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| Title | Why I write what I write, Iowa City Public Library, October 26, 2005 |
| Creator |
Dimkovska, Lidija, 1971- Ameena Hussein Quesada, Uriel Utami, Ayu, 1968- Sodhy, Sandra, 1957- |
| Creator - Nationality |
Macedonian Sri Lankan Costa Rican Indonesian Malaysian |
| Contributor | Merrill, Christopher |
| Date Original | 2005-10-26 |
| Description | International authors from the IWP engage the audience in personal stories about the paths that led them to writing. |
| Venue | Iowa City Public Library |
| Geographic Subject | United States -- Iowa -- Iowa City |
| Chronological Subject | 2000-2010 |
| Transcription | International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Lidija Dimkovska (Macedonia) What and why Before coming to Iowa I decided to organize myself better, so I wanted to order visitcards (business cards) for the people I would meet here. I went to a printer in Ljubljana and told the employee there to write my name, address, telephone and e-mail on the cards. He asked me: Don’t you have any profession? I felt my face growing red and, embarrassed, I told him that I was a writer but that such a profession couldn’t be put on visit-cards. He wondered why not, but because clients are always right, he finally said: “OK, but please allow me to put a sign of a writer on them.” So of course he put a quill in an inkwell beside my name. I had no choice but to accept his vision of a writer and took my fifty visit-cards with fifty quills in inkwells with me overseas. I cannot write with any of the quills but they are, as are many other things, symbolic of my embarrassment at claiming to be a writer. It was easier when I was younger. When I was ten years old my father bought me a small red accordion. I took it, put it horizontally on the table, tore a page from my notebook, put the page in the accordion and used the accordion as a typewriter. I never played on it; I used it only as a typewriter until I got my first real typewriter, which my mother brought to me from her office. In socialist times it was possible that many things from parents’ offices could be brought home and stay there forever, so besides my typewriter I also got from my mother’s office paper, envelopes and stamps in order to send my poems to children’s magazines—so I used socialistic benefits to become a writer. I called my typewriter Ljubinka, which can mean Beloved, and for many years she has been my best friend. It cannot be coincidental that four years ago I moved to Slovenia, to Ljubljana, which also can mean Beloved. Even in the name Slovenia there is the word Love. I realized that I was a poet at twelve years-old when I published my first poem in a children’s magazine and a classmate wrote with chalk on the table: Lidija – poet. I was so red in my face and so hot and my heart so throbbed that I ran to the toilet and stayed in there for forty-five minutes—so I missed the lesson about my favourite Macedonian poet Blaze Koneski. I wonder where are the roots of my writing, how did it happen that I began to write and why? And like many other writers I realize that those beginnings are in my childhood. I spent my childhood in a small village in Macedonia, called Slegovo, with my grandparents. My parents had to stay in Skopje, in my place of birth, and work, so they left me with my grandparents and visited me every national holiday. I loved the holiday of the first Macedonian struggle against the German occupation, the holiday of the Yugoslav Army, the holiday of the Yugoslav State and the first of May, because all these holidays brought my parents to me. My grandparents were simple, hardworking country people, illiterate but wise and with open hearts and minds. In the evenings we stayed in the only room with a fireplace, ate baked apples and my grandma told me stories about daughters and mothers-in-law, sisters and brothers-in-law. They were terrible stories about complicated relationships, jealousy, and the Oedipal complex, but also about love and respect. Outside, in the streets of the village, women gossiped about unbelievable events and I ate these stories as a hungry child. For me these stories were the first sign that the world is very complicated and full of all sorts of connections, and I explore those connections in my writing more and more as I get older. Or better said, I vomit them in verses and sentences. For long time I wrote only poetry—a kind of lyrical, abstract, metaphysical short poetry with many metaphors and symbols, with emphasis on the poetic language and poetic 1 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp form. It seemed to me that I wanted to escape from the real world, so my poetry was an answer to my inner questions without many connections with the world outside of my room. My generation of writers has had in a way a similar poetics. When we were seventeen, eighteen and nineteen we had a literary club in Skopje called The Little Prince, and every Saturday we met there, drank red wine and read our works. I loved and I still love the literature of my generation. Everyone had his/her own poetics but in a way we were writing similarly and our literary father at that time was the Macedonian poet Radovan Pavlovski, the so-called “prince of metaphor” according to the Macedonian critics. We recited his poems and tried to write like him but fortunately we soon understood that we had to write like ourselves. Macedonian critics called my generation “the sixth generation in Macedonian literature” and because of the number six we were supposed to be the generation that would bring evil, sex, much more liberty or even anarchy to Macedonian literature and in a way struggle with the tradition of Macedonian literature which is based on mythology, rural experiences, poetic images, and abstract forms. My generation vigorously brought the metonymy and urbanity to Macedonian literature. My writing actually changed a lot when I moved to Romania as a