Literature and Religion in Cheltenham

How do three novelists deal with faith? How do you compare translating the Bible and translating the Qur'an? These were leading questions at two well-attended sessions of The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival earlier this week. They were the beginning of Pathways, a series running through the week, which include Rabbi Lionel Blue and Abbot Christopher Jamieson on being contemplative, Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and Jim Al-Khalili on religion and science, Mary Warnock, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Lord Harries on religion and politics, a talk on the Hajj by Venetia Porter, and Simon Sebag Montefiore on Jerusalem.

The sessions were conceived and sponsored by one of Cambridge University's newest initiatives, the Cambridge Coexist Programme. This is a collaboration between the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme and the Coexist Foundation (www.coexistfoundation.net), with an array of projects on leadership, religious literacy, grassroots inter-faith work, art, film and gardens. It is directed by Michael Wakelin, former head of religious broadcasting at the BBC.

"Pathways" is the first of its projects to launch, and it began with Pamela Armstrong chairing a discussion with the novelists Anne Rice, Natasha Solomons and Tahmima Anam. Rice, who has sold over 100 million books, gave a graphic account of her Roman Catholic upbringing, loss of faith as a teenager, re-entry into Catholicism in 1998 and then, last year, her well-publicized departure from organized religion - though not from faith in Jesus. A fascination with vampires, werewolves and angels (what she called 'speculative, supernatural fiction') has been her way of exploring questions of life and death. 'I'm still in a state of turmoil', she said, 'But yes, I trust we are in the hands of a loving God.'

By contrast, Natasha Solomons (The Novel in the Viola) is definitely on the outside looking in at those who practice the religious side of her Judaism. But she described her irresistible attraction to the subject: 'In each of my novels I say to myself I will not write about Judaism, yet it happens again and again and when my characters have faith I am baffled by them'. So she 'writes religiously' but without faith in God.

Tahmima Anam's latest novel, The Good Muslim, explores the aftermath in one family of the Bangladeshi War of Independence. 'How do you make a Mullah believable?' she asked. She tries to do so through exploring the conflict between a young man, who becomes a charismatic preacher, and his secular, revolutionary sister. 'Spiritual issues are not confined to those who have faith: even the most areligious person can have a spiritual crisis confronting mortality.' Does she herself believe? - 'I still haven't found a vehicle for my belief or lack of belief.' And the future? - 'I am writing a novel about the end of the world brought about by climate change.'

The second session in "Pathways", on 'Translating Holy Texts', was a conversation about the Qur'an and the King James Version of the Bible. The KJV was represented by Professor Stephen Prickett and the playright David Edgar (whose play on the KJV, 'Written on the Heart' has its premiere with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford at the end of this month), the Qur'an by Leila Aboulela, author of The Translator (and more recently of Lyrics Alley). The contrast was profound.

The Christian Bible is a series of translations - first, Hebrew scriptures and Jesus' Aramaic into Greek, and thereafter continually translated, with no sacred language. The Bible Society was quoted: 'Not until the Bible is translated into every language on earth will it be fully understood.'

The Arabic of the Qur'an is inseparable from its revelatory character: it is taken as the wording of God. 'If you move into human translation, it loses its power and strength, it is a faint reflection, more like a commentary', said Aboulela. Pickthall even calls his version 'The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an', not a 'translation'. Yet the richness of meaning is not in doubt - some Sufis speak of twenty-four thousand meanings for every verse.

The KJV and the Qur'an did come together to some extent under the heading of beauty. Even though the notes of the KJV translators show that 'beauty' was not a criterion they used - they were mainly after accuracy - in fact they wrote wonderfully well, and Edgar and Prickett poured out examples. Aboulela revelled in the rhythms and richness of the Qur'an's language. But the two books converged even more in their oral quality: the KJV process of translation by committee meant that every verse was read aloud for approval, making the auditory dimension intrinsic; and the very word 'Qur'an' means 'recitation', which is how most of the world's Muslims inhabit this text.

The long drive back to Cambridge gave plenty of time for reflection. Here are three of my thoughts.

First, I found it impossible to place labels on the participants - each escaped the usual categories, though in different ways. Both the religious and the secular appeared in many forms, and the complexity of their interweavings cried out for the rich, nuanced description of a social anthropologist - or a novelist. Second, there was a vigorous combination of open-eyed (often penetrating) critique of the religions together with deep empathy and a recognition of the continuing generativity of the faiths and their classic texts. Third, and following on from the first two, I wondered what contribution such discussions might make to people who pray, study and practice in any of the traditions that had been under consideration. The hallmark of the sessions was a combination of acute observation (I particularly liked Natasha Solomon's description of her first Shabbat meal with fellow-Jews at university, and Anne Rice's evocation of an oyster-eating scene in Anna Karenina), imaginative perspective, and question after question. Faith that has engaged with such conversations has been given the chance not only to hold up a mirror to itself but also to be questioned and stretched by very different people and worlds of meaning - this is something that in our pluralist, complexly religious and secular society, we would be wise to encourage. I wonder how the other "Pathways" events will contribute to the debate....