I read two books in quick succession — Consent and My Dark Vanessa ( HarperCollins). Both deal with the same subject. Grooming of a young school girl by a much older man, a writer / school teacher. The difference being that “Consent” is a true account by Vanessa Springora about her being groomed by French literary giant Gabriel Matzneff. It is a horrifying account of a 14-year-old girl groomed by a man who was at the time fifty years old. It is sickening. Springora, the head of the Julliard publishing house, met Matzneff at a dinner with her mother. ( https://www.theguardian.com/…/french-publishing-boss…) She was going through a troubled childhood as her parents were divorcing. Springora began a relationship with Matzneff but despite breaking it off two years later, she was not rid of the man for the next few decades. He pursued her. He stalked her. To the extent he wrote letters to her bosses in the publishing publishing she worked in. Ultimately, the Me Too movement happened, giving her the space to write her account of the events. Consent has been translated by Natasha Lehrer.
It is a memoir that flits between the perspective of the 14yo school girl and the 47yo Springora. It is disturbing. The school girl participates in the relationship with a much older man, but the adult Vanessa questions some of the acts/moments. She is able to see through the sexual exploitation and misogyny of the male writer and the protection he got from his social circle. It is incomprehensible to her. Consent is minimalistic. It does not delve into too many gory details but what the author chooses to share are emotionally shattering. It is inexplicable why this man was protected so well by the French establishment. If anyone had dared to look close enough, the evidence was apparent in the “illustrious” literary career where Matzneff published books that were thinly veiled accounts of his paedophilic acts, letters with his under-age mistresses and his regular visits to the Philippines to sexually exploit boys as young as eleven years old. Yet, Springora too only found the courage to reveal her dark secret after the Me Too movement became popular. She was relieved when she showed her mother this manuscript, who upon reading it said, “Don’t change a thing. This is your story.”
Towards the conclusion of the memoir, she writes:
I spent a long time thinking about the breach or confidentiality, particularly on a legal area that is otherwise strictly controlled, and I could only come up with one explanation. If it is illegal for an adult to have a sexual relationship with a minor who is under the age of fifteen, why is it tolerated when it is perpetrated by a representative of the artistic elite — a photographer, writer, filmmaker, or painter? It seems that an artist is of a separate caste, a being with superior virtues granted the ultimate authorization, in return for which he is required only to create an original and subversive piece of work. A sort of aristocrat in possession of exceptional privileges before whom we, in a state of blind stupefaction, suspend all judgement.
Were any other person to publish on social media a description of having sex with a child in the Philippines or brag about his collection of fourteen-year-old mistresses, he would find himself dealing with the police and be instantly considered a criminal.
Apart from artists, we have witnessed only Catholic priests being bestowed such a level of impunity.
Does literature really excuse everything?
It is a question that the reader is left asking with My Dark Vanessa. Nearly twenty years in the making and endorsed by Stephen King, it too explores the grooming of a young school girl by her English teacher. King calls it is a “hard story to read” and it is. Maybe because Kate Russell’s imagination is very detailed and sometimes gut-wrenching. It is torture to read this story. Initially I stopped reading it after a few pages but then managed to resume reading it after having finished reading Consent.
Somehow My Dark Vanessa comes across as a brilliantly crafted story but it is not as easy to read as Consent. Every despicable encounter/event in “Consent” is meticulously documented but it is shocking to read for the complicity of the French elite in permitting the writer to flourish. Not only did his books sell well, but he was lauded with honours, practically given an expense account by his publishers and the French state. It is astonishing. Whereas My Dark Vanessa reads like fiction although the events described in it are plausible. It is fiction but it sometimes seems to stem from an overactive imagination. The distinction is real. It is unsurprising that My Dark Vanessa has been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2021.
Interestingly Vanessa Springora’s memoir Consent has been endorsed by Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa, as “A gut-punch of a memoir with prose that cuts like a knife.”
Currently the controversy about Blake Bailey, the biographer of Philip Roth, is raging in the world of Anglo-American publishing. Take for instance this article published in the Slate, called “Mr Bailey’s Class“. It eerily parallels the events described in My Dark Vanessa and Lisa Taddeo’s nonfiction Three Women, where the only girl who agreed to be identified by her real name was Maggie. She spoke about her grooming by her teacher and later taking him to court. It is hard at such moments to distinguish between what is real and what is fiction.
These kinds of stories are not going away in a hurry. There are many, many more. Predatory men and women exist. It is a fact. Children are vulnerable. These books may only focus upon young girls but there is no denying that boys too are victimised.There is no telling how much longer will these stories have to be constantly told for there to be some positive change in the attitude of individuals and society. But for now, read these stories.
On 23 Jan 2021, the Romain Rolland Prize was announced. At first there was a session on the “Challenges of Translation” with Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens, Diplomat. Counsellor for Education, Science and Culture at French Embassy in India / Ambassade de France en Inde & Director of French Institute in India, Maina Bhagat, Director, Oxford Bookstores & Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival, Chinmoy Guha, translator, Dr Christine Cornet, Attachée Débat d’Idées et Livre, INSTITUT FRANÇAIS, Delhi with Jaya Bhattacharji Rose.
The winners of the prize are translator Dr S A Vengada Soupraya Nayagar and publisher Amutharasan Paulraj of Thadagam Publishers for the #Tamil translation of the French novel ‘Le mariage de plaisir’ (“A Marriage of Pleasure”). by the eminent award-winning French-Moroccan Tahar Ben Jelloun. The publisher and translator will be invited by the French Institute in India to the Paris Book Fair 2021 (Livre Paris 2021) where India will be the guest of honour.
Romain Rolland Book Prize, started in 2017, aims at awarding the best translation of a French title into any Indian language, including English. An Indo-French jury takes into account the qualities of the translation and the publication.
The presentation of the prize was followed by a fascinating conversation between the author, translator and publisher with Jaya Bhattacharji Rose. Interesting details emerged from the discussion especially since Tahar Ben Jelloun firmly believes that “Translation is a gift of friendship from an unknown language and culture.” There were some wonderful insights from Dr Nayagar regarding the process of translating and facing the challenges of communicating cultural practices accurately without any faux pax.
This AKLF event is in association with Institut Francais and Alliance Du Bengale.
