‘IT’S BEEN AN INTENSE EXPERIENCE’
Author Preti Taneja talks about the reception to her debut novel, winning the Desmond Elliott Prize, and what went into writing an Indian take on King Lear
Writer and human rights activist Preti Taneja’s debut novel, We That Are Young, came as a fresh breath of angry, brilliant and dark feminist commentary when it was released last year, especially as it came at a time when ghostwritten memoirs, light romantic reading and mainstream books dominated the Indian publishing market. Adapted from Shakespeare’s King Lear, this modern tragedy is told through the perspectives of the story’s so-called villains, and it does a great job of highlighting the damage that is caused by blind traditionalism, extreme nationalism, and an oppressive patriarchy. Taneja’s work was received with rave reviews and numerous accolades, and it recently also won her the Desmond Elliott Prize, which recognises exemplary work by new authors. In an interview, Taneja talks about the reception her book has received, King Lear, and how she went about adapting the Bard’s tragedy to fit an Indian story. Excerpts:
Looking back, how do you feel about the reception to We That Are Young?
My first review was in the UK’s Sunday Times and it was the kind every debut writer dreams of. From that to the heartfelt reception in India from some brilliant reviewers, to people talking about the book via social media, to winning the Desmond Elliott Prize back in London almost a year later, it’s been an intense experience, a mixture of gratitude and relief. It makes me reflect on the years I spen n working on every line of the book. There were some difficult times. I want to tell that unknown, unpublished writer – you’re doing okay. It’s going to be okay.
Why do you think the book worked so well, especially in a market driven by light and more popular reading?
Maybe people don’t want to be pacified while the world burns around them. Most of us can see the damage being done to our planet, to our society, within our own families by the structural violence of tradition, patriarchal nationalism, and rising far right religiosity. Fiction reflects that back to us in ways that news cannot. It makes us feel and can speak of the realities we know exist but are not always able to say out loud. After an overdose of sugar, you crave some lime.
Your story highlights the damage traditionalist parenting can do, particularly to women in a patriarchal society. Was that derived from King Lear itself or did you intend to highlight these issues?
For me, that’s the heart of Shakespeare’s play. Through the prism of this towering ego, a whole world is refracted. It says so much about our culture that for hundreds of years, the mainstream view has been that this is a play about one man, ‘more sinned against than sinning’. Like millions of us, I am a child of Empire and of patriarchy in all forms as it exists in India and the UK (and in America and other countries too). I wanted to write from inside a new centre that I feel is now coming of age: the one created from all of those worlds that is now finding its voice and saying – ‘Enough.’
Shakespeare’s King Lear is mired in the UK’s culture. How did you adapt the story’s cultural nuances to fit India?
It came naturally to me, out of a lifetime of visiting India, reading Indian writing in EEnglish and translation, and non-fiction books about India, as well as studying Hinduism longside Shakespeare. Because King Lear is actually et in a no-time or place, and ere’s no real sense within it hhow much time passes, it’s t realist in the narrative nse. The details of castles or rrses might be culturally eecific but the underlying ory and its themes are not. hat gave me the freedom to lder new details to that iic foundation. And write hyper-real book that uld speak to our times. alsoa took a huge amount off research to get those details right. I read the constitution, the penal code. I read about Delhi trees, and concrete mixing and business structure. I travelled around the country specifically for the book, interviewing so many different people. When you start to find echoes in the Laws of Manu with some of the attitudes against women in Lear, or concepts of time in the Bhagavad Gita that capture the essence of the Fool’s strange prophecy, you either go deeper, or you need to get out more. I chose the former.
Do you see We That Are Young being adapted for the big screen or for television? Any offers yet?
Rights are currently under option and there’s a lot of interest — I can’t say more than that. I know the writer has little control over how one’s work gets made into different forms, but for me, a screen version would have the artistic sensibility of Jane Campion and the political attitude of Nandita Das. It would have the sense of absurdity and of cultural nuance, and above all, the love that Vishal Bhardwaj brings to Haider. You can’t ask for more than that.
I wanted to write from inside a new centre that I feel is now coming of age: the one created from all of those worlds that is now finding its voice and saying – ‘Enough’. PRETI TANEJA, WRITER