twenty-two year-old graduate student in Comparative Literature. In Bucharest, Romania I took a Ph.D. degree in Romanian literature and I taught Macedonian literature and language at the University of Bucharest. For the first time I was completely free, if it can be called freedom—from my country, my family, my friends, Macedonian literature and all the expectations of any of them. I learned Romanian and I began to dream in both Macedonian and Romanian. I met my husband, who was from Slovenia, and for many years we talked in Romanian. I had enough carriage to tell him that I was a poet. He also was but at that time had not yet published anything. We also fell in love with Romanian literature and culture and our lives changed a lot in Romania—a country where there is no middle ground and everything is white or black. I lived there for seven years and not one day was boring or similar to another. It was a life of high excitement and of course my writing changed a lot. I began to write long, narrative poems inspired by everyday life and everyday life in Romania is at the same time real and unreal. I touched the bottom and the top of life and I could write about this. I finally could explore all real, unreal and surreal experiences, folkloric, mystical, religious and political images collected since my childhood in the vertical line in my being. Romania opened my being as a surgeon opens a patient’s heart. However, after seven years of Romanian life I moved to Slovenia and there I wrote my first novel. My husband started to write more and to publish poetry, so I had to change my writing from poetry to prose because there was no place anymore in our small studio for two poets. Of course, I am joking. Maybe there is no other happiness for a writer but to know that he or she has in a way opened the being of the other, the beloved one, so that the other can become or be able to call him or herself a writer. We each opened the other’s being to the literature beyond literature and beyond life. This is the biggest prize in a writer’s life. However, when I won the award for my novel, my mother bought a box of chocolates and went to every neighbour in our twelve-family building in Skopje and offered them a chocolate in honour of my award. Exactly as she did for my wedding. To hide my red face I had to use a thick layer of powder L’Oreal. Because I am worth it. I write mostly when I am happy or, better said, only when I feel strong energy that can explode in my blood, in my mind, in my being. I cannot write when I am unhappy or depressed. I cannot cry on paper, for this I use a handkerchief. I cannot be happy all the time, or I am not happy often, because there are so many things in the world that make IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 2 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp me unhappy. So logically I write very little, but when I have a period of strong energy I write a lot. And when I write I am extremely happy. From my all-time beloved poet Marina Tsvetaeva I learned that art is the atrophy of the conscience. Thanks to her I have opened my being and my writing as much as I can. I have a very special relationship with her that is also beyond literature and beyond life and is difficult to explain. My interest in writing in the last few years has been growing wider: I have written poetry, a novel, a screenplay and a lot of translations from Romanian and Slovenian literature into Macedonian. In the last decade the most influence on my writing has been my frequent moves and my constant position as a foreigner. For a decade I haven’t lived in my country, and even if my exile is voluntary and because of love, I must recognize that the life of a foreigner sometimes is not easy. Especially for a writer. In a way I became a writer-in-translation. Sometimes lost, sometimes wanted. I write only in Macedonian, even if I dream also in Romanian and Slovenian. When you dream in other languages you can also write in these languages but I decided to write in my mother tongue. In a way I have constant problems with all of these three identities, or with the complexity of my identity. I constantly ask myself where I am, who I am. Sometimes I have the impression that if I open the door of the Ljubljana apartment I will step onto the boulevard Dimitrie Cantemir in Bucharest or onto my street in Skopje. Sometimes I am confused when I wake up in my bed in Skopje and feel as I wake up as if I am in Ljubljana or in Bucharest. Even more: every single trip for me is a move so every place I have stayed in for some days or some months is my home and is added to my list of confused streets, beds, houses. I simply cannot leave my life at home (and where exactly is my true home?) and go somewhere on a trip, or be a tourist. I must live everywhere I am so that my life goes with me, so now I live in Iowa, for three days I will live in Chicago, for two weeks in New York, after that in Ljubljana, in Skopje etc. When you live somewhere you participate in all things that happen there, you are not a tourist with a camera, you are not an outsider. Unfortunately or not, I feel I am an insider everywhere I am, so this feeling has a great role in my writing and influences it best. My writing expresses the spirit of the thin soles of nomadism and my life's destiny became a kind of nomadism. I must mention that mostly in my life I travel as a writer. Since 1991 when Macedonia became a country independent from Yugoslavia, almost all the world required visas from Macedonian citizens, so I had to change three passports because they were full of visas. Three months ago I obtained Slovenian citizenship and I don’t need visas anymore for my trips as a writer, and especially as a human being, but I still also carry with me my Macedonian passport with hope that in the end the world, and especially Greece, will accept the name of my country and let it be Macedonia as I let people be John, Vasilis, Clara, etc… and do not change their