The recording of the conversation is available at: https://www.facebook.com/TheAKLF/videos/247540610074687/
And then I heard the sound. The mad, ecstatic music of the lark. I peered into the brightness and saw the small hird straining upwards, its flight not like the easy, carefree swooping of the shallows and swifts. The lark’s flight was all effort, as if hauling itself up by sheer will — a wanting, a yearning. To fly and to sing was work, it was grit. And it was beautiful. And then the lark flew so high it escaped the earth’s gravity, and suddenly flying was no effort at all.
p.96 Anthony McGowan Lark
I absolutely loved these books. I Read Brock, Pike, Rook and Lark in less than a day. Best way to read the stories about the two young boys, Nicholas and Kenny. It is difficult at times for the brothers since Kenny may be the older of two but is also a special needs child.
These are extraordinary stories that simply tell adventures that these young boys have. Nothing in the style of Famous Five or Five Find-Outers. These are stories about ordinary boys from a working class background who are struggling at many levels beginning with the basic one of having a proper meal to eat. Their father is a single parent who has had an alcohol problem but slowly works his way out of it and begins working in a hospital as the equivalent of a ward boy and enjoys his job. It is hard work that does not pay much. His sons learn to fend for themselves like facing up to bullies, looking out for each other, etc. There is so much to gain from these seemingly simply told stories even with their gut wrenching moments.
These are stunning stories as despite reflecting upon the trials and tribulations of the boys, these stories offer hope, joy and the possibility of improving one’s life, step by step, with grit. Life has its hardships but it also has its moments of pure love and happiness. Something that the boys’ father discovered when he met his girlfriend Jenny. The positivity it exuded in the nuclear family had a transformative impact on the three men.
Each story improves upon the previous one but Lark really soars. It is stunning in its detailing of the landscape and its focus upon the brothers relationships. So much is packed in such few pages. Absolutely stunning!
These are stories that have apparently been edited for 9+ and above. The font used is also dyslexic friendly. It is definitely something that children worldwide could benefit from reading.
Buy it. Read it. Share it.
After I wrote this review on Facebook, Anthony McGowan messaged. Here is our conversation:
AM: Oh, what a lovely thing to say – thanks, Jaya! (I’m a bit worried there may be some continuity issues between the different volumes…)
JBR: I doubt there are continuity issues since you have written “bridging passages” in each book. Each passage quickly recaps the previous stories or there is a passing reference to a significant moment. There were only two instances where I wondered what happened and these were — 1) The complete disappearance of Samit and Tina’s former owners, the twins. There is no mention of them in subsequent stories but I merely attributed the lapse to it being a kids story and kids tend to move on. 2) In the previous books it is very clear that Nick and Kenny moved to this present home from another one after their mother left them. It is the same home which their dad visits where the present owners have kindly preserved the correspondence arriving from their mother in Canada. But in Lark there is a mention to the family having lived in many homes previous to this one. Again something that is easily glossed over since this book will probably be read by itself rather than in conjunction with the others. In all likelihood, it will be prescribed by many schools as a compulsory text to be read as there is so much to unpack in this story. So the lapses in some parts of the continutiy are so minor in detail that they hardly impact the storytelling. In fact, the stories are so well told that it is impossible to put the books down. I was just very glad that I had the pile to read, all at once. One of the best ways to end an otherwise very bleak year!
Also sharing the box of Quality Street toffees as an extraordinary treat even when their father was going through financial hardships or having a jam and cheese sandwich were such lovely little details. Btw, the sandwich combination may be yukky for many but it is a combination that my dad intrduced me to and I still enjoy it. It isn’t bad at all!
AM: Oh, drat, well spotted! Those are certainly issues I should have ironed out. I suppose I can blame my narrator, Nicky – he’s looking back on these events from the future and his memory, like mine, is fallible! One thing that might interest you concerns the character of Mog in Pike. He’s actually a major character in my first Barrington Stoke book, The Fall. I leave him in a terribly dark place at the end of that book (it’s easily my most depressing), and I always felt guilty about it. So I gave him salvation in Pike.
JBR: Oh nice! I did wonder about Mog. I wanted to know more about him. Perhaps he can return in a standalone novel of his own? He really has a Dickensian quality about him. Worth exploring.
His wife, when she’s with him, will point something out. ‘Doesn’t it make you feel proud?’ she will ask. ‘Not particularly.’ ‘It will hang forever on a wall, your signature beneath it — something you have created that nobody else could have created. And it doesn’t make you –? I mean, how could it not?’ ‘I guess, I don’t see things the way you do.’ ‘You don’t love it? Maybe it’s just as well we didn’t have children. I mean you create something and yet you don’t even love it?’ ‘It? What do you mean by it exactly?’ ‘You know — that barn, this farm, that house–now immortalised.’ ‘Then I guess no, I don’t love it.’ He doesn’t tell her that when he finds it at first, then, yes, all right, he feels it. When he carries it in his head and silently waits for it to take form. When he shyly glances at the sketches he’s made and feels the urge inside him. When it’s there in his head coming out of the dusk. Then it’s love all right. More love than he has ever felt for her, or any other woman.
*** The Narrow Land ( Atlantic Books) by Christine Dwyer Hickey is about ten-year-old Michael, survivor of German concentration camps, and his incredible friendship with the artists Jo and Edward Hopper.
It is an elegant novel that does one of the toughest acts — inserts itself in a marriage, to understand the couple at the heart of this relationship and their creativity. At the same time it creates these unexpected inter-generational alliances, creating spaces for the young and the old to become strong personalities in their own right and not necesarily to be judged from the outside by observers. It is an incredible feeling as a reader to be exposed to the chatter of others, building up the personalities of the protagonists, only to suddenly discover oneself in an intimate space with them, be privy to their thoughts and emotions and the remarkably ordinary universe they inhabit. As if the writer is goading the reader to look beyond the obvious in the story, just as any artist would delve deep within themselves to discover their creativity.
I read Avni Doshi’s Girl In White Cotton and so should you. Read it for the exquisite craftsmanship of the sentences. The choice of words. The literary creativity. But there are many more conversations to be had on the side of how readers engage with such literary fiction? How does the writer create empathy for the characters or is that not essential? Does the focus on the beauteous sentences accentuate some of the shortcomings in the story itself? Or is literary craftsmanship about expressing oneself so brilliantly that the pain is felt by the reader too but at the cost of a growing indifference towards some of the characters? Many questions swirl in one’s head upon reading this sharp novel. It will linger for a long time too. No wonder it was shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2020. Good choice.
It is not very easy to read while the lockdown is on but I have managed a wee bit. The following are only some of the books I managed to read in April. Many others that I read I wrote about in separate blog posts. As always it is an eclectic collection.
