Berger John - A jar of wild flowers: essays in celebration of John Berger

A JAR OF
WILD FLOWERS

ESSAYS IN CELEBRATION
OF JOHN BERGER

EDITED BY YASMIN GUNARATNAM
WITH AMARJIT CHANDAN

Zed Books
LONDON

A Jar of Wild Flowers: Essays in Celebration of John Berger was first published in 2016 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.

This ebook edition was first published in 2016

www.zedbooks.net

Editorial copyright Yasmin Gunaratnam and Amarjit Chandan 2016
Copyright in this collection Zed Books 2016

A Gift for John Berger by Ali Smith. Copyright Ali Smith, 2015, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.

The rights of Yasmin Gunaratnam and Amarjit Chandan to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset in Haarlemmer by seagulls.net
Cover design by Michael Oswell
Cover illustration by Melina Berger

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-78360-880-5 hb

ISBN 978-1-78360-879-9 pb

ISBN 978-1-78360-881-2 pdf

ISBN 978-1-78360-882-9 epub

ISBN 978-1-78360-883-6 mobi

For all exiles.
Welcome.

CONTENTS

Jean Mohr

Amarjit Chandan

YASMIN GUNARATNAM

Hans Jrgen Balmes

Rema Hammami and John Berger

Kathryn Yusoff

Ana Amlia Alves

Gavin Francis

Nikos Papastergiadis

Michael Broughton

Tessa McWatt

Nick Thorpe

Iain Chambers

Glenn Jordon

Nirmal Puwar

Francisco-J. Hernndez Adrin

Hsiao-Hung Pai

Heather Vrana

Vikki Bell

Ram Rahman

Doa Aly

Rashmi Duraiswamy

Alicia Salomone

Salima Hashmi

Mustafa Dike

Malathi de Alwis

Tania Tamari Nasir

Rochelle Simmons

Amarjit Chandan

Ali Smith

N. Rajyalakshmi interviews
Pushpamala N.

Christina Linardaki

Julie Christie

Yahia Yakhlef

Ambalavaner Sivanandan

John Christie

SALLY POTTER

The editors and publishers thank the copyright holders for their permission to reproduce the images used in this book.

John Berger, 1980, looking at Jean Mohrs photographs with him to make a selection for the book Another Way of Telling , Jean Mohr

John Berger, 1967, Jean Mohr

From Titian , John Berger, 1996

Studio Interior I , 2011, courtesy of Art Space Gallery London, Michael Richardson Contemporary Art

Abdelateef Mohamed Bashir at home in Cardiff, March 2012, Glenn Jordon

Funeral of Abdelateef Mohamed Bashir, Cardiff, June 2012, Glenn Jordon

Comrade , 2015, Salah Suliman Bakheit

A mural on the CUNOC campus of the University of San Carlos, CPR Urbana BlogSpot

Oliverio speaking while joined by other FRENTE members, Mauro Calanchina

Santiago Cemetery, Vikki Bell

Delhi, 1984 in Kayanpuri, sector 13, Ram Rahman

Funeral of Safdar Hashmi, January 1989, Ram Rahman

Salim Sandhi, Ahmedabad, in the room where his son was killed, 2012, Ram Rahman

N. Rajyalakshmi interviewing the artist Pushpamala N.

Our heartfelt thanks go to Yves Berger for his support throughout this project and to Melina Berger for the cover drawing. Melina made our jar of wild flowers when she was little. She must have had some inkling that it would be the perfect gift for her grandfather. We are grateful to Zac Gunaratnam-Bailey, Sukant Chandan, Navroz Chandan and Kavita Bhanot for editorial support and to Nirmal Puwar, who helped us to imagine and form the collection and commissioned some wonderful pieces. Pat Harper was a hawk-eyed copy-editor, and Ameer Ahmed and Bob Bailey provided speedy and attentive translations. Thank you. Its more than likely that without Dominic Fagan at Zed Books, this book would not have been published. Thanks to Kika Sroka-Miller and to all the team at Zed, who grasped both the idea and the spirit of the collection. The enthusiasm and generosity of the contributors kept us going throughout.

It goes without saying, but we say it anyway: John Berger, thank you for the wonder.

*

The editors and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to use copyright material:

John Berger, 1995, To the Wedding , used by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing plc and John Berger;

John Berger, 1995, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos (2005/1984), used by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing plc;

John Berger, 2003, A Moment in Ramallah, London Review of Books , Vol. 25, No. 14, 24 July, pp. 2022, used by permission of London Review of Books;

John Berger, 2007, Hold Everything Dear , used by permission of Verso Books;

Gavin Francis, 2015, Introduction to A Fortunate Man (Canongate Books Ltd, 2015), used by permission;

Arc Publications (Todmorden) for Amarjit Chandans poems from Sonata for Four Hands (2010) and Minas Savvas for his permission to reproduce his translation of Real Hands .

A Gift for John Berger by Ali Smith. Copyright Ali Smith, 2015, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.

Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders. If any acknowledgements have not been made, or if additional information can be given, the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary amendments at the first opportunity.

JEAN MOHR

I dont know how to describe John Berger: a writer, a poet, an essayist, a painter, a drama writer, a scriptwriter. For me it is all summed up in one word, FRIEND. He landed in my life more than forty years ago. I did not know of him and yet in London he had already smashed his way into the headlines. He had heard of me through a mutual friend, the cineaste Alain Tanner. Our first exchange was friendly and suffused with a very British restraint. Youve just done a photo series on a doctor in the mines at Charleroi in Belgium commissioned by the World Health Organisation I myself am planning a book on a GP in Gloucestershire in England. Might we perhaps look at a joint work with text and images?

For my part there was no hint of hesitation. I tried hard not to let my enthusiasm show, even though the project was far from having a sound basis and there was little certainty of a reasonable return. There was the practical question Do we sign a contract? No point in that, no paperwork. I suggest fifty/fifty, does that suit you? I nodded enthusiastically and that was our only contract.

John Berger, 1980, looking at Jean Mohrs photographs with him to make a selection for the book Another Way of Telling , photograph by Jean Mohr

The idea of writing about John Berger makes my head spin. I dont feel that is my role. I have taken hundreds of photos of him, without any specific purpose, in very different situations. It was a way of bearing witness to a man I love and admire deeply so why try to add the load of words which I handle so incompetently?

About four years ago, we met up in London at the Royal College of Arts where we had both been invited to launch my book At the Edge of the World , for which he had not only provided me with precious advice but had also contributed a generous Preface. We had before us a packed and supportive audience, students and teachers. At the end of the session I projected twenty or so portraits of John Berger and they received an enthusiastic response. The man was well known for his writings and for his disturbing TV appearances, but he had become something of a myth, a legend (his exile in a small Haute Savoie village), in short an abstraction. My series of often anecdotal portraits gave him back his human dimension.