Neeman Sobhan recently published her collection of short fiction,
Piazza Bangladesh, which illustrates the differences in the lives of
Bangladeshi expatriates in Italy.
ICE: Piazza Bangladesh is very different from An Abiding City: Ruminations from Rome in terms of genre, format and even writing. What inspired you to turn to fiction and, specifically, write Piazza?
NS: Yes, the two books are different generically, but only in a superficial sense. One could say that the since the earlier book, ‘An Abiding City’ is an anthology of columns about the quotidian, everyday life in Rome, it’s based just on facts, and that my recent ‘Piazza Bangladesh’ being a collection of short fiction deals only in the deployment of imagination and fantasy. But both are about storytelling, and the writer is the same and the sensibility that informs my use of language and images and way of looking at the world or of telling a made-up story or narrating real event is not very different. So, it isn’t as if the transition from column-writing to fiction has been that huge a jump. And chronologically also, both kinds of writing did not follow one another. I have always and concomitantly written fiction, and poetry and journalistic pieces. My fiction can be factual, and my columns can read like a story. The métier of the writer is the constant manipulation of fact and fantasy, no matter which genre he deals with. The objective is always the larger truth, artistic, philosophical truth not simply the journalistic facts.
I belong to a generation that grew to consciousness in the 60’s. Conserving memories of a vanishing world and making sense of the mercurial present, be it Bangladesh or Italy – that has been the primary impetus for writing the stories in Piazza Bangladesh, a word concocted to bring together both the Bengali and Italian elements of my life and my world.
ICE: You have lived an expatriate’s life since the age of 19, how has that affected you in regards to writing and career?
NS: Living away as an expatriate, the eternal quest for home has shaped the sensibility that nourishes my creativity and impels me to write. The Mexican poet Octavio Paz once said, “Words became my dwelling place.” And this has been true for me.Writing has been my sanctuary and true homeland.
ICE: Which authors (classic as well as contemporary; local, international) have influenced your works?
NS: I read voraciously and have been inspired by many writers. I tend to favour short story writers, or novelists who also write short fiction, such as John Updike, Annie Proulx, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, the Pakistani Daniyal Mueenuddin, and of course, the incomparable, Alice Munro. I preferred Rushdie’s and Jhumpa Lahiri’s short fiction to their novels. I often have a favourite individual work of fiction rather than a favourite writer: Ondaatje’s ‘The English Patient’, Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘The Poisonwood Bible’, Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement’, Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’, L.P.Hartley’s old fashioned ‘The Go-Between’ and many of the literary classics. So many books I would re-read if not for the pressure of keeping ahead of the constant avalanche of award winning and groundbreaking fiction hurtling upon us. I still have to finish Neel Mukherjee’s and Zia Haider’s novels.
But what truly influences and transfigures my writing process is poetry. Reading some poetry everyday is almost a religion for me. You can guess that from the epigraphs in Piazza Bangladesh.
ICE: How do you think you’ve evolved creatively between the releases of your two books?
NS: The books are milestones but still do not define my journey as a writer. It’s not an easy one and yet I love being on it. Daily, I grapple with the insecurities of a writer, and daily I learn new things that help me grow towards being the writer I aspire to be. It’s still a long way to a full flowering but I can feel the creative petals unfold, slowly.
ICE: Have you started on anything new? Mind sharing what it’s about?
NS: My next project is a probably a book of my poetry that has been hatched and ready for years, waiting to be pushed out of the nest and test its wings. The most urgent thing on my agenda, however, is to finish my novel of years. And in between, I’m sure there will be more short fiction.
A lawyer turned writer, Sanjana Sadique made her debut in the literary world with her collection of short stories for children, Tiger, Tiger and Other Stories. On a particularly bad day at work, Sadique just started writing and ended up with a story about a squirrel getting lost in the woods. She then realised where her passion lay and thus began her journey as an author.
ICE: You stumbled upon writing as somewhat of an accident. Now if you pause and look back do you think that it was something in your life that may have prompted this to happen?
SS: I wouldn’t really call it an accident. I have been writing since I was a child although I never really took it seriously. However when I was working at a law firm I reached a point when I realised that it was not the job I wanted to keep doing; I felt incomplete. So while I was on this journey to figure out what I wanted out of life, I stumbled upon a box which contained stories I had written as a child. Among them I found a dummy book and suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps this was what I should be doing. And as luck would have it, one fateful day when I was stressed at work I just started writing. It was then that I decided to pursue this as a profession and I went to The British Council and did some research on writing for children. Eventually I moved to Washington D.C. for a while where I enrolled at The Writing Centre.
ICE: Contrary to popular belief, writing for children is challenging, especially when it’s meant to be for a generation you are not a part of. Was it difficult for you?