Stephen and Lucy Hawking’s The Universe: Everything you need to travel through Space and Time is a brilliant collection of essays about the universe. It begins with a beautiful but very brief essay by Professor Stephen Hawking, “The Creation of the Universe” where he simply and clearly tries to explain the origins of Universe, packing it with concepts too. The contributors to the volume consist of eminent scientists, some Nobel Prize winners too, and a school student, Nitya Kapadia. The range of topics is extraordinary — understanding the origin of life, the Big Bang theory, idea of Space, travelling through the Universe, the idea of Relativity, from the solar system, the planets, speculating about life in space, Zero-Gravity Flights, Time Travel, wormholes, the Goldilocks zone, the geographical structures on Earth, Artificial Intelligence, Robot Ethics, 3D Printing, Internet Privacy, Quantum Computers etc. The template set by the late Prof. Hawking is the blueprint for the subsequent essays in the book. It makes science so easily accessible for young and adults alike. ( Confession time: My 10 yo daughter and I have been taking turns to read this book as both of us are fascinated by complicated subjects explained ever so simply!)
Scientific discoveries do not necessarily happen always in a staid manner, in controlled laboratory conditions. S D Tucker’s fascinating book Forgotten Science attempts to uncover the backstories of some of the extraordinary scientific applications that we take for granted in modern times. For instance, figuring out the circulatory system within an individual and the effect of medication if taken orally or injected directly into the bloodstream was discovered after experimenting upon dogs. These experiments were conducted by Robert Boyle (1627-91), often described as “the father of chemistry”, and Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), the anatomist, architect and designer of St Paul’s Cathedral to test William Harvey (1578-1657), court physician to Charles I, hypothesis about the circulatory system of various living creatures. Another equally bizarre and immoral experiment was carried out by Nazi doctor, Dr Sigmund Rascher ( 1909 – 45) to test the effects of high altitude and how to recover from hypothermia. Taking advantage of his close proximity to SS Head Heinrich Himmler ( 1900-45), Dr Rascher got permission to conduct experiments upon prisoners in Dachau concentration camp. In 1942 Rascher was given a pressure chamber and began locking prisoners inside to simulate the effects of high altitude upon Nazi airmen and parachutists. By altering pressure changes quickly or slowly, Rascher could mimic both gradual ascents and total freefall, and see what such states did to the human body. The effect upon the prisoners varied from exploding lungs, while others began to rip their own hears apart with bare hands due to the unbearable stress they felt inside their skulls. He killed about eighty prisoners in this ghastly manner but dismissed it as saying they were ‘only’ Poles and Russians. Some of his other experiments were on hypothermia, discovering the blood-clotting agent called Polygal and developed the cyanide capsule which later even Himmler took to avoid capture by the British. Ultimately Rascher too was incarcerated at Dachau for publicising the falsehood that he had extended the childbearing age of women and as proof he said his wife, touching fifty, had given birth to three babies, when in truth they had been kidnapped. Rascher was shot in April 1945. Several scientists who had worked with Rascher ended up working at NASA.
The next three books belong loosely to the category of science fiction — The Flight of the Arconauts by Sophia Khan ( steampunk fiction); The Sin Eaters by Megan Campisi and Analog Virtual by Lavanya Lakshminarayan. The Flight of the Arconaut is written at a nice pace. Neat dialogues. Interesting attempt at blending names to denote cultural melting pots. But it seems to have been heavily influenced by contemporary scifi young adult literature. It is also very desi in its telling by cramming the main narrative with so many stories and backstories. I see no reason why all must exist in the forefront. It is also inexplicable why must SpecFic, or in this case Steampunk Fiction, be so obsessed with conservative social rankings especially along gender lines? Why not break free? Also why is birth and regeneration such a massive preoccupation. It is as if it is impossible to think beyond the writing of H G Wells, Aldous Huxley et al. Sophia Khan’s saving grace is the packed dialogue and a superb grasp of the English language — LOVE IT! The second volume in this trilogy should be fun.
The Sin Eaters and Analog Virtual are debut novels. Both the writers seem to be voracious readers. Keenly imaginative writers too but not sufficiently confident enough to create landscapes of their own. While theatreperson Megan Campisi creates a parallel reality to Elizabethan England in The Sin Eater to explore the rumours of Queen Elizabeth I having had an illegitimate child. Campisi builds the premise of her story upon the social mobility a Sin Eater has within society and is able to pick up bits of information. So this part-mystery, part-historical fiction, is thrilling to read in parts with the strongest moments in storytelling being different scenes, much like the scenes enacted on stage. Usually the best moments in the novel are when the sin eater is in an enclosed space like a bedroom or a chapel attending a recitation or funeral and there are onlookers, replicating a play being enacted on stage, watched by an audience. Megan Campisi’s forte is theatre and not long fiction. But if she persists at this craft and attempts to write what her heart tells her to, she has the potential to do well. Much of this holds true for Lavanya Lakshminarayan who need to break the shackles of a well-read reader of science fiction and create with the assurance that resides deep within her, an imaginary landscape with its distinctive vocabulary, unique social structures, and a clear inner logic to the society she creates so that any reader coming to it for the first time will fall in love with her story. For now Virtual Analog is competent storytelling but no more. It may also fit snugly on the joint imprint that her publishers Hachette India have with Gollancz but Lavanya Lakshminarayan is capable of much, much more than what is displayed in Analog Virtual. What shines through the books is their keen imagination. They are creative writers whose confidence will soar with their third books. If they persist at this craft and attempt to write what their hearts tell them to, they have the potential to do well.
