NEXT WEEK THE BRITISH LIBRARY IS holding a conference, “Manuscripts Matter”, two days of discussion about how — and, crucially, where — writers’ papers should be preserved. Last week there was something of a fuss when it was revealed that Salman Rushdie had become the latest British author to sell his archive to an American university — Emory, which also holds the archive of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.

Lord Smith of Finsbury, the former Culture Secretary who now chairs the UK Literary Heritage Working Group, and who will be steering things at the conference, said of the sale: “It is a very sad day for British literature and scholarship. Our literary heritage is arguably our greatest contribution to culture and we should be taking special care to protect that.”

Just to play devil’s advocate, let’s try the notion that we are taking special care to protect that already. Well: Salman Rushdie is, and they are his papers, after all. Emory, which is just outside Atlanta, Georgia, will treat the cache — which includes two unpublished novels — very well, I’m sure, and will make it available to scholars, just as (say) the British Library would. It’s a tricky subject. The Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, in a recent article for the TLS, was right to praise American libraries for their interest, care and investment, while calling for British institutions to show more of the same qualities.

Manuscripts do matter — but does it matter where they reside? Is this “national heritage” we’re discussing or is this, in the case of writers of the stature of Rushdie, Heaney, Hughes, world heritage? Are the same people who call for the manuscripts of British writers to be preserved in Britain insisting that the Elgin Marbles be returned to Greece? Perhaps some of the same people — but, I’m willing to bet, not all. Nationalism as such, these days, is a troublesome business. Ted Hughes was a writer whose work was tied to Britain (its people, its land, its history) more than most: is it sad that his papers are in another country, or is it a fine thing that perhaps, now, his work will become better known in the US? Literature lives in the world, not simply in books. Literature travels as stories travel, from mouth to mouth and heart to heart. I am not saying that the British Library’s endeavour is not a worthy one; I’m simply wondering if truth can ever be captured in one place.

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