and identity problems and affiliation problems of national affiliation I mean I think it's a global problem you've mentioned I think you mentioned a former Yugoslavia. So I mean it is global I mean in my own particular personal case of course is a problem which exacerbated which is exacerbated by I consider race. Because of race and racism. But you know you could equally well be the case that somebody might.

Have questions of identity which are rooted in the face gender sexuality as well as a nationality so I think it's a universal question that many have many many people in the world they're grappling with and in my case and the fact that I'm of African origin and part of the African Diaspora has contributed to all of that you know problem if you like. The the book has this this almost triangular structure in in a sense that models the this triangle of the slave trade that with with one point in Britain and one point in Africa and one point in the southern United States. Sure I mean I was listening to you describe the book and I was I was wishing I could sort of take you around the country with me before I did a reading meet you could you could explain how you did I mean I thought it was going to very succinctly because it is a difficult book to sum up in terms of a mixture of reparative memoir

social history of it. So the easiest aspect in the book to grasp is the fact that it's it is kind of trying to unite shape in terms of it being three long essays all of which. Deal with the apexes of what has become known to as it is the. The slave triangle the slave trading triangle where the ship's last Europe arrived and the African coast to the West African coast and arrived in the Americas which is the point of the triangle so I kind of use this as a sort of organize ational motif for the book. The the this first leg from from the Caribbean to Britain in a sense is your retracing the steps that your parents took and that you took probably when you were too young to really have much memory of that experience that took them from the place that you were born there to then to the place where you grew up.

Sure. You know. Before I got into the sort of main body of the book if you like there's a prologue which just trace my call at L.A. cross in aid of strace my own journey from the Caribbean. A couple of years ago as an adult I have been on a boat going from the caravan to England I mean it's a journey I wanted to undertake a couple of years ago because way back when. It's a journey that I undertook in the arms of my parents as a child and the journey which they never really fully explained to me. The reasoning behind that migration they never really like most first generation migrants that wanted to protect their children to some extent. They didn't explain the hardships the difficulties the FIA's the longing that placed them on that ship to England I've been on a boat and so I you know as an adult I really wanted to go and make that journey myself and if you know I meditate on the relationship between

the Caribbean and Britain and do what I should do myself or my parents in and the whole notion of migrants and travel and what this means to us both then 40 years ago and today in the you know at the dawn of the new century that kind of journey making that journey on the boat is something that almost no one does anymore. Yeah with good reason too. Defense is uncomfortable it takes a long time it's you know it's not exactly a pleasant way to travel but does that somehow make it make one think differently about about the journey and the arrival than you would if you simply got on an airplane and a few a few hours later and maybe relative discomfort depending on what kind of class you travel in that it's certainly a very different experience. How does that make you think differently about the experience. Well I mean I've traveled from the Caribbean too to Britain on an airplane many many times

but it you know we're talking about seven eight hours in a sealed capsule watching TV with people kind enough to bring you as many drinks you consume and bad food and you know old newspapers and before you know where it is you know bleary eyed and you know at Heathrow there's no real time for meditation or reflection. The reason I chose the traveling quite uncomfortable and you know I'm never in way in some in some respects I was unafraid to ship and it's only a couple of other passengers who didn't speak English. The reason I chose to travel that way was to try to recreate some of that discomfort just some of the year ending tariffs. Some of the fear if you like of the unknown. Certainly fear of the sea that my parents who at the time and they made that journey in the late 60s were 25 and 20. Father and mother respectively so you know it was a completely different experience and one which did

allow for you know reflection and at times you know I thought I I hope I thought more profoundly about their lives and their experiences than I have it would have done in an airplane in that section you. You know after you've described the fact that this is indeed a ship that's designed to carry cargo and there are rooms for a few passengers. You write that you at one point you begin to wonder why anybody would willingly subject themselves to serving time on a ship that is primarily designed to carry cargo and not human beings. Then you go on to talk about that a little bit but it strikes me that that the ease with which we travel now has changed the way we think about. What this is all about and that it's that it's this might be indeed one way to recapture. Just how significant a step it would have been at the time when this was the way you did it and the idea of just hopping on a plane