And then there are the two works of fiction — Meena Kandaswamy’s Exquisite Cadavers and Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s Like a Mule: Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun. Established writers. Controlled writing. Immersive reading experience. Meena Kandaswamy’s Exquisite Cadavers is an extraordinary reading experiment with parallel texts laid out on the pages — the main narrative and the interior monologue of the writer. Fascinating. It is a sophisticated cross between poetry and prose. Such books are meant to be experienced. In the old-fashioned sense. Linger over the pages. Dip into the text. Read along the margins. Shut the book. Mull over what one has read. Imbibe some more. Go back to a few lines. Meena Kandaswamy’s sense of rhythm as a poet has not left the prose. It is gorgeous! Her writings have always been infused with a ferocity that seems tto have been sharpened over the years but there is something special about this novel. Fifteen years down the line Exquisite Cadavers will be used a fine example of a literary text that will be read by the general reader as well as be a prescribed text. This is not a novel that will not be easily converted to an audio book — nor should it be. Likewise Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s novella about Morayo Da Silva, a seventy-five-year old Nigerian, living in San Francisco. She reflects upon her life as an academic, author and a diplomat’s wife. It is also a moving tale about ageing and suddenly being at the mercy of tender and well meaning care of others. Ladipo chooses an extraordinary literary technique of giving every character the first person narrative which at first is confusing but slowly adds up to the variety of perspectives and unsolicited advice Morayo gets upon her hospitalisation. The saddest part in the novel is when her kind young friend decides to tidy up Morayo’s apartment thereby ridding it off a clutter of books. Morayo is understandably upset, a hurt that many are unable to comprehend. It is a novel that criss-crosses continents — Africa, America and Asia. Irrespective of the land she is in, or when nostalgia hits her regarding Africa, Morayo’s levelheadedness always wins. It is a novel that cuts across cultures seamlessly and sensitively. There is never an awkward sense of looking at other cultures as “other”.
Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women and Jess Hill’s See What You Made Me Do are ( to use cliches) — mind blowing books. Both by journalists-turned-authors whose books were written after many years of intensive research and recording testimonies. Both these books will influence women’s writing, women’s movements, and all aspects of feminism in a manner similar to that of Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer’s influence. Lisa Taddeo’s Three Womenis about talking to three women about sex and desire for nearly eight years. It became a publishing sensation. While the subject itself would attract attention, it is the narrative, the confidence with which the subjects explore their own complicated reactions to sexuality. Significantly Three Women marks a watershed moment in contemporary women’s literature on how women talk about their sexual desires and needs. In many ways the strength of Lisa Taddeo’s is very similar to male writing, an unquestionable confidence. Jess Hill won the Stella Prize 2020 for Look What You Made Me Do. A title that probably gets lost as it is very similar to many of yalit and chiklit titles, but this title has a purpose with sinister underpinnings. It encapsulates the blame-game that inevitably every male perpetrator foists upon his female victim, usually said in a manner that fools the victim to believe the falsehood — she is too blame for the violence being meted out to her. In this particular book, Jess Hill focusses on domestic violence and her analysis of it is horrific. She breaks many myths about it being only restricted to certain socio-economic sections . Her profiling of the perpetrators is pathbreaking as she creates categories. Some of the men when they appear in court seem as if they can never hurt a fly and yet the incidents they are involved in are gut wrenching. Much of what she says is familiar to women activists and legal teams such as that violence is not necessarily always physical but emotional, psychological, financial etc. The manner in which the information is presented in Look What You Made Me Do will help this material in reaching to newer audiences. Women who either need help themselves or those close to victims. Both these powerful books are going to be seminal in the field of women/gender studies, human rights, manual for legal and counselling professionals.
The final book is the stupendously magical award-winning Lampie and the Children of the Sea. It has been written and illustrated by Dutch illustrator Annet Schaap. This is her first novel. It has already won the Woutertje Pieterse Prize, the Nienke van Hichtum prize, the Bookenleuw and the Gouden Griffel for the best Dutch children’s book of the year. It has been translated into English by Laura Watkinson. It is also the only translated book to have been shortlisted for the 2020 Carnegie Medal Award. It is a stunning modern fairy tale about a little girl, Lampie, living in a lighthouse with her father. Due to some unfortunate events Lampie is sent off to live in the Admiral’s home where it is rumoured a monster resides. It is a heartwarming tale as it is also a tale of Lampie overcoming prejudices and learning to live on her own terms, overcome hurdles and set goals for herself to achieve. The joy with which this story seems to have been written flows splendidly in the translation. It is truly magical to read it even in the moments when there is deep sadness and unnecessary violence. The imaginative plot matches the wild imagination that children are prone to creating for themselves. Yet Annet Schaap, an adult, an illustrator and a storyteller, pulls her strengths together of — an adult’s perspective on a child’s world sans judgement, creative imagination and a wide-eyed wonder at the power of stories to weave her magic. There are multiple layers to Lampie and the Children of the Sea. Whether the monsters in a child’s life are real or imaginary, they can be confronted and set free. It is a book that will appeal to adults and children alike!
I met award-winning picture book author and illustrator Ruth Paul at the residence of the New Zealand High Commissioner on 4 Dec 2019 for a tête-à-tête. It was such a pleasure meeting Ruth Paul! I had read a clutch of her marvellous picture books, each with its own distinctive style. I had also heard about Ruth from the legendary children’s writer Gavin Bishop. Befittingly we met in the Sunshine Drawing Room as a distinctive characteristic of Ruth Paul’s picture books is her fondness for light and the manner in which she plays with it in her illustrations. It is fascinating to immerse oneself in the artwork.
Ruth Paul and Jaya Bhattacharji Rose in conversation. Picture taken by Arpita Basu.
Ruth Paul has written and illustrated over 20 picture book titles and is a recent recipient of a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate Award (August 2019).
I Am Jellyfish recently won the 2018 award for Best
Picture Book at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Mini Whinny: Happy Birthday to Me! illustrated by Ruth and written by
Stacy Gregg is shortlisted for the Best Picture Book Award, 2019. The King’s Bubbles won the Children’s
Choice picture book award in 2008, and five of her books have made the
Storylines Notable Book List over the years.
Stomp was a finalist in the NZ
Post Book Awards 2012, and Bad Dog Flash was
selected for the US Kid’s Indie Next List in 2014. Her books have sold in New
Zealand, Australia, USA, Canada, the UK, China and Korea, with translations in 5
languages. Cookie Boo! Is her first
book to be initially published in the USA, with a Harper Collins USA release in
summer 2020. Ruth’s poetry is included in
A Treasury of NZ Poems for Children, Penguin
Random House NZ 2014. Her original picture book illustrations have contributed
to touring exhibitions for Painted Stories (previously Te Tai Tamariki Trust)
and two are held in the Mazza Collection at the University of Findlay, Ohio.
Ruth lives in an off-grid,
straw-bale house on a farm just outside Wellington, New Zealand. As well as
writing and illustrating children’s picture books, Ruth has worked as a costume
illustrator for Peter Jackson movies. She has two teenaged sons and is actively
involved in her local community, having previously chaired her local Community
Board and School Board of Trustees. Over the years, Ruth achieved a Bachelor of
Arts majoring in English and History from Victoria University, a Diploma in
Visual Communication Design from Wellington Polytech (now Massey University),
and most of a law degree.