names. In my travels I meet many other people, destinies and life stories and I cannot be indifferent to them. I am among them and they are among the different parts of my being; this opposite perspective is my inner poetics. Maybe because of it I can enjoy my inner solitude and my external social connections and also feel the humour and the irony of the world. Humour is certainly the most powerful weapon against the evil in the world. One of the things that most recently inspired me was the gift of the Chinese Association of Writers to all participating writers at the literary festival Close View of Writers in Zhejiang. All of us got silk pyjamas as gift: male writers got brown pyjamas, female writers got rose pyjamas. I laughed very much at this gift but at the same time I could cry because the metaphor and the message was very clear: “Sleep, don’t look at what is happening around you. Forget to ask about censorship, writers in prison, dissidents. IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 3 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Sleep!” Life is full of absurd moments, of strange stories, of real unbelievable events. I cannot be indifferent to them. I cannot and I don’t want to escape from the reality around me. It doesn’t mean that I immediately can write about the events that worry or amaze me—sometimes I need years to come back to the shadow of a memory, of a forgotten land. Sometimes I feel that I have too many memories, as if I have lived three lives. They come to me as a river and fill my being with energy so I can write. I must write. Sometimes I feel as if I live in a virtual space where I am not a foreigner and where I don’t need any citizenship, nationality, literary canon or history, anything that complicates life so much. I want to be able to say only that I am a writer. Only a writer, nothing else. But I know that this moment will never come and I am not unhappy about it. Maybe because of that I write what I write and the way I write. IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 4 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Ameena Hussein (Sri Lanka) Friedrich Nietzsche once said: The author must keep his mouth shut when his work begins to speak. I wish I could follow Nietzsche’s advice, but obviously I must suppose that my work is not speaking as of yet, and therefore in this age of the sound bite, media campaigns and hype, authors first write and then they must talk, talk, talk. So let’s get on with the business for now, and soon, one day I hope my books will indeed speak for themselves and then I can just shut up! Until now I have been a short story writer. I have published two collections of short stories and I write in English. Once, early in my writing career, an enemy of mine whom I had thought of as a friend till then told another enemy/friend that she didn’t think I had the attention span to even write a short story. I mulled long and hard on that tidbit of information. It revealed a lot to me about what others thought about me. I am still not sure if they were wrong. My first book, entitled Fifteen, was short-listed for a national award but didn’t receive the prize because it was described as being man-hating! It was not man-hating—I actually love men. It simply told tales from a strong feminist view point and questioned age-old beliefs and traditions, most of them stemming from patriarchy—and for that reason I believe, it was labeled as being anti-man. My second book, entitled Zillij, dealt with questions of identity and the ethnic conflict from a minority perspective. That book caused less of a stir, even though the Muslim community in Sri Lanka was rather annoyed that I had chosen to air some dirty linen, and ignored the book. Now why do I write the things I do? I write about things that interest me and occupy much of my thinking time. Some of them are issues that I deal with on a daily basis, they are part of me and therefore I write about them. They can range from religion to gender, social mores, war and peace. I am a sociologist by training who specializes in issues of gender and ethnicity, and therefore my fiction writing is very much influenced by my work as well. I write about places I have lived in and visited, I write about what I know, and if I don’t know it I will make damn sure that I do a lot of homework before writing about it. In my writing I hope that I can show an alternative face of a subject. For example, Islam is not the domain of the Arab world. The majority of Muslims lie outside the Arab region—the largest population of Muslims in any one country in the world is in Indonesia. And therefore the non-Arab Islam is as valid as any Arab’s—for it is a matter of interpretation in both cases. I write to stake my claims of ownership on the multiple identities that I possess. And if my stance is slightly askew from the mainstream, it does not mean that it is any less valid. I write to make people think. I live in a complicated country. It is a country, while being primarily Sinhala Buddhist, still respects the rights of its minorities—Hindu Tamils and Muslims to a fair if seemingly superficial extent. It is a country where Eid ul Fitr is as much a holiday as Vesak or Deevali. In that seeming strength lies its weakness, for in its effort to accommodate all cultures and religions, the government sometimes takes the line of least resistance on certain problematic issues. For example, the age of marriage was raised from twelve to sixteen for all citizens of 5 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Sri Lanka except the Muslims. The reason for this was that Muslim politicians, using a religious argument, said that in Islam there is no minimum age of marriage and therefore Muslims should be exempt from this law. The government acquiesced and thus Muslim girls can be married off at any age with parental permission. Issues like the above make me want to write about them. I fictionalize events and situations in order to