My Culture Hits: A History Of Women In 101 Objects Author Annabelle Hirsch
Welcome to Service95 Book Club’s new series, My Culture Hits, where our favourite writers share the cultural moments that inspire their creative process. Our first guest is journalist and author Annabelle Hirsch, whose book A History Of Women In 101 Objects examines the lives of women across history through the everyday items they own. Here, she reveals the eclectic playlist, moving artworks and groundbreaking new films that influence her and her writing
The Fictional World I Would Most Love To Inhabit… Many. Too many. Maybe Anna Karenina. Or Arthur Schnitzler’s Fräulein Else. Those might be weird choices because both are books that end super badly for the heroines, but I love them a lot. They both have a very special atmosphere, something so well constructed that, to me, it feels as though they are places I can travel to in my mind whenever I want.
The Music That Soundtracks My Work… It would probably be a wild mix of cheesy Italian love songs from the ’60s, which I love and listen to all the time, bossa nova, some indie pop stuff and some French songs. For every period mentioned in A History Of Women In 101 Objects, I tried to find some kind of musical background to get me in the mood, to feel like I am travelling to, let’s say, 18th-century France. That was fun.
The Theatre Production That Influences My Writing… I have a strong love for the play Antigone, since forever. I first read it when I was a teenager and I was totally smitten by it. I loved how strong [Antigone] was. Sis going against the power and is willing to die for what she believes in – she would rather not live than live in a world that is mediocre and opportunistic and has rules that she cannot accept. It made a huge impression on me. She is unbreakable; a strong figure of female rebellion.
The Movie That Left An Enduring Imprint On Me… Anatomie d’Une Chute [Anatomy Of A Fall]. I was really impressed by the way [the director] Justine Triet portrayed this woman. She is totally unlikeable, very harsh, very egotistic but she is allowed to be exactly that, and this does not mean that she is not a loving person, a mother, a wife – nor that she killed her husband. Especially now, where the world tends to be so under-complex and everyone is looking for one-dimensional explanations for everything and everyone, a movie like this feels like a big breath of fresh air and intelligence. Something is happening in cinema – the female characters in particular are getting more complex, truer to what people in general are: good and bad, tender and violent, victim and perpetrator, all at the same time.
The Art That Has Inspired Me Most… An exhibition of the French painter Nicolas de Staël in Aix-en-Provence that I saw a few years ago touched me deeply. I like the works of the Lebanese painter Etel Adnan for similar reasons: both their works often seem like they have a very strong light coming from deep inside, like a sun that shines through the dark. There is something very melancholic about their works, which is probably due to the fact that they were both living in exile. And at the same time there is an enormous tenderness, a beauty and poetry that emanates from their paintings. They are so touching, so deeply human that they make you cry.
The Cultural Icon I’d Most Like To Meet… It’s funny, but I am actually not that eager to meet the people I admire. For writers in particular, I love to meet them through their books. It is often much more intimate, much more interesting than when you meet them in person, because while writing one can really let go and get naked – something that is much more difficult to do in real life. If I had to choose one, it would probably be the French writer Colette or Simone de Beauvoir. Maybe a drink with both – that would be fun.
As The Author Of A History Of Women In 101 Objects, The One Object I Couldn’t Live Without Is… A pen, obviously. I really like to write with the Pelikan Pen my husband gave me a few years ago. It’s a very smooth way of writing. Otherwise, my rings: those of my French great grandmother, my dad’s parents, a Celtic ring from my mum (we are from Brittany in France) and my engagement ring. I like that they all are like puzzle pieces of my history; the lives that were lived before me that are colouring and fuelling what I do today.
A History of Women In 101 Objects is out now. The audiobook, out 5 March, is narrated by 101 incredible women
Annabelle Hirsch will appear at a special International Women’s Day event in partnership with Women Of The World on 8 March in London, UK. Tickets are available here