Ruth says every new book is a
challenge and presents the opportunity to get better at the craft she
wholeheartedly loves.
***
How do you prefer to introduce yourself
as — picture book author / author-illustrator / illustrator? Which came first
— illustrator or author? And if it is “illustrator” then when did
the transition to “author-illustrator” happen?
I call myself a picture book author and illustrator. A child once called me an “author and alligator”, but my teeth are not so big. I studied design and worked as a commercial illustrator first, illustrating books for a couple of other writers, then eventually wrote my own books. It is more common for author/illustrators to start as illustrators as this appears to be the more time-consuming craft to learn. Now that I do both, however, I’m not so sure.
2. When you envision a picture book — do you write first or do you create illustrations or do both the processes work in tandem?
It used to be that I started with words then added mages later, now it’s more a tandem process. Overall, I try to get a “concept” working first. I see (or wish for) a perfectly formed concept and story – both words and pictures – then I slowly destroy this perfect imagining as I put pen to paper and try to wrestle it into reality. The challenge is to preserve the magic of the story during this process.
3. What are the mediums you prefer to use for illustrations? Do you preserve your art work? Do you rely on digital tools to assist in your illustrations and text design?
I work and have worked in multiple mediums, traditional and digital. Having many techniques available is one of the advantages of previously attending art school. I change my style and technique depending on the needs of the book. Plus, illustrating a 32-page picture book is a big undertaking so I can get bored using the same technique twice in a row. Sometimes I use Photoshop and a Cintiq tablet to draw and I find that digital illustration almost replicates the real mediums and processes now so there’s less of a divide than people think. Whatever medium you use, you still have to be able to draw and compose, to have a sense of colour and communication. I try to change between computer and traditional forms just so I don’t get too reliant on one. I will say that generally publishers prefer me to supply my artwork digitally as opposed to hard-copy now, so that is a cost that needs to considered at the outset.
4. When you embark on a new book project, do you leave book production details to your editors or do you like to be involved in them as well?
I always plan images around words on the page, so I inevitably design the type layout as I go. However, as I use every last minute before book goes to production to work on the images, I leave the typography and final design to the publisher. I am usually always consulted on the final look of things, though often there is little you can change given time constraints. Publishers are very particular about the typefaces they use and you have to give their designers some room to work also.
5. Do your books get translated? If so what are the pros and cons of having picture books translated?
I love seeing my books in translation, but only having one language I usually have no idea what they read like! As some of my stories are in complex rhyme, I can’t imagine they work in any other language. My guess is that the substance not subtlety of the text is translated, for instance, in one of my books a sentence saying “Jump over the hump” in English, with a picture of dinosaurs jumping over tortoises, is (I am told) translated as “Jump over the turtles”. A little less fun, but it does the job.
6. How do you remain so enthusiastic and fresh about storytelling, appealing to a child’s imagination? Do you create picture books with your target audience in mind or is it yourself?
I am an adult writing for the child in myself. Fortunately, the audience for picture books this is both the adult-reader and the child so it shouldn’t be a problem. I myself am easily bored, so I guess that’s where I start when telling a story.
7. What are the essential elements of a picture book? Do you think children’s literature needs to be didactic? Is there a difference in creating picture books for the school market as opposed to those created for leisure reading?
Like most things, I can tell you
what a picture book shouldn’t be more easily that telling you what it should
be. A picture book shouldn’t be boring, ugly, preachy or mean. It should be
intriguing, satisfying and a joy to hold. Obviously books for the school market
have to be educationally correct, whereas a trade picture book need only appeal
to the buyer’s taste. And we all know it is easier to sell a child chips rather
than salad.
I don’t mind books with a message to convey as long as the message is held safely within the story and is not beating it to death with a club. I do like books that leave you with a good “feeling” of some kind, be it safety, quietness or a thought to chew over. I don’t like books that leave a child worried, fearful or over-stuffed.
8. Your sense of perspective especially in the double page spread illustrations is incredible. These seem to have slowly transformed to become the centre point of your later picture books such as The King’s Bubble and I am a Jellyfish. Do you envision your picture books as one long spread or do you see them as a 32-page book at gestation itself?
I am a big fan of the double-page spread. It is a big painting or image with everything in it and I guess I like the logic of a single proposition that conveys all the necessary information. But sometimes vignettes are necessary to explain all the action of a story. The King’s Bubbles was my third book, I Am Jellyfish my sixteenth, but they share a personal sentiment and immersive style even though technically quite different. So I think your question relates to “flow”. I want the child to climb into the world of the book, and I work to make the flow of the page-turn seamless and logical so the spell of that world is not abruptly broken. So – a bit of both?
9. What are the kinds of questions children and adults ask of you? Have you had diverse reactions to the same story?
My favourite question ever was
asked at a school in Delhi just recently. It was “If you could live inside one
of your books, which one would it be?”. I had to really think about the answer
to that. I love that younger kids always want to tell me something about
themselves, rather than ask me questions. I will say “Do you have any questions
about writing a story or drawing pictures? A question is something where you
want to know something from me, and I answer”. Then all the hands will go up
and the first questions are inevitably “I know a story!” or “I’ve got a dog!”
etc. Cute.
Certain books are for certain audiences. I have picture books that are rollicking good yarns to recite or act out with kids, and some that are for one child only while cuddled up and quiet. There is a book for every situation so the trick is not doing a quiet introspective story with a group of 80 school kids, and vice versa.
10. How much research do your picture books require?
Enough to know you’re not wrong. Enough to know there’s a sound basis for your idea. Enough not to overthink and kill the idea. Enough to add flavour and nuance to the story. Reading everything and anything around your subject always helps to not inadvertently repeat what’s been done before and also to add seasoning.
11. What are the kinds of art forms that you appreciate? Which of these do you think work well in children’s literature or would that be immaterial as long as the illustrator is appealing to the reader’s aesthetic sensibility?
I like folk art because it is not elite, is often telling a story and frequently appeals to a child-like sensibility. I love everything in any art from that blows-my-mind – the extraordinary building, the tiny piece of lace, the kids talent show. I am omnivorous when it comes to art and craft and only know that the older I get the less frequently I am ‘moved’, but when I am, the most surprising things will reduce me to tears. I recently cried during a hip-hop performance, and also when looking at a young girls drawing of a monster. I am moved when I see the feeling – be it vulnerability, bravery, fear, love, joy or sorrow in art. Good art can do that.