reach a wider audience than the usual suspects in academia, who may read my sociological reports and articles. I also live in a marvelous country that makes a sambol of our collective religions, traditions and culture. It is an amazing experience to live on a street where at five in the morning the muezzin sings you awake, at ten the one hundred year-old church bells ring, at noon the Hindu pooja trumpets and beats its rhythms into your heartbeat and at sunset the Buddhist temples are silhouetted with oil lamps that soothe your soul into a timeless serenity. Therefore, I also write to preserve culture in an odd way. Sri Lanka is a developing country that has a developed country’s complex. Our youth think they are American, our yuppies want the status cars and country houses and our villagers want MTV. All this means that the way of life has changed and is still changing at a rapid rate. While not wanting to romanticize a bygone era, I do want a sense of continuity with regard to traditions and customs that reflect our civilization of 2,500 years. I want to document our unique sense and style of life which allows sky-walking loin-clad toddy tappers to live side by side with muscled surfer dude beach boys who speak English with Australian accents. When I began writing in my late twenties, I remember having a conversation with a protégé of Edward Said at Columbia University, who in response to my statement that I hate politics said: If you are a writer you have to be political. Today, almost fifteen years later, I see the relevance of his statement. I realize that almost everything I write is political. Not political in the ordinary sense of politics, though that is present as well, but political in taking a sometimes controversial stance on my subject matter. For example, some of my writing explores the notion of religion and culture as being oppressive and limiting rather than celebratory and rewarding. In a traditional society like that of Sri Lanka, that in itself is a departure from the usual laudatory treatment that is given to these subjects. Right now I am at work, or rather supposed to be at work on a novel. In fact I am writing two novels and have written the same number of pages for both books—around seventyfive pages for each. And this is where my short attention span comes into play. I am not a writer who works on one piece at a time. At any given time on my computer there will be a dozen pieces that are being worked on at the same time. Maybe this comes from leading a schizophrenic life. I am a sociologist, editor, publisher, fiction writer and sometimes even travel writer all at the same time. They all involve realms of writing, reading and critiquing and therefore I find it very stimulating to work on many pieces of writing at the same time— the danger being that I do not have the obsession to finish them unless I have a Damoclesian deadline. I would like to think that my writing voice is contemporary. I invent words if I do not find them in standard dictionaries. I write about modern day issues, albeit from a very South Asian context, and yet I think the stories can transcend geographical and cultural boundaries. 6 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Some of my stories are fantastical, imaginary and sometimes plain improbable. I have written stories about suicide bombers, about illegal immigrants and displaced migrants from the West. I would not like to think of myself as a woman writer or a Muslim writer or a Sri Lankan writer, for I am all of them and none of them. It is only recently that I have even begun to think of myself as a writer as my primary designation. I will continue to write as long as I have something to say, and as my friends can attest, I always have something to say—so I hope that I will be writing for a long time. 7 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Uriel Quesada (Costa Rica) Why I write what I write, and how I write it The title of this panel refers to three related topics. It is not only about the craft of literature (how I write what I write) and the reasons to devote days, months, and years to reflecting on certain topics and making art out that reflection. From my point of view there is a question that explains and summarizes both theme and craft: why you write, why you consider yourself a writer. After so many years in the business you may answer that central question in a very simple although circular way. I write because I am a writer, and I am writer because I write. In my personal case, I could also be considered a statistician. I have a diploma and transcripts to prove it. I worked fourteen years in social and financial research, and made good money (something that does not happen with literature). But I am no longer a statistician, and please do not call me one. On the other hand I am a writer, even when I don’t write. And let me tell you that it happened in the past: eleven years ago I suffered a serious depression and wrote almost nothing for three years. Then I left my country and moved to an unexpected place to start over, the New Mexican desert. It was a very difficult period; I started almost from scratch with both my life and my own identity as a writer, looking for something that I did not know was there. After several attempts I felt comfortable with my writing again. Then I finished a short-story collection and novella, and have continued writing until now. I learned something important from that experience: being a writer is more than publishing or even writing at all. It is something that you simply know. But beyond the certainty you have to live in a world in which literature is at the core. You think, read, dream and act as a writer. Literature must be everything, and in cases like mine you know that sooner or later the power of literature will make you write again. In Latin America there is not such a thing as writer’s block. If you do not write it is because is not the right time, or maybe you have nothing else