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Samaritans and SoA team up for self-harm writing guidelines


Samaritans and the Society of Authors have collaborated on a set of guidelines for authors to think about when writing about self- harm or suicide, either in fiction or non-fiction. The advice states that writers


should avoid attributing suicidal behaviour to an isolated incident; “any suggestion of suicidal behaviour being a natural, understandable or inevitable response to everyday crises”; and “overly dramatising a


Obituary Michael Haag


Writer Michael Haag was born in New York in 1943. He died in London on 5th January 2020. Mark Ellingham, associate publisher for Profile (with thanks to Neville Lewis), writes...


Michael Haag was an expert on what used to be called the Levant. He wrote books on literary Alexandria, the Durrells, the Templars, Egypt and Greece. On the day of his death, he was at work on his magnum opus for Yale, a life of Lawrence Durrell, which alas will remain unfinished. Born in New York, Michael was


introduced to the arcane subjects that he loved by a schoolfriend, Sterling Morrison (one of the founders of the Velvet Underground) insisting he read Robert Graves’ White Goddess. He moved to London shortly after, where he lived for the rest of his life, interspersed by lengthy stays in Greece and Egypt, and travels in Syria, Turkey and Lebanon. Michael’s first books were travel


guides—superbly written ones—on Greece and Egypt, which he published under the Travelaid imprint in the early-1980s. He reinvented the art of travel guides as good reads. Indeed, you could read passages of his guides and compare them with the best of Patrick Leigh Fermor. The guides led to Michael pioneering


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and pleasure of working with him on a somewhat oddball succession of books. Our projects began with books


the republishing of classic travel litera- ture. He brought back into print books by Dilys Powell, T E Lawrence, E M Forster, Flaubert and, his own favourite, Libyan Sands by Ralph Bagnold – about a bunch of madcaps driving Model T-Fords around the Western Desert who later became scions of the SAS. This publishing business, however,


failed owing to the first Gulf War, which left Michael with a warehouse of guides to Egypt, Syria and the Lebanon—and no travellers to buy them. The benefit was that Michael turned full time to writing and over the next decade produced a book that will long survive him. This was Alexandria: City of Memory, a wonderfully rich, evocative study of the literary world of E M Forster, Constantine Cavafy and Lawrence Durrell, published by Yale. For the past 20 or so years, Michael


managed that rare feat of supporting himself entirely from his writing—and as his editor, first at Rough Guides and then at Profile Books, I had the privilege


that Michael could write almost from memory: a short history of Egypt and a book on Tutankhamun (to tie in with the new London exhibition), and then a guide to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. Michael wrote the latter in a fortnight, mostly at night (his standard working practice), drawing on a lifetime of knowledge that encompassed everything from the Templars to the Holy Grail. His book was at least as interesting as Dan Brown’s novel and sold 160,000 copies. Michael continued research for his


Lawrence Durrell biography, while writing hugely engaging books for Profile on the Templars (a backlist staple selling more than 100,000 copies) and Mary Magdalene. But our most enjoy- able project was his last, short book, The Durrells of Corfu (2017). When ITV created a series based on Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals, it was impossible to resist asking Michael to write about what had really gone on there. He did so superbly, drawing on his old Durrell contacts (he had known Larry and Gerry, and Margo’s family), and produced another bestseller, published in multiple languages, includ- ing, to Michael’s great pleasure, Greek. Michael is survived by his children,


Veronica and Philip, and stepson Anton, and by his ex-wives Jane and Loutfia.


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suicide”, as this can “romanticise or glorify the behaviour and inadvertently promote it to people who may be vulnerable”. Samaritans cited research which suggests that it is “risky” to indicate any “reward” following a suicide death (for example, bullies being made to feel sorry for their behaviour), too. “What we understand from the research is that it’s not that suicide shouldn’t be covered in the media; what’s important is how it is covered,” explained Samaritans. “The aim of this guidance is not to deter writers from covering the topics of suicide and self-harm; the aim is to provide evidence-based, useful infor- mation to help authors avoid content which could be harmful.” The SoA and author Nicola Morgan


were consulted to help Samaritans find “a suitable approach making


volume 3.06m


useful information available that authors really need to be aware of—but without feeling that we’re reining in anyone’s creativity, or in any way suggesting topics of suicide and self-harm shouldn’t be covered in literature”. Solomon said the guidelines “offer real context”, adding: “They are not intended to be a step-by-step guide, but a practical resource to help authors make informed choices about their work. We hope publishers, editors and the wider industry will also learn from and share these guidelines.”


WEEK ON WEEK -1.8%


Book of the Week


Weekly TCM


Unspeakable John Bercow Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20, 9781474616621 One thing you can say about Donald Trump is that his 2016 election win helped book sales rise, with Fire and Fury, Fear and (less directly) Michelle Obama’s Becoming vaulting to the top spot in a wave of anti-Trump senti- ment. However, UK book buyers seem less interested in becoming immersed in our own political landscape, with David Cameron’s For the Record yet to crack 70,000 sold through BookScan. Then again, John Bercow’s Unspeakable—the highest new entry in the Top 50 last week—may be about to challenge Betty Boothroyd in the (admittedly niche) former speaker’s memoir category.


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LATEST NEWS Bookshops campaign for same business rate relief as pubs


Bookshops are asking to be given the same business-rate relief as pubs, arguing they help to drive social cohesion in a similar way to drinking establishments.


Igloo overhaul puts business back on track


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PLR to cover e-books and audiobooks


The Public Lending Right (PLR) will be extended to cover e-book audiobooks borrowed from libraries from 1stJ


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