12. Who are the artists, illustrators and writers that have influenced you?
Now there’s big question. The answer is in the multitudes and the top of the list rotates from year to year with my changing taste. To narrow it down to children’s authors and illustrators, from New Zealand I love the work of the pre-eminents Gavin Bishop and Lynley Dodd; from everywhere else there’s Emma Chichester Clarke, Roger Duvosin, the Provensons, Brian Wildsmith, Freya Blackwood, Etienne Delessert, Brendan Wenzel, Ayano Imai, Sophie Blackall … there is just so many! I can’t answer this properly!
13 December 2019
List of Ruth Paul’s books:
Trade Books:
The Animal Undie Ball Scholastic 2004
The Little White Lie Scholastic 2005
The King’s Bubbles Scholastic 2007
Superpotamus Scholastic 2008
Two Little Pirates Scholastic 2010
Stomp! Scholastic 2011
Hedgehog’s Magic Tricks Walker Books 2012
Red Panda’s Toffee
Apples
Walker Books 2013
Bad Dog Flash Scholastic 2013
My Dinosaur Dad Scholastic 2014
Rabbit’s Hide and Seek Walker Books 2014
Go Home Flash Scholastic 2014
Bye-Bye Grumpy Fly Scholastic 2015
What’s the Time
Dinosaur?
Scholastic 2015
My Meerkat Mum Scholastic 2017
I Am Jellyfish Penguin Random House
2018
Little Hector and the
Big Blue Whale Penguin
Random House 2018
Mini Whinny, Happy
Birthday to Me!
by Stacy Gregg, illustrated by Ruth Paul, Scholastic NZ 2018
Upcoming Trade Books:
Little Hector and the
Big Idea Penguin
Random House 2019
Mini Whinny: Goody Four
Shoes by
Stacy Gregg, ill. by Ruth Paul,Scholastic
2019
Cookie Boo! Harper Collins USA 2020
Little Hector Meets Maui Penguin Random House
2020.
Mini Whinny: Bad Day at the OK Corral by Stacy Gregg, ill. by Ruth Paul, Scholastic 2020.
Anil Menon wrote a fantastic review of Booker winner 2019 Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments for the Hindu. The review was published in print on Sunday, 27 October 2019 and in digital on Saturday, 26 October 2019. Here is the original url. With Anil Menon’s permission I am c&p the text below.
****
A
dystopian novel is where the Enlightenment goes to die. Since we’re awash in
dystopian novels, perhaps it suggests that far from fearing this eventuality —
the onset of a dark age — perhaps we’ve become resigned to it. As Cavafy
suggests in his poem, ‘Waiting for the Barbarians,’ for those weary of
civilisation, barbarity may even represent “a kind of solution.”
There
are two kinds of dystopias. In dystopias of the first kind — represented by
Zamyatin’s We,
Orwell’s 1984,
and their numerous progeny — the prison gates are locked from the outside. This
means there’s an inside and an outside; there’s a jailor and the jailed; there
are secret messages and secret societies; there are betrayals and breakouts;
and at the end, a door is either closed for good or left ever so slightly ajar
for a sequel to squeeze through. In dystopias of the second kind — represented
by Huxley’s Brave
New World — the prison gates are locked from the inside.
There’s no need for jailors, because the people have jailed themselves. These
novels are much harder to write.
Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
is a dystopia of the first kind, and at the end of the story, she chose to
leave the door ajar. Thirty-four years later, the much-awaited sequel, The Testaments,
tells the rest of the tale. For those who came in late, a brief recap might
help. The
Handmaid’s Tale is based on the premise that the U.S. has
fragmented into a number of independent republics, and one of the largest
fragments — the Republic of Gilead — is now run by a Puritan theocracy.
Unlike
Tolstoy’s unhappy families, all theocracies are alike. The men are men;
uninformed and uniformed, and uniformly jerks. But women in Gilead come in four
basic models: the Aunts, celibate women in charge of female indoctrination; the
Wives, who are just that; the Marthas, who do manual labour; and the Handmaids,
who are wombs-on-rent. Then there are the whores. Of course, there are no
whores in Gilead, just as there was no poverty in the Soviet Union.
This
set-up offers a lot of scope for misery, and in The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood
used all the fine English at her disposal to depict just how ghastly a world
based on the Womb and nothing but the Womb would be. This world is a dystopia
not (only) because men have total power over women, but because women have been
coerced, persuaded, indoctrinated, habituated into oppressing other women.
It’s
clear Gilead is in deep trouble. Their science is Biblical, their society
Saudi, their never-ending wars Balkan, and their economics Soviet. Dystopias of
the first kind always have lousy economics. Consequently, for all the horror,
the reader may relax: it’s only a matter of time. Nonetheless, it seems some
readers couldn’t relax. Atwood mentions in the acknowledgements that she
wrote The
Testaments to answer a persistent query: “How did Gilead
fall?” The urge to please readers is always inimical to great literature.
The
Testaments is a plot-heavy novel and has three storylines. The first
deals with the musings and machinations of Aunt Lydia, the most powerful of the
four Founders of Gilead’s Aunt institution; the second with Agnes, the daughter
of a powerful Commander in Gilead; and the third with seemingly ordinary Daisy,
who lives in Toronto and is being raised by two very nice and seemingly
ordinary people. Daisy turns out to be not so ordinary, and her storyline is
the usual Hero’s journey. Agnes serves no real purpose other than to illustrate
the life of a “privileged” teen in Gilead. Meanwhile, Aunt Lydia serves up
info-dumps, while she waits for Daisy to turn up in Gilead and set the
republic’s destruction in motion. The last dozen chapters compress everything
into summaries, hasty action scenes, and neat resolutions.
Unlike The Handmaid’s Tale,
whose protagonist Offred is entirely ordinary, all the key characters in the
sequel are exalted in some way. They are important on account of destiny or
social role or birth or ability. It’s not just The Testaments’ plot-heavy nature or
its disinterest in ordinariness that gives it a genre feel. Atwood has always
had an interest in plot. But she is also interested in subtext. The Handmaid’s Tale had
a plot — a threadbare one, to be sure, but there was one — and loads of
subtext.
In The Testaments, however,
there’s virtually no subtext. The meaning is all on the surface. What you see
is what you get. Events cause other events, obstacles are external, sections
end on cliffhangers, and characters remain unchanged by the plot. In Atwood’s
short story ‘Happy Ending’ (now a writing workshop staple used to discourage
plot-intensive stories), she remarks that plots are “just one thing after
another, a what and a what and a what.” That’s not true, but here, in this
novel, it is just that.
