Holding a mirror up to society, but not telling readers what is right or not
Continuing our series on the authors shortlisted for the 2021 Gratiaen, we feature Rizvina Morseth de Alwis whose Talking to the Sky highlights growing conservatism amidst Sri Lanka’s Muslim community
Rizvina Morseth de Alwis recalls growing up in a compound of colourful Malay homes, where siblings and cousins were always spilling in or out. It was in that cacophonous happy extended world that the young Rizvina first gleaned how boys always seemed to have more fun. They had the sweetest piece of the pie, and were free to explore the world at will.
The winner of the very first Fairway National Literary Award in 2015, for her rather original debut, It’s not in the Stars, Rizvina now graces the Gratiaen shortlist for the second time, with her new novel Talking to the Sky.
Rizvina, proud to be a product of St. Joseph’s Convent Nugegoda and Muslim Ladies’ College, went on to read English at Peradeniya and a Masters in Gender and Development at the London School of Economics. She had a long career at the UN, including being UNFPA’s Country Representative in several countries.
Talking to the Sky is set against the incendiary furore of the Easter attacks where an estranged Malay family comes together to look for a lost son and brother.
Rizvina kneads in much to her oeuvre. A subtle yet strong feminist sensibility is present. The differences of upbringing between girls and boys, the expectations families have of them and gendered norms also comes through.
At the heart of the novel (just like in the previous one) is growing conservatism amidst the Sri Lankan Muslim community, a move
ment towards a ‘pure’ or ‘fundamental’ mono-cultural Islam which puts at stake the vibrant and varied culture of the Malays and Moors – easy going and richly coloured with so much diversity. The same, she says, goes for others like African or Indonesian Moslems.
However, while holding a mirror up to society, Rizvina aims not to tell her readers what is ‘right’ or not.
“I show how different characters negotiate and navigate the changes taking place in society, especially within the Muslim community. I try as much as possible to refrain from telling my readers what they should take from the book.”
Apart from matters of faith, Talking to the Sky deals with family bonds, motherhood, female friendships, marriage, love, sacrifice and forgiveness.
“But the story is not autobiographical by any means although there are parts of me and bits of people I know reflected in my characters.”
Having grown acutely conscious of her gender, because as children she and her sisters had to ‘endure certain restrictions on our mobility’ and were ‘monitored (more) closely than the boys’, for Rizvina getting into gender studies meant a huge epiphany.
The studies “challenged all of these aspects of who I am – as a woman, Sri Lankan, Malay, Muslim, developmentprofessional, writer, daughter, sister, wife, friend.”
“When I was exposed to feminism for the first time, I questioned everything, starting from my upbringing.”
Asked if she is a rebel like the stereotype-spurning heroines she so admires in the works of Austen, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, Rizvina says “I don’t see myself as a rebel at all.”
“(But) I do like to live my life on my own terms, (who doesn’t?) and in the process challenge sexism, inequality and prejudice, which also form the core of my stories.”