and going back and forth so easily that we have that idea now but this makes one thing more of the time when for example when people who were leaving Europe to come to the United States their families literally held wakes for them because this symbolically was the death of the person because they knew they'd never see them again. It's just not like that anymore. Well I think you have to have one has to have a reasonably good strong preferably personal reason to place yourself in any kind of discomfort when you're traveling. I mean obviously. I did have strong personal reasons to do that and it made me think a lot about the courage of young migrants from in this instance from the Caribbean going over the horizon to a country which they expected. I mean they expected from this country because they were citizens they were colonial citizens of a British passport holders. They made me realize the

magnitude of this generated degree of expectation and they held them. It's it really does depend on each individual why one would retrace a journey I could understand for instance why somebody of Irish ancestry might wish to return to the village or the region of Ireland where their grandparents or parents came from and you know they spend the night in the local house that a relative grew up in and it may not be a Holiday Inn or Hilton or a nice hotel and it may be uncomfortable but there is a strong personal reason sometimes for which which makes logical. Will the physical circumstances that we often sometimes put ourselves in. I probably should reintroduce our guest We're talking with Carl Philips He's a writer maybe best known as a novelist although And indeed he has written six novels in addition though he's written film scripts and scripts for theatre and radio and television and a couple of non fiction books. His most recent the one we're

talking about here this morning is titled The Atlantic sound and it's published by cop and he's talking with us this morning from Chicago. So your questions certainly are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. When you go to Britain the city that you write about the place that you write about is Liverpool which is has been for a long long time a very important port city. I guess that I did not know though just how significant a role that Liverpool played in the slave trade as. A. I guess as a departure point for the material that was then taken to Africa exchanged for slaves and then also when then the slaves went to the United States and then the goods were picked up on that and went back and completed the other end of the triangle. Are there ways in which you still in some some way

in Liverpool see something that's left from from that time or what is left from that time. Well you know there are indeed ways in which you see what is left from that town that time. The I mean the difficulty with some cities and political is certainly a prime example. This is that Sun City's light to rain scribe and reinterpret the history the light to invent mythologized. I mean we do this in a sense when we talk about ourselves to individuals if. If you're talking about you know life to one person it's probably not going to be the same narrative that you will unfold when you're talking to another person but cities have a similar ability to self mythologized themselves and if they have an aspect of the history of it she's uncomfortable Dok troubling then obviously they wish to hide it a little. On arrival in Liverpool. The thing I think that greets most strangers to the city is

the magnificence of the architecture. After London and it's surprising to some people to realize that it's not bashful Bristol Birmingham all Manchester that boasts the most listed protected buildings in Britain. It's livable and I think the most visible evidence of the pool's complicity in the slave trade is stick to the ground. The architecture it did no doubt would have been an important place anyway in a prosperous place anyway but perhaps not as important as prosperous or it had not been. For the slave trade there was no possibility of a PPL becoming even vaguely as prosperous. It subsequently became. Without the slave trade level was lagging far behind London Bristol Manchester Fabiani been kind of Asian until she discovered that she had excellent deepwater haba. She

had a very very good supply of cheap labor through Irish immigration into Liverpool and she had one of the most important shipbuilding industries in Europe and very quickly by the end of the eighteenth century it was the end of the 18th century. Three fifths of the whole European slave trade was emanating from Imphal not just three fifths of the British slaves right. The whole European slave trade including Portugal France Spain. It was. Quite phenomenal situation where basically once every two to three days a fully crewed fully laden ship was leaving Liverpool for the west coast of Africa and a fully crewed ship that could accommodate three to four hundred African slaves once the ship arrived so you can obviously do the math oneself and work out exactly what that meant in terms of revenue in terms of the importance of central of the of the trade and in terms of exactly

how many people were leaving the shores of Africa for the new world. At the same time that you talk about Liverpool in the present day in visiting there you also include in this a story of another man who went to Liverpool from. Africa and eighteen eighty one. Yeah. To in to work out some difficult some trade difficulties involving his father and looking at the issue of whether him why he hadn't paid for something that he had shipped from Africa to Britain and so the man sent the Father sent the son to go to find out what was going on. And so you you see Liverpool then through the eyes of this man and it's a way of getting some contrast between then and now and also I think it tells the