to say. One of our most beloved authors, Juan Rulfo, published only two books of fiction in his entire lifetime. He spent forty years talking about the next project, a novel called La cordillera (Mountain Range). It never came out; it probably never existed. Nonetheless Rulfo is one of the most influential storytellers of our times. I am a writer because I need books. I love collecting books, and of course, reading many of them. I love fiction too. I am always curious about the craft of fiction: concepts such as structure, language, plot and character. But first I need to be delighted by the story. Reading is always a matter of pleasure. A story must be engaging and meaningful. It could be fun, but not shallow. A good story never plays it safe. It takes risks in terms of theme and language. Following Jorge Luis Borges, a story is no more than a linguistic device, something that does not exist until the writer makes it come to life. A good story means a challenge for both the writer and the reader. The former has to seduce the latter, which is rule number one. He/she must create the most perfect linguistic device to capture the reader’s attention. But a good reader is also very important. I am talking about a person who finds pleasure in the challenge of finding the hidden story. 8 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp I am a writer of fiction, and prefer the short story format; the shorter a story, the better it is. I believe that this format is not as limited as some people (especially novelists) think. The challenges, I insist, are different. You can tell the story of a lifetime in just a few lines. You can fully develop a character with just basic information. You can create several plots as long as they converge towards a common ending. But on top of everything, the short story is the art of silence. To write a good story never tell more than necessary, never underestimate the reader’s capacity to create. You should always be aware that the reader knows. The XXI Century reader participates along with the writer in giving the story a meaning, putting together all the pieces and breaking the silence. Now you know that I prefer short stories to novels. But, as a regular human being, I have contradictions. In fact, I have written a novella and a novel. Before Hurricane Katrina, I was working on the manuscript of another novel. However, I don’t consider myself a novelist. I am a short story writer who happens to write novels. My first books, The Day of the Earthquakes (1985) and The Twilight of Innocence (1990) are short story collections. Both deal with the theme of identity or alternative identities. Some critics said that they were about Latin American identity, but such a purpose was never in my mind. At a distance, those collections are about the search for a meaning in life. Actually, the eighties was a very difficult decade for Latin America. Economists, historians and sociologists know it as the lost decade. It was a period of intense political conflict in the Isthmus, a period of long and bloody wars in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. It was the time of very harsh American intervention in the area, which cost thousands of lives and corrupted our societies, especially our governments. The eighties meant the end of the utopian-society projects in Latin America. Those dreams of a better future died in Nicaragua. The Sandinista guerrillas needed almost fifty years to defeat the Somoza regime; but their own internal conflicts, inexperience in governmental issues and corruption led the country to an unprecedented crisis in only ten years. The eighties was also the decade of AIDS. In Central America, as well as the rest of the continent, AIDS was more than a serious public health problem. AIDS unveiled the profound social and religious prejudices against gays and lesbians. In Costa Rica, for instance, the governmental response to the epidemic was based on a policy of harassment and discrimination. Several people ended up in jail because they were gays or lesbians. No wonder many of us suffered an identity crisis, or at least were trying to figure out our roles in such a complicated time. On the other hand, the nineties was a period of exhaustion. The Costa Rica where I grew up started to change dramatically. Overnight the welfare state became a public enemy, and new political forces began to promote radical transformations of the governmental apparatus. The relation between state and society was no longer the same. The country was ready to become a capitalist paradise, full of luxury cars, exclusive malls and beautiful gated communities. At the same time poverty could be seen everywhere; over the years the public school system received less and less support from the government, the public health system started to compete with other more appealing options… My narrative becomes more personal, more centered in a sense of failure. I wrote about homosexuality, about the tricks and policies of memory. I also reflected on the present situation of my generation: Did we really lose everything? Did we do enough to defend our ideals? The nineties was the decade 9 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp of peace in Central America. Peace came along with oblivion. Once again, the Isthmus was nothing but the back yard of the U.S. Within such a context, the question of identity changed. I tried to explore it in a short-story collection called Long Live Desire (1996) and in the novella Canary’s Song (1999). It is too soon to talk about the new millennium, still a baby at age five. Maybe more than ever this is the time of migrations. We can live almost anywhere and not necessarily belong to a specific place. Many of the old ways of thinking about nation and nationalism have suffered their own identity crisis. At least that is what free trade agreements have been promoting. This is the time of the city-state: just take a look at what is going on in Barcelona, Mexico