Shehan Karunatilaka On Censoring His Own Writings: Coming From The Subcontinent You Do Not Take Freedom Of Speech For Granted, It Comes At A Price |Exclusive

The day Shehan Karunatilaka won the prestigious Booker Prize, all everyone could say was that it was absolutely ‘well-deserved’. Over the last few months, Shehan in several interviews has spoken about how he won the accolade at a rather grim time considering the Sri Lankan crisis that was going on at that time. However, he remains to be extremely grateful for the recognition that was bestowed upon him.

Even though he is always cracking the most amazing jokes even after he has signed more than a hundred copies of his book for fans at Jaipur Literature Festival, keeping an eye on the fallen down pieces of his son’s lego set and acting as a thesaurus dictionary to his daughter who trusts no one but her father to explain complicated terms from the book she has been reading- one can tell that he is constantly immersed in deep thoughts and that he has a lot to offer to the literary world.

Almost three months after the Booker Prize, Shehan Karunatilaka, in an exclusive conversation with News18 talks about his book ‘The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida’, the effect of humour, the Sri Lankan crisis and much more.

It has been a while since the Booker Prize, but many many congratulations and tell me something has it all sunk in?

No. It took a while because suddenly there was a major shift in almost everything. I hardly get any sleep but I am definitely not complaining. It has been 3 months since the prize and it is so lovely to see the book being appreciated so well around the world. I was used to writing in anonymity and I am still sort of in that mindset and what has happened is that now I am on planes all the time trying to get some writing done. However, I am getting to meet such amazing people all around, so I try to enjoy that experience. My motto is to not get too fatigued and stay enthusiastic about it.

How did you come to write your novel, ‘The Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida’? What was the trigger or spark that pushed you to write about the afterlife, ghosts and the dead?

I have always liked ghost stories and every culture has some phenomenal ghost stories. The ghost stories I put out were like a device to talk about Sri Lanka’s history, that was the premise and it took me a long time to get a plot and voice that was working. It also took me a while to figure out the rules of the afterlife, what it might be like and so. What made me do it was it seemed interesting enough that was going to spend a couple of years collecting ghost stories, collecting unsolved mysteries and working with them.

I do not know, I guess I was curious to see how it would end and that is the usual case with writing, I never know how it will end. I got caught up in the curiosities like what would Maali do and all of it and no matter the time it took and the setbacks I had to overcome, this book was absolutely worth all of it.

Talking of Maali, he is a sensitively drawn character, what were some of the points that you kept in mind while bringing the character into the light?

So, I did not start with much, I had no idea about his occupation or that he was gay and nihilistic. I only kept in mind a few traits that I wanted to add, I read a lot about war photographers only to understand their perspectives. I just wanted to see how Maali as a character would react when put in different situations, he is a man who believes in a godless world and that was a delicious premise because when he rolls the dice we know what happens.

The love triangle angle in the story somewhat humanises him according to me and it was problem-solving at least for me. You said that the character is very sensitively drawn but trust me I did not sit there with a list of characteristics that I wanted my character to have, that is the beauty of writing, every day you see your character grow a different kind of trait as he goes through different situations in life.

Historians keep describing 1989 as one of the most horrifying and tragic years of Sri Lanka and in your Booker Prize acceptance speech, one can remember you saying that you could not set the novel anywhere but in Sri Lanka and anytime other than 1989. Why so and do you still find a parallel between Sri Lanka then and now?

I was writing the book around 2012-2013 and the topic of debate was the end of the war in 2009, everyone was interested to know how many civilians died and whose fault it was, that is when I thought about what the dead would have to say about this. The foreign investigators were saying one thing, the government was saying another, and everyone had a different point of view.

There is a risk in writing about contemporary events but I saw the beauty of it too, I could have written about 1983 or 1979 but 1989 was a year that I specifically remembered and it was such a bizarre situation because there was a peace accord in place with the Tamil Tigers and then suddenly something flares up and maybe they knew there was stuff flaring up down South.

Three wars were happening at the same time and I wanted to make sense of that, there was a lot written about it academically but not in fiction, so that is why I decided on the year 1989 because it captures all that was wrong with Sri Lanka and when you throw it under the light of a murder mystery it offers you a pool of subjects.

The civil unrest in Sri Lanka has been at the forefront of the literature being produced in the subcontinent to an extent. A lot has been written post-1980s and never really before that. Again, in your Booker Prize acceptance speech, you said that you hoped for your country to learn from your stories. How well do you think your win has been taken into account by your countrymen and more importantly by this book?

It seems pretty well, I get a lot of messages every day and it looks like people are really excited about it. Sri Lanka has gone through a traumatic time and to have a victory like this is good. There is still a debate on why one is bringing up the past or portraying people as ‘savages’ to the West, but my point stops being the way you are and then maybe I will stop writing about you.

I am not making up the war, it all happened, I am just picking and choosing characters from the time. I had a period in 2015, when I was struggling to understand if people would believe all the things that happened, they do now. We have had a crisis and there will be tough times ahead, it is nowhere near to how brutal it was in 1989 and I hope we never ever have to see something like that again. When people are hungry that is when unrest begins, so we know that we need to keep our spirits up otherwise things can go South pretty quickly.

I remember you mentioning in a couple of interviews that you keep ‘censoring’ your own work, how does the political climate of the world affect the work of yourself and other writers who are trying to write about historical events?

Initially, you write from your instinct and then when you are reading, you come across points which make you think whether it will land you in travel or not and if at all the trouble is worth it or not. You do not want to be labelled as one type of writer, may that be political or anti-religion, you want to keep the spectrum wide and open.

Also, coming from the subcontinent you do not take freedom of speech for granted, it comes at a price, and we do not have the luxury. I have two kids, and I cannot risk it all the time so I will continue to think about my work and as you pointed out censor it as well.

The book that went on to win you the Booker Prize had actually come out in 2020, titled ‘Chats With The Dead’. How different are the two books and why did you decide to change the title?

In order to get it published in the UK there were all these wants to make it more accessible and genuinely you keep rewriting pieces and it keeps getting better, which is the secret of good writing and especially when you have a skilled editor. I knew the book was getting better and pacier, discarding the distractions but when it was finally done around 2021, we realised it was disingenuous to call it ‘Chats With The Dead’, therefore we had the new title and cover.

I have not done a side-by-side comparison but I think the two are the same but having said that there are a lot of people in the subcontinent who feel that the prior book who feel that spoke more to their experience. ‘Seven Moons Of Maali Almeida’ has benefitted from all the editing and so on and it is confusing to have two books with the same story, you know.

Going a little deeper into your book, one cannot deny the fact that despite the seriousness of your words, there is a comic effect that you find around the pages every now and then which has been widely appreciated too. In what ways would you say, comedy and humour have helped you to come in terms with Sri Lanka’s tragedy?

I think it is very much part of the national character and my sensibility. The first book was about a guy drinking himself to death but yet the way he looked at the world was entertaining and one could see the absurdity of the situation and I guess with this book too having such a smart narrator helped me. I am attracted to characters who can crack jokes, and dive into humour in terrible times, that is what keeps me interested otherwise it gets depressing and grim.

I also like books that entertain and can also shock and depressing at the same time, it is good if a lot of instruments are playing at the same time. Humour is a great tool and a very powerful one that can be used against oppressors.

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