Leonard Schwartz: There's a
passage in the essay entitled "Fairies" in which you quote the British-Guinese
writer Wilson Harris. "The frame that conventional realism uses endorses the
absence of cosmic love. It consolidates the nation state and the vested
interests of the nation state." Could you comment on that passage in this
context?
Fanny Howe: Well I think that the
whole pressure that convention exerts on artists is very subtle and very
powerful. It does hark continually back to the values that are familiar. It's
very hard to strike out into wider cosmic imaginings—towards something like
the Bhagavad-Gita or Scripture—without losing your way home. To separate
yourself from what you know is to leave tradition behind, and that is extremely
difficult. In fairy tales you see the return home as a kind of law that runs
counter to the law of free will.