City, or Monterey. In the near future, countries will invade each other not for the control of oil reserves but water reserves. Last year I published another short story collection, Far, Far Away. This book is different from my previous work in many ways. It is the product of a long journey to countries such as Cuba, England, Spain, and of course the U.S. It is a book about becoming a citizen of nowhere, not even the country you were born in; in brief, it is a book about otherness. This November, my new novel The Cat Inside is coming out in Costa Rica. This book could be described as a story about the closet and schizophrenia, about social double standards and their effects over gays. In many ways, it is also a personal account of my relationship with my father. Now I am exploring other narratives forms. Hurricane Katrina took me to Iowa City, and I feel the need to write about the disaster. I am talking about The South, the destruction of a cultural heritage, the connection between the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean... During the past few weeks, I have been writing about my losses, about that unique world that is falling apart in New Orleans. But I do not want to say the same things you may read in the paper. I am more interested in the personal, intimate account of the events. I want a book full of different voices, as many as possible. Besides an experience in the South, all those voices have something in common: they speak Spanish, and represent the brown community. I am working on a narrative that is much closer to testimonial literature than fiction; I am talking about a chronicle in the Latin American sense. In brief, I am still writing because I have stories to tell. I have fears, doubts, few hopes, and even less certainties, and all of them are important elements of my writing. The world does not make sense for me, but my stories let me recover at least a sense of peace. I would say that my characters don’t have identity problems, not any longer. Their situation is more complicated, though: they don’t understand why they cannot be who they are. For this reason, in most cases my characters decide to travel. They leave their homes, their perfect lives, for a search. They look for a utopian place to fit in. They visit countries, or simply get lost on the road. They take drugs and drink. They try to find an answer in lovers or in strangers met in a bar. They may even go insane only to find that madness is not that different from normalcy. I am just a human being who happens to write. I don’t pretend to change the world. Literature cannot do that, but at least it gives us the possibility of dreaming and fantasizing about a much better future. I am a writer simply because I am a dreamer. 10 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Ayu Utami (Indonesia) Writing as Negating (this paper is NOT meant as a written presentation) The beginning period of my fiction writing was probably a sort of adolescent struggle to negate the father figure. My first two novels negated the convention of novel writing in Indonesia at that time, which was that a novel should have a linear and coherent plot. My novels do not have that. Both are stories told through different kinds of narration and by different characters. Each character has his or her own way of telling stories. The first book ends when the protagonist Saman—a Catholic priest turned activist—admits his state of sexual impotence before his lover Yasmin, a married woman. The second book ends when the protagonist Larung—a Balinese whose father was killed during the communist purge—is shot to death by a military colonel. But the structure of the books actually resembles the story each one tells. The books have the rhythm of their content. Each book always starts with the introduction of the main character in a detailed description as if to seduce the readers, but then finishes abruptly. With Saman, the abrupt end is the rhythm of sexual intercourse that ends with a premature ejaculation. With Larung, it is the rhythm of assassination. Some of my readers criticized me for not having the same energy or pace when writing the first and the last chapter of Larung that I did when writing Saman. The first chapter was so dense, they said, but the last was fleeting, hanging. I replied that it was again a deliberate choice. I killed my protagonist without a dramatic scene whereas in the beginning I developed his character meticulously, and this is parallel to the way a military intelligence operation abruptly killed my friend, whose character developed throughout years of his life and whose personality was known by his friends throughout years of friendship. To conclude, to answer the question “how I write:” I wrote in what is an unconventional style for a novel. And the second question: why? The beginning period of my fiction writing was probably a sort of adolescent struggle to negate the father figure. The father figure during that period was obviously manifested by the paternal values of the society and of the government. But my writing was also a reaction to the discipline of journalism in which I had been trained and by which I had been shaped. The non-linearity of the novels is the negation of strict linear journalistic writing. The novels’ explicit description of sexual organs is the negation of the grandeuphemism that prevailed in the Indonesian language. This negation can be seen in this example (which doesn’t sound as obscene as it is in the Indonesian language): 11 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp “You shall be called Woman because you were made from the rib of Man.” Thus he was told by the whisper of God who suddenly reappeared. “And I will call these nipples because they are the tips of your breasts. And I will call this a clitoris because it is a petite phallus.” But he didn’t give the orifice a name. But the character in my novels who I personally find the most intriguing with respect to this negating