story very nicely in a in a way that would be perhaps otherwise a bit more dry and historical what we're getting is that the account of an individual of that time visiting there. Why did you decide on that kind of device to to try to recreate. What Liverpool would have been like at that time. You've already answered it. It would have been dry and historical I mean one can recount the social history of the times and quote statistics. Add in for an item but I mean the fact is you know I mean essentially my my my business is fiction characters and the drama that and snatched the life of individuals and so I find it very hard to to recount facts all you know turn research around without introducing human drama. And it was such a striking story

as you say that as an African trader on the west coast of Africa who was trading freely in the wake of the abolition of the slave trade with Liverpool merchant who cheated him basically he didn't he remitted goods in order to pay for a ship to be built in Liverpool that would subsequently be sent to. Africa said that this man could conduct his business up river with with with more ease and efficiency. The man sent all the goods the ship never arrived and so obviously he had been cheated rather than just take this on the chain he sent his son. He fell in the sun his pride and joy a young man to Liverpool the man had never left Africa and sent him to Liverpool to try to find the individual who had cheated him in trying to get the money back and it's quite a remarkable story that the African son arrived in Liverpool and eventually tracked down the individual took him to court and won the court case. And in what way. So when you see Liverpool

when you try to see Liverpool through the eyes of this man and then you see it through your own eyes. How are those those two. Liverpool's then now really the same place then the same place because it's a place then and it's a place now which which is not very comfortable with itself it's a place in which there is a certain degree of cheatin send a grand hiding of the fact. Except tucking things away neatly out of sight. Be it the money that we take from an individual be it the money we take from an institution such as slavery and the legacy of that that if actually that that. Betrayal of of its own history is still very much evident in the poem and when most people I mean I'm sure if you asked most people in Illinois what they thought when utilized the time of the bull they would say the Beatles or you know

the Merseybeat music. Maybe some who follow soccer would think of the football teams which are both very successful but very few people would think slavery. Very few people would think of a city which built its wealth build this reputation built its name in a state is on the back of the slave trade it just wouldn't occur to most people. The next leg of the trip that you make and the book is then to go from Britain to Africa specifically to Ghana visiting a place that was the place where the slaves were put on ships from there and then taken to the United States. How how do people there Africans there think about this part of their history. Well I mean I'm generalising now because obviously I can

only. Speak of the people that I encountered but sort of a kind of barometer a test of a range of opinions that I've encountered would say that most people in Guyana and in the particular part of the. That I was then seemed to regard it somewhat pragmatically. It was a business it was an unfortunate business but obviously to some extent it was a business which may have been emotionally painful in coruscating to send individuals and other African individuals. It was a business which allowed them to flourish economically because that the myths that were often handed down by teaches textbooks to media that the slave trade was basically a bunch of white guys from European countries who one day appeared on the West African coast with guns and rounded up all

these black guys and women and shipped them off to Africa is obviously nonsense. There was such a thing as collaboration. It was it was an African business as well as a European business. The the the first part of this trip that is the trip from the Caribbean to Britain was for you a kind of homecoming because you had grown up in Britain. But this this also this essay about this next leg is titled homeward bound. I did it for you feel. On some level. Like a kind of a homecoming. I think anybody of African origin to be honest who finds oneself to be in the West whether in the Americas or in Europe but the descendant of people who shipped out of Africa voluntarily

returned to Africa. Our visit to Africa is to some extend and emotional trip. It's. Rekindling of the past to rejoin and have some kind of umbilical cord to a past that you yoked away from. After all you know the African American and the African. Person in the Diaspora is generally the descendant of the only migrant group into the way some of the only migrant group in the United States of America who came in voluntarily who were not asked to not flee in a pogrom were not fleeing a potato famine who were not fleeing the difficulties of war all economic on the development Africans didn't ask people of African origin didn't ask to come that fall to return however briefly to a place which one left in voluntarily is a homecoming of some sort. The difficulty that many

