‘Language does offer hope’

The author talks of her narrator as one who clutches at stories to survive

1

In your novel, These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light, the idea of choice is presented alongside the reality of its negation for women. Was that a concern you wished to explore?

Yes, the question of women’s agency preoccupies me. What of our lives do we choose as women, and how much is chosen for us? Can we break free of our personal histories, or do we find ourselves carrying forward past inheritances?

In Mad Men — a show I love deeply — Peggy Olsen is told by her retreating lover that one day she’ll be glad he made this decision. And Peggy shoots back: ‘Well, aren’t you lucky. To have decisions.’ This was the 1960s. More than half a century later, can we say with confidence that the narrative has shifted? Do we, as women, have the luxury to choose? I wished to analyse this more closely through my novel.

2

The nuanced representation of childhood trauma and familial strife, of mother-daughter relationships, did that come from a personal space?

One of the joys of writing fiction is that we get to live other lives. For eight years, I got to borrow the body and soul of a young girl, abandoned by her father, perhaps neglected by her mother. I got to witness her inner life and articulate her loss. I still carry something of her in me.

So, to answer your question, this is personal in that the narrator’s life is now entwined with my own. But the story isn’t autobiographical.

3

Language and literature have a consistent presence in the narrative. Was that conscious?

Yes, most definitely. The novel began for me with a word — Scheherazade — a storyteller, someone who managed to survive by piling tale upon tale. The narrator is, in her own way, a modern-day Scheherazade. To safeguard herself, she clutches on to stories, half-stories, dreams, and magnificent lies; she finds an anchor in words and literature.

4

Different ways of storytelling are central to the poetic prose of your book. The literary space of the letter, in particular, is portrayed as a space of hope and possibility. Was that something you wanted to highlight?

I am of the belief that words can steady us when all else around crumbles. The music of a wellcrafted sentence can soothe us when we find ourselves bereft. So, yes, language can and does offer sustenance, hope, possibility.

5

How has the pandemic impacted your writing?

The pandemic has changed everything. At an obvious level, it has denied us a village — so, where earlier, there were people to offer succour, we now confront the practicalities of life alone. Time, far from expanding, has shrunk. At a more profound level it has impacted the imagination. What I once took for granted no longer exists. To dream of people now is to see creatures behind masks.