True north

Two words remain with me after reading Richard Smyth’s wide-ranging thoughts on “the northern novel” (Prospect online, August). The words, so often used by the writers Smyth cites, and so revealing, are: “Up Here.”

Up from what? Edinburgh is much further “up” the British map than Wakefield. And yet Scottish writers, almost without exception, locate themselves simply as “here.” Do creative people in Northern Ireland report from “over here”? This resentful submission to London’s cultural superiority is the deepest crevasse across Englishness, and it wasn’t always present. Smyth should tell us who dug it, and when.

Neal Ascherson, journalist and author