faced And some extent I'm no different is that you know one doesn't want to return and viewing Africa on the African continent through rose tinted spectacles you know one has moved on and you know there's very little purpose and arriving within within the freight of romance than in one. And do you do. People do that. Absolutely. And I understand why they would do that. But you know my purpose in fit in and what I visited many times with my purpose in writing the particular essay in the book homeward bound was to try to examine some of the ironies and difficulties which which do I think afflict people who arrive expecting Africa to perhaps solve psychological spiritual problems that have been engendered by trying

to live and survive in what is often institutionally racist society a society which is discriminating against them on the basis that they are of African origin therefore you know it's difficult to expect people to arrive without expecting something so I'm trying to explore in these particular I say the the problematics if you like of of belonging expectation rejection and and what that makes one think about home where is home once was arrived in Africa. I've realized that. This is the home of some songs but it's not. Today because certain things used to and not that then I think the question of just what is home and how am I going to comport myself once I return these become very important questions. We have a caller would welcome others. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's good for all of the local listeners

and if you would be outside of the immediate area here and I would be a long distance call use the toll free line that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Caller here is in Champaign County and its line number one you know the morning I was wondering. I have couple of questions because the first one might might not go anywhere others. See a lot of cultural products from England and one of the things I've used recently was a mini series depicting the slave trade and the life of me can't member the title of it are the producers and the BBC or Channel 4. But it was interesting that it was thought to be something to treat but far be it for me to complain about a depiction of class but it seems to me that part of that the drama and that's is why I like British product I guess is because they do treat class more with an us a cultural product whatever dramas do.

But I wonder if it's not some kind of a misrepresentation in some way in that. But is it really true that small holders would you know make their fortune as a slaver. Or is it not true that it was really more the more integrated into the aristocracy and the cultural. I don't know if I don't know if you can handle that the other question and again it all is. If you've been following as we do here because in some necklace in the BBC late into the night here the discussion about a document that was just released in England about the challenge of diversity or something and trying to break up the monolith of a culturally. Well as you say it's easier here to be a hyphenated American I guess in some ways but I think we still get people complaining about African-American cultural programs and Latino programs

on. I mean it's a constant refrain here despite the fact that it is perhaps more accepted in some ways. So I have to hang up and I can gauge and repartee but I hope someone else calls in and I'll listen to some of your thoughts on these. And momentarily I don't know if you actually saw that film. Thanks. OK well can you make some response to that. Yeah the first point about class funding is a very important point. You know I think that it does frustrate me as well that in this country the notion of the relationship of race to class and the interconnectedness of the two isn't often acknowledged I mean I'm perhaps grown up and developed as a writer and as a thinker with a very strong sense of class being a determining factor in nearly all social decisions particularly as an oil that I grew up in the north of England in

the working class. So I do think it's a point whether or not I want to you know. Rolls out from there to make a distinction between the aristocracy all the small holders all the middle class or the lower middle class. You know there are people who have done work in this area that are a fiction and nonfiction she examines this my book. This particular book doesn't really tackle that but it's a perfectly valid point. You know it's it enriched all levels of society. If truth be known but there was a level of society the upper classes who are obviously more invested in it then were the middle and the working classes. As far as the series I'm not sure because to be perfectly honest I spend a lot of time in the United States of traveling and I've been in the last couple of years so a lot of things that I would have watched in the BBC and find it on Channel 4 in England I just haven't seen all caught up with it and I forget what the second.

Well I guess I generally speaking I took. The question to be is something like well how well is Britain doing in fact are we dealing with the challenges of multicultural Yes I'm aware you know there was a report that was released I think last week by an organization called the Runnymede Trust and so the follow the debate the personal and professional reason that people are trying to change things in Britain and it is certainly true that it's in the. I don't want to become too poppy political habit feminists and the Labor Party came to power a couple of years ago a few years ago. You know things have changed I mean the Conservative Party it pretty much as the name suggests tend to have a much more imperial sense of British history and sense of British history that is slightly less wedded to a heterogeneous view of its citizenship and citizenry. So I think things are changing and people are trying to loosen up definitions in Britain that it's changed enormously since I was a kid