business is Shakuntala, because she represents negation at a more subtle level. The first two negations are negations at a banal level. Moral values and journalistic discipline constitute authority figures too obvious not to challenge. Shakuntala’s negation dwells in the subtlety of language. Shakuntala is a character who creates her own fairy tale-like personal history in order to be able to overcome her father’s repression. Her language is simple yet playful. She is the one who uses negative sentences the most among the characters. It seems that negation is her main modus operandi in telling her stories. Her stories are negations of history. Later I found that those sentences are some of the trickiest ones to translate. There are a number of theories and discussions, whether linguistic or philosophical, about negation and the negative sentence. But most of them agree on one thing: i.e. the negative sentence is a more complex sentence than affirmative or positive sentences. It is a judgment about a judgment. Some will call it a meta-judgment or a meta-representation. Anyway, it always implies a past. It always tells something other than itself, namely the thing that it negates. Negative sentences are always more playful than affirmative ones. An affirmative sentence represents the present and may not imply a past at all. By means of negating, a negative sentence opens up a number of possibilities. That’s why negative sentences are capable of playfulness. Examples: (i) Negation with negative particles “tidak” (no/not), “bukan” (not) and “belum” (not yet) Ketika sembilan tahun saya tidak perawan. Orang tidak menyebut anak perempuan yang belum berbuah dada sebagai perawan. When I was nine I was not a virgin. People didn’t consider a girl who didn’t yet have breasts to be a virgin. The first sentence “when I was nine I was not a virgin” opens different possibilities (e.g. “I broke my hymen when I was nine,” “I first had sex when I was nine,” etc.) * 12 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Kukira ayah dan ibuku memberitahuku terus-menerus—kamu anak perempuan—sejak aku belum bicara. Bagaimana aku bisa membantah jika aku tidak bicara? Translation 1: I suppose my father and my mother told me continuously—you are a girl—especially since I didn’t yet talk. How was I to argue [with them] when I couldn’t talk? Translation 2: I suppose my father and my mother told me continuously—you are a girl—before I could speak. How was I to argue when I didn’t talk? Translation 3 (literal): I suppose my father and my mother told me continuously—you are a girl—ever since I didn’t yet talk. How was I to argue when I didn’t talk? * Di kepulauan Jawa dan Bali mereka melihat gadis-gadis menari telanjang di sungai. (…) Sebetulnya lelaki ramping coklat juga mandi di sungai, tetapi mata hanya melihat apa yang dipilih oleh bukan mata. On the islands of Java and Bali they met brown maidens dancing naked in the river. (…) In fact slim brown men also bathed naked in the river, but the eyes only beheld what was chosen not by the eyes. In the Indonesian language, the particle “bukan” (not) can be put before the noun, or before the other particle, or before the verb: Dipilih oleh bukan mata (literal transl.: chosen by not (the) eyes) Dipilih bukan oleh mata (literal transl.: chosen not by (the) eyes) Bukan dipilih oleh mata (literal transl.: not chosen by (the) eyes) (ii) Negation without negative particles: by counterfactual conditions, descriptions of what is not described, indirect/eluding answers: Lalu ia membuka celananya. Dan tahulah aku bahwa matahari telah membakar pinggang, dada, dan lengannya. Dan aku pun menceritakan kisahku:… Then he removed his trousers. Then I knew that the sun had baked his waist, chest and arms. And I told my story:… * “Hey new kid, where are you from?” “I’m descended from the nymph.” They laughed so hard it knocked me off my feet. 13 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp * “Who are you?” “People here bathe twice a day.” Then he sucked the tips of my breasts, unendingly, and told me his story. To summarize: the whole text of each of my two first novels is full of negation of the imagined authority. The negation comes by means of the structure of the sentences and the content. If I’m successful in negating the father figure, my next work will be a step forward to an attempt at self-negation. 14 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Sandra Sodhy (Malaysia) Introduction I am an actor, first and foremost, and it is through my involvement in acting that I became a producer, publicist and writer. I am a trained economist and used to teach in the university in Kuala Lumpur. I also taught in and then ran a government-sponsored Intensive English Program for scholarship students who were going abroad to further their studies in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. After that, I joined a corporate training company and conducted management training for companies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur—effective presentations, effective business and technical writing, and effective listening. I also began to teach communication and public speaking courses in American Associate Degree programs in Kuala Lumpur. This was about the time when I also began to get involved in the Instant Café Theatre Company, Malaysia’s foremost political satire group. I ended up traveling not only because of training commitments but also show commitments. Life proved too schizophrenic and I had to choose which career I wanted. I chose theatre, and, till today, have no regrets! This presentation can be divided into three parts, namely:— I. What I write II. Why I write it III. How I write it I. What I write I write primarily for performance. The piece could be for:— i) Stage: as in scripts for plays and musicals, songs and sketches for the Instant Café Theatre Company, scripts for product launches and to commemorate corporate celebrations. ii) TV: as in scripts for