Back in 2009, Kassia St Clair and Joseph Caruana were students together at Christ Church, Oxford. Kassia was researching women’s dress and the masquerade in the 18th century for her MA, while Joseph Caruana was investigating distant galaxies for his DPhil.
Fast-forward more than a decade and the two reunite for a one-of-a-kind conversation at the Salesian Theatre as part of the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival. It will mark her debut as a guest author in Malta. To set the stage, Caruana opens the discussion by drawing us into St Clair’s world.
How would you introduce yourself and your writing to someone who’s only just encountering your work?
I’m a writer and cultural historian specialising in telling stories about the overlooked and the everyday. Things that we’re all familiar with that we perhaps don’t realise have an incredible history. My aim with my writing is to pack in the kind of information that stays with people and that − hopefully! − makes them see the world around them in a new light.
When visiting bookshops in different countries, I’ve oftentimes come across translations of The Secret Lives of Colour. How does it feel to know that this book has been read in so many different languages?
Truthfully, I feel incredibly lucky. Having worked in the book section of The Economist, I know how many books get published week in, week out. Every single one of them represents thousands of hours of work by the author and, yet, very few of them break through to a general audience.
I feel very lucky that The Secret Lives of Colour did that in English, reaching so many readers who bought and enjoyed it and that it has now been translated into over 20 languages. It’s a real privilege, particularly when the subjects that interest you are not the ones that people might think of as ‘blockbuster’ topics.
Something I have noticed in your writing is that oftentimes you will have looked well into the scientific research conducted on a given topic − and, far from shying away from bringing that to your readers, you distil and present this beautifully. Here, I have in mind passages from both The Secret Lives of Colour and The Golden Thread. How much have you enjoyed that process of digging into technical works so that you may convey it to your (presumably) very different and varied readership?
I really enjoy that distillation process. I think you have to understand things and do that research in order to tell the story in the most accessible way possible but I also think it’s very important for me to remain humble. I need to remember I’m very much a generalist: there will be experts on many of the subjects that I touch on, who have spent their careers looking deeply into what I might only be mentioning in a line or two. I really want to make sure I get things right for the readers but also for the specialists. In practice, this means not being too proud to ask for help, reaching out to experts in different fields and even asking specialists to look over drafts of my work to make sure that misrepresentations don’t slip through.
One could say that there is a stylistic similarity between The Secret Lives of Colour and The Golden Thread. Both take a sequential approach to subjects (colours in the former; fabrics in the latter) and present their fascinating stories. Were these two books conceived together? Do you view them as being cousins of sorts? Or, perhaps, even siblings?
They weren’t conceived together but they do come from a similar place. Both of them come from my time at university studying dress history but it would take several years before I pitched the colour book and then a few more before I had the idea for The Golden Thread.
In The Race to the Future, you intersperse the main storyline with delightful topical essays of history. Even though, as you say in your preface, these can be skipped by the reader, they offer insight and an absorbing backdrop to the ‘principal’ account. Your being a cultural historian, do you view this book as a way for you to tell these stories as much as the main narrative, rather than their being accidental to it?
I was aware with The Race to the Future it was a very different topic and, again, I didn’t want to assume knowledge on behalf of the reader, I wanted to take them with me. Some people will buy the book because they are obsessed with the Peking-Paris story and just want to read about that, they’re not interested in the context; but for many more readers I imagined the context is what would really add to the experience. This seemed like the best structure for both kinds of readers. I did an initial draft which intermingled the two but this felt much better to me.
In Liberty, you treat a subject matter that many of your readers had probably first learnt of you from. Did it feel like a ‘return to your roots’, a progression of your journey into colour and fabric, or something else?
There were lots of incentives for this one. They approached me, which was really flattering, and felt like an amazing professional opportunity to write about a truly iconic brand and one that I’ve grown up with as a Londoner.
I also wanted something different from The Race to the Future, which had been a very intense, multi-year project that had been largely solitary; by contrast, the deadline for Liberty was tight and I’d be working to some extent with Liberty. The idea of this kind of challenge and opportunity really appealed to me.
I’m not sure whether you’ve been to Malta before. Is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to?
I have been before but only as a stopover on the way to Gozo, where I had a family holiday as a child. I’m really looking forward to it (and I’ve been doing some research about things to do and see) but it’s also a bit emotional for me as my father died recently after about a year of being in and out of hospital, which has been very difficult. I think coming back there will remind me of that holiday but it’s also somewhere that I know he had very fond memories of.
To end on a light note, can you tell us what your favourite colour is? And why?
As you can imagine, I get asked this a lot! The truth is it often changes but the answer I usually give is ultramarine, because I love − and will always love − the colour but also I think it has the most fascinating and powerful history and it was the story I chose to tell when I first pitched the idea for The Secret Lives of Colour. Clearly, the publishers enjoyed the story and the rest is history…
Kassia St Clair will be giving a masterclass for a small group of writers on August 28 at 4pm at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta. The Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival will conclude with a special event featuring St Clair, who will be interviewed by Caruana during Colourful Threads: A Night with Kassia St Clair on August 30 at 8pm at the Salesian Theatre in Sliema. The interview will be interwoven with readings from her work. The evening will also feature live drawing by local artist Darren Tanti. Following the event, St Clair will take questions from the audience and hold a book-signing session. Free parking is available at St Patrick’s. Tickets may be purchased from www.showshappening.com/inizjamed. For more details about the festival, follow Inizjamed on Facebook and Instagram or visit www.inizjamed.org.