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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 4 June 2019
UK's anxiety takes center stage at Hay ideas festival

By JILL LAWLESS "Things are changing so fast
HAY-ON-WYE, Wales (AP) with Brexit anything I wrote
— At Britain's leading liter- a week ago would be out
ary gathering, the word of of date," he said.
the year was anxiety. As it stands, Britain is due
Fifty shades of worry — to leave the EU on Oct.
about climate change, 31, the delayed departure
mental health and of date set by the bloc amid
course Brexit — dominated political deadlock in Lon-
the Hay Festival this year. don. Prime Minister Theresa
The event is an annual car- May has given up trying to
nival of ideas held amid get her unpopular divorce
sheep-studded green hills deal approved by Parlia-
in Hay-on-Wye, a tiny Welsh ment and will step down as
town with about 2,000 resi- Conservative Party leader
dents and close to 20 book- on Friday.
shops. Most of the more than a
With Britain's departure dozen contenders to re-
from the European Union place her have vowed to
in limbo, its population take Britain out of the bloc,
split, its politicians dead- even without a deal. Pro-EU
locked — and divisive U.S. Britons — along with most
President Donald Trump economists — say that
in Britain on Monday for a Books are displayed in a bookshop during the Hay Festival in Hay on Wye, Wales, Friday May 31, would plunge the country
state visit — many of the 2019. into recession. But many
600 authors and 100,000 Associated Press Brexit supporters believe
audience members were the only alternative is being
asking where things went "betrayal" are shouted and The depth of the political ble leading democracy. stuck in the EU indefinitely.
wrong, and what can be shared on social media in chaos has come as a sur- "It was going to be a hap- The deep division over Brex-
done about it. what often feels like a bad- prise, even to the experts. py-ending chapter," he it looks to be transforming
"I used to think 'the Brits are tempered dialogue. American historian Jared said, about how Britain in British politics. Last month's
so calm when they talk "We have half the country Diamond, whose latest the late 20th century over- European Parliament elec-
about politics. They don't who think the other half are book examines nations came a crisis over its loss of tions saw voters desert the
get angry,'" Turkish-British idiots," said British historian under pressure in his lat- empire "by finding a new Conservatives and main
novelist Elif Shafak told an Peter Frankopan, whose est book "Upheaval - How identity in joining the Euro- opposition Labour — the
audience in Hay, 150 miles book "The New Silk Roads" Nations Cope with Crisis pean Union." two parties that tried and
(240 kilometers) northwest charts the growing power and Change," told his audi- The 2016 Brexit referendum failed to find a compromise
of London. "I no longer of Asia. "One of the chal- ence at Hay that he origi- made him reconsider that EU divorce deal — for the
think that way. Brexit liter- lenges is how you blend nally planned to include a thesis. Diamond said that at newly formed Brexit Party
ally broke the political nar- those perspectives. How chapter on Britain, a coun- the moment, he'd hesitate and the fervently pro-EU
rative here and brought to do you sit in the middle?" try long regarded as a sta- to write about Britain at all. Liberal Democrats.q
the surface a much more
toxic form of politics."
The festival, which ended 'Chasing the Moon' takes a look at the
Sunday, draws novelists,
poets, scientists and politi-
cians, and was famously history of rocketry
dubbed the "Woodstock
of the mind" by former U.S.
President Bill Clinton. It's an By JEFF AYERS take the rocket's mass to imagination, and it eventu-
annual indicator of what's Associated Press its velocity. He was a fan ally led him to write classics
on the mind of a large and "Chasing the Moon: The of Jules Verne's "From the such as "2001: A Space Od-
largely liberal chunk of Brit- People, the Politics, and Earth to the Moon," and yssey."
ain. This year, the best-sell- the Promise That Launched while the idea of traveling The book mentions the
ing book in the onsite book- America into the Space in outer space and visiting famous names like Wer-
shop was "Heroic Failure," Age" (Ballantine Books), by other worlds was standard nher von Braun and Rob-
an evisceration of Brexit Robert Stone and Alan An- science fiction, Tsiolkovsky's ert Goddard, but it's also
failures by Irish journalist Fin- dres paper was the first to prove about Newton Minow, who
tan O'Toole. This companion book to it could be accomplished. believed the future of tele-
Britain's 2016 decision to the upcoming PBS film Sadly, his findings would communications was in us-
quit the European Union showcases well-known in- take another 20 years to be ing satellites. The authors
created a deep fault-line dividuals and some forgot- appreciated. showcase the human side
between the 48% of voters ten names that were just A young man named Ar- of what began as a flight of
who wanted remain in the as essential in keeping the chie Clarke discovered a fancy and those pioneers
European Union and the dream of sending a man book when he was a teen- that pursued the dream This cover image released
52% who voted to leave. into outer space. The first ager called "The Conquest to see humanity reach the by Ballantine shows "Chas-
Three years on, Britain's poli- known scientific look at of Space." He thought it stars. They embraced the ing the Moon: The People, the
ticians have failed to agree the practicality of rockets was fiction, so what he chase to the moon and be- Politics, and the Promise That
on exit terms, the country came in 1903 when Russian found was completely un- yond. The book is a perfect Launched America into the
is still in the bloc, and vot- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky pub- expected as it showed that appetizer to what seems to Space Age," by Robert Stone
and Alan Andres.
ers on both sides are an- lished a paper that used a space travel was theoreti- be a stellar upcoming PBS Associated Press
gry. The words "traitor" and mathematical formula to cally possible. It sparked his documentary.q