sitcoms, documentaries for corporate clients such as the National Library, talk shows, home improvement-type DIY shows, holiday variety programs, and even storylines for soaps and sitcoms. iii) Advertisements: as in scripts for TV, radio and film. Also product booklets for marketing, etc. II. Why I write it People write for a variety of reasons—for fame and fortune, for altruistic purposes or even just because they can! However, anything written by me would be better identified by two main characteristics. First, I must want to write it and second, it must be crucial that it gets written! And we must not forget economic considerations i.e. lucre/money/moolah… Yes, 15 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp money is necessary, but I must admit that if I wanted real money, I would have stayed in the corporate world! I am always trying to push back the boundaries of my world. I believe it is never too late to try something for the first time, no matter how old you are…. and if you never try, you will never know whether you are capable of achieving your goal! Perhaps then, this is why my career is so chequered with so many different and diametrically opposed experiences, but I believe that my life and my work are far richer having experienced them. III. How I write it I believe in cutting my coat to suit the cloth—boundaries help make us creative in finding ways to surmount them. If we had unlimited resources, creativity would be killed because there would be no limiting parameters that we have to transcend. A well-known Malaysian architect who worked for the Sultan of Brunei once rued his impossible situation thus—he said that when money was no object, he had no idea what to design for his majesty’s delectation—without a limitation on costs and materials, he found it impossible to create anything of note! The situation in Malaysia is not perfect—there are laws controlling what can or cannot be written about and the Internal Security Act and the Official Secrets Act make sure that people toe the line. Malaysia is well-known for its strict censorship laws—and as surely as there is a law against doing something, there will be a way around it! Take this piece for the Instant Café Theatre Company. It was written when there were too many helicopter crashes and there was talk that some of the top brass had been guilty of corruptly siphoning off money meant to pay for repairs. (Sung to the tune of Close To You) Why do choppers fall down from the sky Every time they fly by Maybe the guys in the scam don’t give a damn ‘Bout me and you…. On the day that they were bought, the generals got together And decided to cream off a buck or two So they went to Lego, bought some parts Fixed the Nuris with Blue Tack and glue That is why all the brass in town (brass in town) Feel much safer on the ground Just like me, they long to be In one piece, not two. Waaaaaaaaaah stuck with glue Waaaaaaaaaaah that’s why they blew Waaaaaaaaaaah, I’m tellin’ you! 16 IWP Panel: Why I Write What I Write Iowa City Public Library October 26, 2005 International Writing Program http://www.uiowa.edu/~iwp Another example would be Jalan Impian, or Street of Dreams. Jalan Impian was designed as a platform for teens who were interested in musical theatre, so that they could work with professionals both on and off stage. My partner and Executive Producer, Farah Sulaiman, shared my belief that kids, if given the opportunity and a little guidance, could be capable of fantastic things. We decided to run it as a professional show from the word “go.” We called for auditions in August last year through the local English media and we had about 350 kids turn up for the tryouts. They had to fill up forms and wait their turn, just as adults do. We had originally wanted twenty kids, but they were so good at the initial auditions that before we were through, Farah and I had agreed to take in fifty kids, so I had to rewrite the script! We had callbacks by late November and, from ninety hopefuls, we cut them down to fifty. However, as we required them to keep up with their schoolwork, and to attend rehearsals consistently, only forty-four made it onto the stage. I also managed to beg/cajole/bully six well-known Malaysian performers to appear with the kids on stage, but now with the kids as the stars and the performers as the supporting act! Jalan Impian had the following objectives:— 1. Raise funds for a registered home for special children—Persatuan Kanak-Kanak Istimewa Hulu Langat, Selangor—that runs on private funds. 2. Promote the use of English—as most of the kids only spoke English as a second language. 3. Develop the children’s creative talent and a love for the arts. 4. Develop more confident, well-rounded individuals by developing the whole person. 5. Promote this idea: Don’t give up but believe in yourself, hold on to your dreams and reach for the stars! Here are excerpts from the DVD recording of the actual show. Thank you! 17 |
| Type (DCMIType) | Moving image |
| Type (AAT) |
Presentations (Communicative events) |
| Language | English |
| Digital Collection | Virtual Writing University Archive |
| Contributing Institution | Iowa City Public Library |
| Subcollection |
International Writing Program Collection |
| Rights Management | Educational use only, no other rights given. U.S. and international copyright laws may protect this digital object. Commercial use or distribution of the object is not permitted without prior permission of the copyright holder. |
| Contact Information | Contact the VWU Webmaster: http://www.writinguniversity.org/index.php/main/info/25/ |
| Date Digital | 2005-10-26 |
Description
| Title | Why I write what I write, Video 500k |
| Type (DCMIType) |
Moving image |
| Type (IMT) |
mp4 |
| Duration | 01:32:24 |
| Digitization Specifications | Received as MPEG2 and converted to mp4 for streaming. |
| File Name | iwp-icpl_10-26-05.mp4 |
| Original File Name | iwp_10-26-05.mpg |
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