SS: I suppose that writing for any group of readers is difficult, but yes when children are concerned one has to be more attentive as children tend to get bored easily. Keeping them engaged is a challenge which is why I needed to maintain a consistent structure, I needed clarity and logic. Another thing that I think was essential was good illustrations, because kids don’t care about big names or good reviews; they are only looking to be entertained. As a result I needed a lot of patience and time than I probably would have if I was writing for adults.
ICE: Tiger, Tiger and Other Short Stories can be defined as fables. Is there a reason why you have chosen fables as a medium to deliver your fiction?
SS: I guess I just like writing stories with morals. As children are quite impressionable I feel that they can learn a lot from the stories they read. Moreover, what they learn tend to stay with throughout their lives. So I’ve tried to put in messages in my stories so that these morals seep in and they grow up to become good human beings.
ICE: What was it like to work with Sabyasachi Misry?
SS: I feel that he really brought my book to life. I knew it was essential for my book to have good illustrations. When I saw what Sabyasachi Misry had done, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t have asked for a better illustrator.
ICE: Do you plan to continue to write for children? Do you currently have something in the pipelines?
SS: This is where my heart is. I love writing for children and as it took me such a long time to discover what I am really passionate about, I’d like to continue doing this for a while. Also, I see that children nowadays don’t read as much as we did back in the day. I wanted to write for children to promote reading among them. However, more than anything, I write in this genre because I enjoy doing so. It takes me back to my childhood and I love that! At the moment I am trying something different; I’m dabbling in non-fiction. It is a story about a boy facing health concerns. I’m trying to make these issues interesting for children because they are usually not aware of them. But that’s all I’m going to say for now as I’m still working on it.
ICE: I’ll bet that it was exciting to make your debut as a writer at Hay Festival no less. Was there a particular phase or moment during this entire writing/launching process that you look back on fondly?
SS: I think the best part during the entire journey was my book launch at Hay Festival. When I went up on stage for the reading, the front row was filled with young ones cheering for me. I was over the moon when I saw how excited they were! It was really motivating to experience that; it made me want to keep writing for young readers.
In the September of 2011, Zeeshan Khan made an incredible journey, almost entirely overland, across Eurasia. This Old World, captures the beauty and culture of the various countries along the route.
ICE: You’ve been travelling on your own since you were 16. What is it exactly that drives your thirst for excursions?
ZK: I love travelling. I was born in London and my parents moved to Dhaka when I was three, then they moved to Mauritius when I was eleven and again back to Dhaka when I was fifteen. So by fifteen I had already lived in several places where I was lucky enough to have met a lot of different people from different backgrounds.who had stories and experiences that were different than what I understood as the ‘normal’. I don’t know if that contributes to my thirst for travel directly, but it definitely intrigued me about the world. It made me very curious about the kinds of people, kinds of cultures, kinds of languages. And the other thing is that I’m just a very inquisitive person by nature, I’m fascinated with anthropological things such as race, culture, language, etc. To experience all of these things in first hand, one needs to travel. So that’s probably why I like to travel.
ICE: Across Eurasia is not the only journey you’ve made overland. Is there a reason why you opt for this mode of travel?
ZK: I prefer if I can, any time, to travel over land. It’s not possible most of the time unfortunately, and we end up flying more because it’s more convenient. But if I had my way I would go everywhere over land. I love the thrill of movement; I enjoy the feeling of ‘travelling’ while I’m travelling. When you fly you don’t get the feeling of travelling. To me flying feels like being piped from one place to another. And the entire experience is very processed. You hardly ever see the road. Travel, in my opinion, is a very soul-enriching experience. I believe that there is something very interesting in being able to experience gradual change so what I enjoyed most about this journey was that I was able to experience cultures changing, in small fragments. In fact this is one of the reasons why I wanted to make this journey in the first place. Effectively Western Europe and Southern Asia are the two ends of a spectrum and along the route is the whole spectrum and I found it really fascinating to witness the change as I travelled the road. Another reason why I choose to journey overland is because you get to meet a lot of interesting people on the way. People who travel overland have a different kind of temperament, they are explorers. Inevitably almost every conversation that I had with other travellers on this road ended up becoming philosophical.
ICE: What, during this particular journey, would you describe as a challenging experience?
ZK: I was in Van, Turkey during an earthquake of 7.3 magnitude. That was definitely a challenging experience. And traumatising. It was the first city in Turkey, after Iran and I felt like I was on safe ground. After having passed through Iran and Pakistan, which I had assumed to be the dangerous places on the trip, I felt safe! I was lucky that I checked into the hotel that I did because it was one of the only few buildings left standing after the earthquake. The day when the tremors hit, I took refuge under the door frame of my room from where I could see outside through the window. I watched as the buildings shook and crumbled down. It was bizarre. The walls of the room I was in, cracked and I could actually see into the other room! It felt as if the building was being wrung. It was a terrifying experience. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to make it out alive. I didn’t even know my way around the hotel, it was my first morning there. “Nobody knows where I am,” I thought to myself, “if I die here my mother will never know what happened to me.” That thought was actually scarier than dying. I prayed to be able to just send a message to my loved ones about where I was. “If I have to die here, I will, but I at least have to let my mother know where to find my body,” I pleaded with God. More than the fear of death was the fear of doing that to my parents.
