WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY OLIVIA LAINGIn 1986 Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY NEIL BARTLETT
'The life-affirming expression of an artist engaged in living to the full' The Times
Smiling in Slow Motion is Derek Jarman's last journal, stretching from May 1991 until a fortnight before his death in February 1994.
'A writer of great gifts.' - Robert Macfarlane
I now live a richly connected year, marked by seasonal events: the first snowdrop in my garden, cut and brought inside;
'When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to Plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.'
`This is my manifesto for morning.
There is an energy in the earlier hours, an awareness I enjoy. In today's world we tend to wake as late as we can, timed to when we have to work. But we don't need to chase the day.'
A deeply personal journey into Shakespeare's work that explores how it remains relevant and always has something to say about the times we are living in.