Launching into new adventures
A malaysian author is emboldened by a writing class to try something completely different – and does so well at it that a publisher buys her book after reading just the first few chapters.
AFTER writing over 40 children’s books and a series of seven Inspector Singh Investigates crime novels, Malaysian author Shamini Flint decided to go back to school at age 50.
“I was so burned out with writing that I started studying again,” Flint says in an interview at her mother’s Bangsar home the day after her latest novel, The Beijing Conspiracy, was launched in Kuala Lumpur on Sept 10.
“I’m doing a master’s right now in Creative Writing and Literature, at Harvard, because I thought I would start teaching. It’s through web conference, so I have to wake up at 5am and sit, staring at other people ... I was a bit sceptical about it at first, but it turns out that web conferencing is actually very effective.”
The former lawyer – Flint did her master’s in law at Cambridge, went on to practise law in Malaysia and Singapore before she decided to become a full-time mum, then author – admitted that political thriller The Beijing Conspiracy isa direct result of having pursued her master’s in writing.
“Doing so many different types of writing, going through so many classes and meeting different types of people absolutely triggered the writing enthusiasm again,” she says. “I started this book in a thriller class, and sent off the first few chapters to a publisher without even having written the rest of the book, and he was like, ‘We’ll take it and pay for it now, just deliver the final script!’”
This was a new experience for Flint, 51. Despite being an established writer for decades, she’d never sold a book based on just a few chapters before; what’s more, the new book was a deviation from her previous style of mystery novel writing.
“The reason I tried something so different was because of the structure of the writing class – we were supposed to be writing thrillers.
“This story revolves around politics. I thought that I needed to write what I perceive to be this new, 21st century Cold War
because I remember reading all those John Le Carre books about the USSR Cold War and I thought to myself, nobody’s writing about the China Cold War because maybe they don’t see it. They don’t realise what’s happening here, as it is still early days of what has the potential to become as difficult, dangerous and evil. I was trying to write a story about that global tension.
“As an adult living in Asia and travelling widely, it has become clear to me that there is a new Cold War – between the United States and China, between the West and China, between capitalism with democracy and capitalism without, between economic colonisation and a freedom of ideas.
“Anyone who has been to the US and China knows that China is winning hands down, and this pace of victory has increased exponentially in the Trump years,” she is quoted in a behind-the-book interview with publisher Severn House.
The Beijing Conspiracy features
hero Jack Ford, an EX-CIA spy and former special forces operative who heads back to China when summoned by ex-girlfriend Xia, who claims he has a daughter he is unaware about. Jack and Xia met three decades ago during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. En route to meeting his long lost daughter, Jack ends up with a secret document which is invaluable to both the United States and China.
“The most ridiculous thing about this book is that the hero is a 50-year-old, late middle-aged, alcoholic, white ex-marine,” she laughs, referencing other such stereotypes like Jack Reacher from Lee Child’s series and Jack Ryan from Tom Clancy’s. “I find it both ridiculous and ironic ... it’s sort of my turn at cultural appropriation.
“I went back to when I was a kid and felt marginalised reading Enid Blyton books. I think this was a chance to finally be that character that I thought was open to all of us as a child and later realised that wasn’t the case.”
Flint does admit, however, that in the world we live in, sadly, only that sort of character (read: white male ex-marine) would have proper access to this type of international dynamic. So, on the one hand, her protagonist was a practical necessity for the story that she had written, and on the other, she admits that she did somewhat enjoy stealing “their culture” after all those decades of “them stealing ours”!
When asked if she has any regrets leaving her legal profession, Flint says: I guess I do regret giving it up partly because I think Malaysia over the last 20 years needed lawyers more than it did writers!”
Would she ever consider going back?
“I think I have passed the ability to go back ... and to be fair, Malaysia is full of great, young lawyers, they don’t need me! But at the time when I would have been becoming senior, that might have been a good time to be a lawyer in Malaysia. You know, I felt very strongly about the politics of Malaysia over the last two decades. I’d come back for every election to vote!”
And even though she has lived in Singapore for over two decades now, with her English husband Simon and their two children, Sasha and Spencer, Flint is strongly connected to Malaysia.
“You realise, especially as a writer, that your entire formative experience is from this place. You may or may not like it, but it has provided the structure for your existence, from cradle to grave, and you have an obligation to try and make it a better place.”
What’s on the horizon for her as a writer? Flint reveals that she’s currently working on the memoirs of her dad, Major Mahadevan, another outcome of her creative writing class.
“Yes, I’m writing my father’s memoirs, and I’m also writing poetry, which I’ve never done I think I was very stuck in what I was doing before. But the course has made me brave enough to experiment.
“They’ve (the publishers) also just asked me for the sequel to the Beijing novel. Not necessarily a sequel, but a book in the same vein ... and I had nothing to say because if you’ve done the next Cold War, what can you do? Then I realised I could do the climate crisis. It is something I feel really strongly about.”
Flint’s also keeping her fingers crossed about something reeeeeally big that’s about to happen with her Inspector Singh novels . Shhhh! You didn’t hear it here! But keep your eyes peeled. You never know what you might see on TV someday!