Kingston lecturer launches Baader Meinhof novel (From Epsom Guardian)
Kingston lecturer launches Baader Meinhof novel
11:29am Wednesday 16th February 2011
Kingston College lecturer Simon Corbin will be signing copies of his
second novel, Love, Gudrun Ensslin, in Waterstone's in the Bentalls
Centre on Saturday. GRAHAM MOODY caught up with the 45-year-old to
discuss it and his hopes people won't mistake it for glorifying
terrorism.
Graham Moody: So what's your new novel about then Simon?
Simon Corbin: It imagines a situation in which a former Baader Meinhof
terrorist gets re-radicalised in today's credit crunch. They were the
first celebrity terrorists in West Germany in the late 1960s and I
wanted to imagine if one of those characters was around now what they
would be doing and it created this psychological thriller. It was four
years of research and Stefan Aust, the world's foremost Baader Meinhof
authority, helped me.
GM: Are you not worried people could accuse you of glorifying terrorism?
SC: I was aware of that but as much as this is written as a response to
the greed and irresponsibility of bankers, it is not a hate tract that
is endorsing that kind of radicalism. A novel is the appropriate form to
play with these sort of ideas but I know there is a risk of it being
misunderstood and I hope it isn't. There is a twist at the end and if
people read all the way through they will see the ultimate message is
one of peace and to help people see the consequences of getting
radicalised. It is a kind of warning that you are better off finding
another way even if your cause is right or just.
GM: You've included a real life murder haven't you?
SC: Yes, an unsolved one I have fictionalised. A girl called Ingeborg
Barz joined Baader Meinhof and was involved in a bank raid in which a
policeman was killed. Soon afterwards she phoned home saying she wanted
to leave the group and then disappeared. A year later her body was
discovered beside an autobahn outside Munich. I have fictionalised the
event and the main character is involved in it. I hope the Barz family
will understand what I have done.
GM: It's very different to your fist novel Rude Boy.
SC: Yes, that is a completely different animal, that was a story about
growing up in London in the punk era. I am not a genre writer. A book
idea sort of comes out of the ether to me asking to be written. I have
got two more in the pipeline I am writing now which are again very
different. It's the first time I have written two at once and it is a
bit schizophrenic but I seem to be coping.
Waterstone's, Bentalls Centre, Kingston, February 19, 2pm. Visit
lovegudbook.weebly.com.
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http://www.epsomguardian.co.uk/leisure/8856410.Kingston_lecturer_launches_Baa
der_Meinhof_novel/?/
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