Ashok Ferrey
Ashok Ferry is one of the few writers in Sri Lanka who has mastered the art of satire which he delivers with aplomb. He has an innate ability to encapsulate the shenanigans of Sri Lankans in such a witty way that serves to hold the reader in thrall. As we turn the pages with Ashok he reveals a few anecdotes about his life as a writer.
Q YOU’VE WRITTEN MANY BOOKS. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE? Oh, that’s difficult! Maybe The Professional? Q WHY IS THAT YOUR FAVOURITE?
I try to alternate between light frothy books and dark personal ones, and The P is one of the latter. (I have an unfair reputation as a humorist, whereas in real life I’m a bit of a miserable old cuss.) The new book, The Unmarriageable Man, is one of those dark ones, so it may well become my favourite in time. Who knows? I’m
still too close to it to tell.
Q AS A CHILD WHICH AUTHOR WERE YOU MOST INSPIRED BY?
Graham Greene was always my favourite. Also Evelyn Waugh, and of course Saki!
Q AND YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK DURING YOUR CHILDHOOD?
The Collected Works of Saki. Incredible dark wit, way ahead of its time! Probably too cruel for today’s bland, self-righteous times.
Q HOW LONG DO YOU SPEND RESEARCHING AND WRITING EACH BOOK?
Usually a couple of years researching and thinking about what should lie at the core. I don’t begin to write till I almost biologically have to. So that when I do, the actual process is very quick: at that point you don’t have to find the words; the words find you. That first draft comes out in a couple of months.
Q WHAT’S THE WORST CRITICISM YOU HAVE RECEIVED?
At one of those glamorous Barefoot evenings a lady with dangling earrings sidled up to me. ‘You know,’ she cooed, ‘your biceps are better than your novels?’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Or maybe I was supposed to give her my number.
Q WHAT DO YOU THINK OF LITERARY FESTIVALS?
We authors live for Lit Fests – the wine, the women, the song. Forget the books, it’s the parties we come for, whatever we might pretend.
Q WHICH IS THE BEST ONE YOU HAVE ATTENDED?
Jaipur, easily the best Lit Fest in the world. They’ve invited me four times. I remember the party at Amber Fort one year, groping my way up and down those narrow medieval stone staircases without handrails, lit by candles in chandeliers. There were quite a few authors that night I would have liked to throw over the battlements.
Q WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?
Just finished L’etranger by Albert Camus for the third time. Still holds good, and each time it’s a different book.
Q DESCRIBE YOUR WRITING SCHEDULE?
Chaotic, irregular. For instance, I wrote The Professional while backpacking through Portugal.
I would write 1000 words every evening at whichever hostel we were crashing at that night, then edit early next morning before heading off to Sintra, Fatima or wherever; I would then have the hours on the bus to work out in my head the next 1000 words.
Q WHAT FOOD FUELS YOU WHILE YOU WRITE?
Haal masso, parippu and pol sambal. With lots and lots of red rice. And a chopped kochi miris in a saucer on the side. Needless to say these were difficult to find in Portugal.
Q HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH DISTRACTIONS DURING YOUR WORK TIME?
If you fondly imagine a writer needs absolute isolation – a desert island or a chalet in the hills to do his writing – boy, you are so wrong! What you need is to be able to tune out in the middle of your everyday life. So if you see me looking a little glazed in the middle of my conversation with you – I assure you it’s not that you’re boring. It’s that I’m faraway in the middle of my novel. Then again, it could be that you’re boring too, I guess.
Q ANY AWARDS YOU HAVE WON OR WERE SHORTLISTED FOR?
Every book I ever wrote has been nominated – 4 for the Gratiaen and the fifth for the State Lit Award. Nothing ever won. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I am thinking of starting an action group for armed and militant bridesmaids.
Q IN 20 SECONDS DESCRIBE YOUR LATEST PUBLISHED BOOK?
Ostensibly, The Unmarriageable Man is about my life in my twenties as a builder. I believe I was the first and only Asian builder operating in South London in 1980, converting houses into flats. But underneath, the book is about grief: how each of us copes in our own inimitable way with the loss of a loved one.