Strange Times

Abstract

I have no problem with calling myself a political writer. I do, however, have a bone to pick with the question: “Do you consider yourself a political writer?” It suggests, perhaps more insidiously in the United States (especially the south, where I am from) than in Britain, a certain narrowing of vision, a less than “human” exploration of life forces within the writing itself. Perhaps the problem is the very term “political”: most often it is used to mean theatre with a left-wing axe to grind. So, among other things, the question carries with it a hackleraising, almost indiscernible whiff of red-baiting: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the …?”

This article first appeared in The Guardian on March 29, 2003. The United States-led invasion of Iraq and the long war that followed began on March 20. At the time, the Menagerie Theatre Company’s production of Wallace’s The Retreating World, a monologue about the effects of sanctions on everyday Iraqis following the Gulf War, was playing at the Latchmere in London. Things of Dry Hours premiered in Pittsburgh in 2004.