The
writing is always competent — this is Atwood after all — but it could’ve been
written by any competent writer. The
Handmaid’s Tale requires one to pause frequently and
contemplate, as when Atwood writes of a character who has just entered a room:
“He was so momentary, he was so condensed.” Or “Old love; there’s no other kind
of love in this room now.” The
Testaments offers few such pleasures. At one point, in the
middle of a flashback on how the Gilead Republic came to be, Aunt Lydia, bored
by the all-too-predictable violence, tells us: “How tedious is a tyranny in the
throes of enactment.” So too is a novel in the throes of enacting an
unnecessary sequel.
This novel is entertaining enough; a film starring Meryl Streep is sure to follow. It boggles the mind however that the novel was even shortlisted for the Booker, let alone managing to win a share of the prize. Perhaps this is truly the age of the “new mediocre,” as The New York Times fashion critic, Vanessa Friedman, recently said in another context. Brave new mediocre. If we have lost the ability to distinguish a mediocre literary effort from a superlative one, or worse, if we have lost the courage to even acknowledge there is a problem, then it is not corrupt institutions we should fear. It is ourselves. There is no rescuing prisoners who fancy themselves free.
The Booker Prize is to be announced on Monday, 14 October 2019. This time it consists of very well established writers and previous Booker winners like Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie. The other writers shortlisted include Elif Shafak, Chigozie Obioma, Lucy Ellmann and Bernardine Evaristo. Every single title shortlisted is unique and that is exactly the purpose of a shortlist — to highlight the variety of writing, experimentation in literary forms and the author’s ability to tell a fresh new story.
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie is a modern enactment of Cervantes Don Quixote and involves a salesman of Indian origin, Ismail, who travels across America on a quest — in search of his beloved, a TV show host. It is at one level a bizarre retelling of the popular story with big dollops of magic realism also thrown in. But most importantly it is the commentary offered on the global rise of despots, notion of dual identities, migrations, what it means to be a refugee in modern times, status of women, patriarchal ways of functionining, sexual harassment etc. It is like a broad sweep of events set in three nations — USA, UK and India. At the same time it is a commentary that is very relevant to the socio-political turmoil evident globally. These are also the three countries that Rushdie has lived in and migrated to. So Quichotte in many ways is a triumphant storytelling but it is also a sharp commentary on contemporary events that are taking a horrific turn. In many ways this is a sad reminder for someone like Rushdie, a Midnight’s Child, born soon after India gained independence from the British in 1947 and wrote about it in his Booker winner and Booker of Bookers The Midnight’s Children. He has witnessed modern history for more than seven decades and to see history more or less come full circle with the rise of fascism and blatant acts of genocide, construction of concentration camps in the name of detention centres for migrants is a more than unpleasant. It requires a storyteller of his stature who has himself lived under the very real threat of death while the fatwa issued against him for writing The Satanic Verses existed, to write confidently and offer his commentary on modern times. If the garb of magic realism, a quest and relying upon many literary references that at times allow Rushdie to offer his thoughts while making Quichotte seem disjointed, well, ce’st le vie — it is a reflection of our reality and needs to be articulated. Read this extract from the novel. Also listen to this fascinating podcast on the Intelligence Squared website where Salman Rushdie spoke to BBC journalist Razia Iqbal in front of a live audience in London on 29 August 2019.
Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds is a reference to the time the brain waves continue to be sent after a person has been declared clinically dead. This is the duration during which the novel’s protagonist, a prostitute called Tequila Leila, who has been killed and whose body has been placed in a sil, reflects upon her life and her friendships. It is a stunning book for its immediate preoccupation with refugees as epitomised by the small circle of friends of the narrator. It is also a story that touches upon gender issues, patriarchy, censorship, rise of fascist despots, freedom of expression, marginalised groups, sexual freedom etc. While it is a novel that raises many issues, it is unlike Quichotte, restricted to Turkey and its immediate vicinity. In an interview to the Indian Express, Shafak said, “The novel is one of our last democratic spaces“.
Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport is described as a one-sentence, 1000-page novel, which seems daunting to read, but it is the interior monologue of a woman. A narrator who merges her thoughts as most women do while contending with their daily mental load of managing responsibilities and offering commentaries upon the world around them. She flits between her immediate preoccupations with general reflections upon global politics, especially Trump. While reading the novel there are moments that one punches a fist in the air to say, “Yes! Ellmann got this right about women and their reflections.” Then there are other moments where one wishes that like James Joyce’s Ulysses manuscript written in colour-coded crayons, Lucy Ellmann too had figured a way of colour coding her novel by making the perceptive observations of a woman being highlighted for at times the meanderings into political landscapes and beyond can be a tad tedious. Lucy Ellmann’s writing style in this novel has often been compared to James Joyce by critics for whom the author had a fantastic reply in an interview she gave to The Washington Post:
Thrilled. But again, to me the connection seems remote. Many reviews have mentioned that my father was a Joyce scholar. Actually, my sister’s one too. But . . . I’m not! My father [ Richard Ellmann] did talk a lot about Joyce when I was growing up, when my mother didn’t put her foot down. But mostly, I tuned it out. I regret that now — especially when people come to me with their Joyce questions!Still, I think it’s weird for reviewers to bring up what my father did for a living. How often is the parentage of male novelists in their 60s mentioned?
James Joyce’s colour coded manuscript of Ulysses
Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other is a “novel” about 12 black women characters, most of them British. As an example of literary experimentation in terms of form, using blank verse as prose, to tell loosely interconnected, intergenerational, stories is fascinating. There is a rhythm that is mesmerising and lends sections of this novel to performance poetry. These are voices that suddenly make apparent the distinctions that exist amongst individuals in that “broad” spectrum of “black British women”. There are many instances in the book that make the women across generations offer their opinions about living in a patriarchal society, the position of women and the challenges it offers on a regular basis. Many of these questions are often raised and discussed even by feminists and many other ordinary women who do not necessarily wish to be labelled as feminists. The fact remains these are issues linking women across the world. Yet while the author’s heart is in the right place of creating this landscape, too much energy seems to have been invested in crafting the form rather than ensuring that the women’s conversations are at par with the magnificent form. At times, their observations sound too thin or as the Guardian review puts it aptly, “naive”. This mismatch in quality of craftsmanship and getting the tenor right of the women character’s preoccupations was not to be expected in such a talented writer. Evaristo is widely tipped to be one of the favourite of bookies and critics, like John Self in The Irish Times, in tomorrow’s announcement of the Booker Prize.