ICE: Why an extended photo-essay? When did you realise that This Old World should exist?
ZK: I had initially wanted my brother, Sohrab, to come along with me on this journey but he couldn’t because of obligations. So when I was setting out, I figured that for my brother, my friends and other people, the curiosity is visual. They would want to see what these places looked like. I was going there, taking with me my two eyes into a part of the world where most people don’t see much of. Writing a travelogue, which is in the works, was always the plan. However, in Pakistan it occurred to me that I should probably take the photos as more of an art form than just as mementos. Eventually when I saw that the photos had come up quite nicely, I decided to compile them into a photo book. That idea came to me while I was on the journey.
Javed Jahangir works in technology during the day and is a writer by night. He has been published in various literary journals both home and abroad. Ghost Alley is his first novel.
ICE: When did you first realize that you wanted to write fiction?
JJ: About ten years ago I suddenly realised that I was tired of reading bad literature. I seemed to be rereading the same plots and patterns in most books I came across, especially the ones from South Asia. Themes such as immigration and arranged marriages seemed to keep repeating, which I’m sure sells more, but what I wanted was to write a book with none of those elements taking the centre stage. Moreover, I wanted to come out with a book which would have very little ‘western-ness’ in its consciousness. I sought to write a book which would be Bangladeshi in essence and I suppose that is how it began.
ICE: So, where do you draw you inspirations from?
JJ: People. At the end of the day what makes a good story are great characters. They say that there are only twelve stories in the world and every story is a variation of those twelve. So rather than innovating on the story front I decided to go for interesting characters. Ghost Alley consists of four main characters; a twelve year old boy called Ludo, his ill grandmother Suraya, her sister Nadira and Dr. Salauddin. Of course I had to do some research; talk to people and read books, however I did not want to write a history book. So my real intention was to ask people about what life was like then, to know what the texture of those times if you will. I used those details to add colour to the story. Similar to the movie Forrest Gump, I wanted to tell the story through an interesting character, a human perspective.
ICE: In your opinion, what makes for a good story?
JJ: Like I said before – it’s the characters. In addition, I think it’s the kind of story you want to tell. You might want to write a serious page-turner that might one day turn into a best-seller or you can choose a more personal direction expressing feelings of complex emotion. It might even be a story with artistic ambitions. There are numerous colours in a palette that you can pick from to make your story successful. In my opinion, I used more than one colour to write Ghost Alley. I started off with a very artsy project, but then I took so long to write it I decided halfway through that I wanted to write a story that people can read like they would a storybook. I quit and attempted to write a page turner that readers can enjoy – a story that is devoid of pretentions. I didn’t want to burden it with history either. I decided that I want to be read more than anything else. So, in my opinion, what makes a successful story is one that can be read with ease and pleasure.
ICE: Do you have anything new in the works?
JJ: Yes, in fact, I do. Although it has a more mature theme, I’m working on a loose sequel for Ghost Alley at the moment. The main character is an old man in his mid to late 80s. His is a story of struggle against religious extremism. Though, I started off with setting in the past as well, I’ve decided to move the timeline a bit closer to that of the present. The book has already evolved quite a bit since its inception. I updated a lot of things and toyed with ideas that I’m personally more familiar with, for instance, Dhaka during the 1980’s. Moreover, I find the current Dhaka is strange and new for me. I won’t even begin to pretend like I know it. A lot has changed since I left. I might take another year or two to complete this book, I’m almost done. I’m also working on another short project, a compilation of short stories. I’m rewriting and updating some of my previously published works to adhere to a more modern sensibility. This is due to all the changes I’ve noticed Dhaka has gone through the last few years – the technology is better, living standards have improved and a dramatic shift in culture as well. It is better in certain ways. Although, ‘Bollywood traditions’ have become widely accepted and adopted by many, the ‘Bengaliness’, for want of a better term, has also increased. In addition to the updated ones, there are a few new short stories too.
ICE: Do you have any advice for budding writers?
JJ: The most important thing about writing is discipline. Regardless of all the romantic notions of having a muse and such, without discipline, writing is impossible. You need to write everyday and I don’t mean write e-mails. Make sure to write at least a minimum of five hundred words a day, if you’re unable than lower that number to two hundred words a day. As long as you keep writing, you’re on the right path.