and it appears to be changing with the increasing vigor in the last couple of years. Let's talk with someone else this is the callers in Paris that is Paris Illinois. Number four. Hello yeah. Yes I want to like ask your guest the fees the fees are familiar with James Michener probably everybody is with a book on Africa. I read I read that re read it probably about three times and that's basically my entire knowledge of Africa. I just wonder if he's a credible author. And whose facts are straight. Now I have to listen here. Well all right. Well I'm I'm not I'm not familiar with the book James Mitchell is certainly a credible author of whether this book is is credible or not I honestly couldn't say I mean what I would say though that is you know I mean without wishing to be too too soon too too

controversial is it that I wouldn't just regions Minxin Africa I'd probably try and read an African. You know as well as jasmine it doesn't mean that Jasmine It doesn't have a point doesn't have a point of view which is valid but there's plenty of terrific African novelists and historians which I think would offer a either a complementary Aw parallel law. Maybe in some cases the oppositional. I mean positively oppositional view to judge Michonne is so you know if I'm going to go to Germany I tend to try and find books that are written by Jemas if I'm going to Australia that I like to read won't relate to Australia straight and socially story and I story and I have to say so. I mean maybe that would be a way of you know cola finding out whether it you know is credible or not. We have about 10 minutes left by the way in this part of focus 580. Carl Phillips is our guest. He's a novelist who also has read. And

nonfiction works he's also written scripts for film and theatre and radio and television. As we mentioned at the beginning of the program he was born in the West Indies when he was quite young. His family went to England and he grew up there in Leeds. He went to school at Oxford. Now he's spends his time living in the United States has a home in New York he's talking with us this morning from Chicago. He has authored this book that we are talking about here titled The Atlantic sound and it's published by Konami and as I tried to explain at the beginning of the program in part it is travel writing in part it is history in part it is social commentary. But all having to do one way or another with the idea of identity and how one thinks about the place one calls home and how one even gets to the point of calling someplace home. Three three three W I L L toll free 800 1:58 W while

those. The numbers the last leg of the journey is that from Africa to South Carolina. So here now you're coming back to brag coming back perhaps to a place that you have learned to think of as home or learn to call home that is the United States having now made these other these other two trips in effect retracing your parent's steps from the Caribbean to Britain then going to Africa and now in a in a in a sense retracing the steps of those people who were brought up as slaves to the United States against their will brought to the United States and had to make that had no choice about it had their make their way in the United States does that now how does that lead you now to think about the United States did that indeed cause you to. Well definitely.

I think you know the longer I live in this country. The more realize I don't live in this country I live in New York City. You know every time I travel outside of New York City I realize the extent to which New York City is hardly representative of the rest of the United States so I'm always very wary about drawing conclusions about United States culture society politics based on in fact not even New York City based on the kind of gated community of Manhattan which is which is where I live. However I am obviously interested in the United States and have been because I've been teaching at least one semester yes students in America students for the last 10 years so my interest has been piqued by listening to the various possible country where they come from their different experiences based on whether they're from the south from California from the northeast wherever and. You know obviously an area of the country that I've been very interested in is that area where the African

population of the vast majority of it arrived which is the South. Charleston in particular because Charleston is history in the United States is extremely important the place where the civil war started. The place where the first train in the United States ran the place where the first museum in the United States culturally very important Tolkien bad and so forth so I went to Charleston with the hope of finding out about Chelsea's relationship to the United States visa vi the prism of slavery and the arrival of Africans into this country and and. What I found was very surprising to me. Well in in what way. In what ways well I didn't realize to start with that some 30 states that run about 30 percent of the African population which landed in the United States landed in Charleston and you know the ones

that were you know one in three African-Americans were essentially bought and sold in Charleston. I looked around pretty vigorously when I was down there for some kind of monument or museum or are some kind of civic knowledge meant to this fact and I was both surprised and then disturbed to find nothing. I I think you know not many do defend the South or or South Carolina I think perhaps in recent years there he slowly they have come to begin to acknowledge. Slavery but it certainly is true when you look at the way that they they talk about their history the way that they have tried to preserve or recreate it is it's it's really in almost all cases stunningly absent. It's just a big blank page. I DAVID You see I'm not attacking the south. That's not my brief

