I already knew how intelligent – probing yet gentle – an interlocutor Lidia Vianu, the author of this collection of interviews, can be; after all, I am one of the 47 writers: poets, novelists and critics, who are included! But reading through the pieces, as well as being intrigued by the responses of colleagues, I am taken by surprise by the breadth of Vianu`s knowledge and sympathies, and the fineness of her perceptions. Again and again this is commented on. To give a few examples, I can quote from the interviews with Catherine Byron: “Your questions are fascinating, and get very close to the marrow bone themselves!”, with Elaine Feinstein, who answers the question: “Do you plan your voice or does it find you when you write?” thus: “I like what you say here. And yes, my voice finds me when I write”, and with George Szirtes: “I think you have asked the most intelligent questions I have yet been asked and also the most difficult. You must be a remarkably perceptive reader … ”

The link between the writers she chooses, according to Vianu, is that they all can be described by her term Desperado. What she means by that term, and the different reactions to being categorised in that way, is one of the most interesting strands of this material. When she tells Anne Stevenson, “I like to call contemporary writers Desperadoes because they make their own law and most often break all laws”, and asks if Stevenson accepts this, the poet replies: “I`m a fully qualified, radical Desperado.” Peter Redgrove says: “Lazarus, like Dracula, knows the thresholds and how to pass them. The Desperado desperately wants to do this, does it in one way or another.” Alasdair Gray responds: “If a Desperado is someone driven by despair then I may be one, because my art is a way of avoiding it”, while Pascale Petit says, “Your definition of a Desperado poet suits me.” Obviously, the question of exactly how to define ‘Desperado’ is still open!

For this collection of fascinating autobiographical material including descriptions of their work and methods, and her own sensitive and shrewd comments which present an entirely new way of looking at contemporary English writing and those who write it, Lidia Vianu deserves all possible praise.

RUTH FAINLIGHT