The only other writer on this year’s shortlist, apart from Rushdie, to have won the Booker Prize is Margaret Atwood with The Testaments. It is a sequel to her iconic book The Handmaid’s Tale which went through an immense revival achieving almost cult-like status in the wake of the #MeToo movement. It led to a TV adaptation where Atwood had a cameo role too. The red and white dress rapidly became a symbol of resistance in many a young woman’s mind. Atwood wrote The Testaments while the buzz around The Handmaid’s Tale was rife. It is undoubtedly a smoooooooooooth read and is justifiably so the “dazzling follow-up” to The Handmaid’s Tale as affirmed by Anne Enright in her review in The Guardian. Nothing less is to be expected from Margaret Atwood, the High Priestess of modern sisterhood, as she so marvellously creates this story even with its painful moments. It is a story that can be read as a standalone or in quick succession after The Handmaid’s Tale but the skill of Atwood’s storytelling comes to the fore in this novel. It is also probably easier to read, stronger in the punches it delivers and richer for its details, given that it is very much a product of modern times where many debates regarding women, their rights and freedoms within a patriarchal social structure are being questioned. The audience is now receptive to such tales. Hence it is no surprise that bookies are tipping this to be the favourite to win tomorrow’s Booker Prize.
Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities is a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey in the form of Igbo storytelling. It is a kind of storytelling associated mostly with male storytellers. It merges many well known traditions of storytelling and is mostly anecdotal, relying a lot on folklore elements. It is a form that was used by Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart too. Obioma has been referred to in a New York Times article as the “heir to Chinua Achebe”. Nonso, a chicken farmer, is the protagonist in An Orchestra of Minorities who travels out of Nigeria and gets involved in many adventures including becoming the victim of a scam. It can get a little convoluted as presumably this Igbo art form is mostly meant for oral performances and not meant to be read as the printed word, a form that exerts its own set of rules and demands upon the reader — most noticeably being that of making limited allowances for digressions and purple prose. This constant tussle between the two forms of storytelling — Igbo and the English literary tradition of the novel— makes for a challenging read with only flashes of brilliance. Perhaps Obioma who has been most fortunate in having both his novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize will win this prestigious literary accolade with his third novel and not succumb to being “three times bridesmaid never bride”.
Literary shortlists serve many purposes. Most noticeably of showcasing the variety of literature available in that particular year of the prize announcement. These shortlists are increasingly becoming relevant to the socio-political events that seem to influence writing and reading patterns too. Within this context, the 2019 Booker shortlist is a formidable gathering of experienced writers. Everyone, even the most seasoned of writers, likes a win and the value of this prize is £50,000. Irrespective of how the bookies are placing the writers for tomorrow’s win, it will in all likelihood be a close call between Rushdie and Shafak. If Evaristo wins, it will only be because of the jury taking into consideration hyper-local factors of being a black woman writer in UK particularly during the Brexit phase. It would be perfect if Rushdie wins this prize once more, making it a hat trick for him at the Booker. He deserves to win for his literary fiction such as The Midnight’s Children and now Quichotte have not only documented critical moments in modern history but these novels are timely and relevant for the wisdom they impart. The characters in Quichotte are migrants like Rushdie and many others, “the broken people …are the best mirrors of our times, shining shards that reflect the truth“. Quichotte offers much more than just looking at a narrow canvas of one topic or one region but broadens the horizons to highlight many of the issues gripping the world are not bound to a nation state but are spread like a rash globally. What is even more horrific is that Rushdie has in his lifetime of three score years and ten witnessed crimes against humanity that one thought were rid off but seem to have returned with despicable vengeance. Quichotte is a triumph of literary craftsmanship as Rushdie is writing about these moments in history that he has witnessed while maintaining a firm grip on imbibing and merging many forms of literary traditions and storytelling to formulate a new one. There are far too innumerable to list in this round up. Suffice to say that if any novel in the shortlist deserves to win, it is Quichotte.
No big colonial sword needs to come down and slash the fabric of the nation,” …. “Muscle by muscle, atom by atom, we are being torn from within. We are our own bomb.”
Forces of history are at work, he says. Forces too big to fight. He reels off dates. 1947, 1857, 1799. I slapped my head. Spare me. I don’t understand kings and queens. I am a simple man.
…
Slathered on the walls, wrapping all the way around the street. Every shutter, all the way up to the white mosque. It is true. That puffed-up face, like mouldy pastry. The fellow has called us aliens in our own land. He lost the election and we thought, that would teach him. Now here was, his face pasted on my wall.
Award-winning novelist and playwright Annie Zaidi’s novella No Prelude to a Riot is a disturbing, hard-hitting story set in a nameless city. It is about the rising communal tensions and the anxiety of living under constant siege. What comes across equally poignantly is the writer’s own attempts at writing a story that is extremely close to the reality of today. To be writing under a sense of constant siege, where the lines between the fictional characters and plot are blurred, is not an easy task. Sometimes it seems as if the voices of the characters are not strong enough, probably due to the circumstances they live in, yet they do manage to slip in what they have to say, jolting the reader with their pronouncements. It leaves a sinking feeling in the stomach.
Earlier this year Annie Zaidi won the $100,000 Nine Dots Prize for her essay Bread, Cement, Cactus. It will be expanded and published as a short book by Cambridge University Press in 2020. The Nine Dots Prize is a book prize for creative thinking that tackles contemporary societal issues. Entrants for the prize are asked to respond to a question in 3,000 words and the winner receives $100,000 (Rs 69.83 lakh) to write a short book expanding on the essay’s idea. The question this year was “Is there still no place like home?” “Zaidi’s entry, ‘Bread, Cement, Cactus’, combines memoir and reportage to explore concepts of home and belonging rooted in her experience of contemporary life in India, where migration – within the country, especially from villages to cities – is high,” the Nine Dots Prize said in a statement.
Prelude to a Riot is a novella that explores similar concepts of home and belonging while rooted in the very real and disturbing issues of communal violence, a growing intolerance of the other and crumbling of democracy. It is shattering to realise that Prelude to a Riot, Tabish Khair’s Night of Happiness, Nayantara Sahgal’s The Fate of Butterflies and Ravish Kumar’s The Free Voice are critical contributions to contemporary literature, offering perspectives while bearing witness to the current socio-political events.