tonight is there's nothing to be gained by doing that I'm and I'm not actually talking about slavery either I'm talking about American social history. I'm talking about the knowledge on to something to this have profoundly affected the lives of every American. Does it respective of color background race creed ethnicity. It's as important that there should be some acknowledgement of of this place and the history of this place in the particular history that happened in this place because it's a history which affects American life American social political economic cultural sporting life and and all Americans should be aware of it. Well I. And you're quite right no I was not meaning to suggest that you you were doing those things. And I think about the little bit we talked about Liverpool and how when you go there what you see is what you see is directly related to the fact that it was an important port and that it was involved in the slave trade thinking now here about the

United States and what you say about the fact that there is no there is no monument commemorating what the involvement of Charleston there must though be other ways in a more subtle things that if you if you know where to look that you do indeed see that. But I mean has that the I mean not that that's a problem and it's not just Charleston it's you know as you suggest it's livable too it's London. It's very civilly. There are many cities when I was younger and traveling in the fall my East and Europe what was then you know beyond the Iron Curtain I used to go to a lot of museums in East Berlin and Dresden and Warsaw on look at how the history was presented at that time under the Soviet influence and it was lamentable because you know what characterized it was what was left out however you could step on to the streets you could speak to individuals.

You could do the necessary research and you could dredge it up if you like the truth behind the the official silences So it's certainly possible to do that in Charleston it's just sad. No one. Asked to step into these alleyways call and make these phone calls I mean otherwise it is just rather sad to want to do a bit of detective work it would have been you know much more pleasant if these things were nearer the surface. But there are people who are working towards that. Well if you if you'll forgive me for reaching back to what is now sort of a cliched phrase that that phrase that says you can't go home again in this particular In the case of your journey. Was this scene. Was there indeed a homecoming anywhere. Or was there homecoming everywhere.

You know I grew up as I suggested and near the beginning of October because as a young boy and then as a young man and in a Britain which I never really felt comfortable and because I was always made to feel as though I. Didn't belong in some respects and I realized of the as that there are many people in many different countries the many different societies who perhaps have grown up with what I call the sort of high anxiety of belonging or not belonging. But I think it's changing for many many people so so much so that they can feel as much at home and Walsall as they do in Chicago or they can feel as much at home in Beijing as they do in San Francisco. I'm for me the thing that really I felt at the end of all my meandering and traveling and note taking and interviewing various people for this particular project we ultimately became to be and I think sound was that I

did feel in many ways at home in Britain I felt at home in Charleston I felt at home in Africa. I didn't feel that I was. Being forced by anybody anywhere to make a choice and when I did feel that the choice was being thrust upon me I felt strong enough to resist and to say I'm sorry my identity is made up of a bit of a bit of that and a bit of it then if it's too complex for you to hold then I'm sorry that's your problem because I'm living with it quite comfortably. I think that's an interesting notion that we may may be moving towards thinking about identity in a way that is more a more open or fluid or a flexible less limited sort of concept. Well it's in some ways it seems to me a much more realistic way of looking at identity as as as we're able to travel with greater ease and facility. You know we talked a bit before about the difference between getting on a plane and getting on a boat. These days we are able to keep in touch

you know with places with it with astonishing ease. We're able to. Communicate to travel to to telephone to keep hold of a second language or even a third language in a way in which we couldn't do a generation ago and therefore I think that the notion of identity is only going to become increasingly complex. And I think it's a good thing if we perhaps give up the idea that some person has to be only viewed as whole if they can write their identity essentially on the back of a matchbox. I mean but maybe they want to write a couple of sentences. Well we're at the point where we're going to have to stop I hope we've given people some sense of what the book is about and certainly I would encourage people to go out and look at it. The Atlantic sound published by Konami by our guest Carl Philips. And we want to say to you Mr. Philips thank you very much for talking with us. Well thanks for having me on the show tonight and people have called in and I enjoy talking to you.