Category: Interview/Q&A

Blog Tour/Q&A: Sugar, Sugar by Lainy Malkani

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I’m delighted to host today’s stop on the blog tour for Sugar, Sugar: Bitter-sweet Tales of Indian Migrant Workers, the debut short story collection by Lainy Malkani.  I’m so pleased that Lainy has agreed to answer some questions about the inspiration for the fascinating stories that make up the collection.

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SugarSugarCoverAbout the Book

Sugar, Sugar is a contemporary collection of short stories which reveals the rich and culturally diverse history behind India’s migrant workers and one of the most abundant and controversial commodities in the world. Inspired by historical documents between 1838 and 1917 and the living memories of the descendants of indentured workers, Sugar, Sugar, spans five continents, travelling through time to uncover inspiring tales of courage and resilience.  With sugar at its heart, this collection unveils lives rarely exposed in modern British literature and adds a new dimension to the history of sugar, post emancipation, whilst sharing a previously untold strand in the story of the making of contemporary Britain.

Sugar, Sugar is part of a much larger, year-long collaborative project funded by Arts Council England. It aims not only to explore the history of the indenture programme but to inspire others to explore their own heritage and use their personal archive of photographs, letters and memories to write about their own experiences.

Book Facts

  • Format: ebook, Paperback
  • Publisher: Hope Road Publishing
  • No. of pages: 204
  • Publication date: 25th May 2017
  • Genre: Short Stories, Contemporary Fiction

To purchase Sugar, Sugar from Amazon.co.uk, click here (link provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme)

Find Sugar, Sugar on Goodreads

Interview: Lainy Malkani, author of Sugar, Sugar

Please can you tell us about the inspiration for the stories that make up Sugar, Sugar: Bitter-Sweet Tales of Indian Migrant Workers?

The initial inspiration for Sugar, Sugar came from my own experiences of growing up hearing wild and adventurous stories of my parents’ generation who came to London in the 1960’s from British Guiana, now known as Guyana. At first, as the first born in the UK, I was more interested in finding ways to be British than to explore my past. So while I longed to eat egg, chips and beans for dinner and watch Top of the Pops on TV, my mother was intent on maintaining our cultural heritage with Indian and Caribbean food and listening to the music of her youth like Indian film songs and calypso. However, reminders of my heritage as a descendent of indentured sugar workers, was never far away at home. In our dining room hung a map of Guyana with key landmarks outlined in silver and green glittering lines on a black velveteen background and it is this that fuelled my curiosity as I got older. In 2016, my story was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Sugar, Saris and Green Bananas prompted responses from other communities who also shared this history and it was then that I decided not only to write about Guyana but also extend the collection to include South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad and of course London. I trawled through historical archive at the British Library which included manuscripts, reports and newspaper cuttings between 1838 and 1917 and spoke to many wonderful people from the wider diaspora about their own stories and experiences.

Your BBC Radio 4 documentary ‘Sugar, Saris and Green Bananas’ told the story of the indentured labourers shipped from India to work on the British-owned sugar estates. Why do you think this subject has received so little attention up until now?

If you speak to most people who share this history they are very well informed about their heritage, but unlike other black or Asian communities living in the UK, they are not concentrated in one particular geographical area so perhaps without this physical presence the wider community lumped them all together as Asian. ‘Sugar Is Our Thing’ one of the short stories in the collection touches on this. This very British term, ‘Asian’ means different things to different people; it includes people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Sub-Continent and other areas which are all culturally very different but bound together by brown skin. It is because of this that when my own family moved to Britain, they instantly became invisible. They looked ‘Indian’ but were not quite Indian enough. From a British perspective, they were not quite Caribbean enough because to be Caribbean was imagined to be of African origin. Indo-Caribbean culture is influenced by all of these communities and the fusion of Indian and African cultures is what makes it quite unique and yet very few people are aware of this.

[To find out more about the documentary, click here]

What made you decide to revisit this subject in the form of a collection of short stories?

I like short stories. To me, they represent what happens to us in real life. We experience brief encounters that influence our next move all the time, and I like that; it’s exciting. For example, I miss the bus, I meet an old friend, better still an old boyfriend, while waiting for the next bus to come and so it goes on.  I also chose to write short stories as I wanted to explore and connect people from around the world together so that enjoy this collection as a shared history. Each story is unique and can stand alone as shorts or they can read them in the context of each other, and as in the case of The Complaint, some stories may be connected. It was a challenging experience but one which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Can you tell us about your research for the book?

Most of the historical research was done at the British Library where I would sit for hours reading old manuscripts and records dating back to the mid 1800’s. As a journalist I was particularly fascinated by old newspaper cuttings and advertisements from the time. There were notices detailing the arrival of ships from Calcutta or Madras laden with provisions for Indian workers such as rice, dhal and mustard oil alongside for sale signs offering bonnets and silk gloves for the British settlers. In the Royal Gazette in British Guiana (now Guyana), there was an ad for One Hundred Hogs of Sugar and in the very next column an announcement of the arrival of a ship laden with cheeses, candles, cement and bricks. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the smell wood smoke as I turned the pages of old documents and feeling the thickness of the paper between my fingers. Last September I was lucky enough to visit the Sugar Museum in Pamplemousse, Mauritius, there I spoke to former sugar workers about what it was like to cut sugar cane.   The museum, on the site of a former sugar factory detailed the journey of indentured labourers with photographs and maps and artefacts that belonged to those first Indians that made the journey across the ‘kali pani’ or ‘black sea’. In the glass showcases were little clay pots and cooking utensils as well as ankle bracelets and emigration records. It was this visit that inspired me to write ‘The Tin Ticket’.

Was there anything that particularly surprised or shocked you during your research? If you like, examples of the ‘bitter’ and the ‘sweet’…

If you have ever tasted freshly-cut sugar cane you will know how sweet raw sugar cane juice can be. But getting to it is not easy. You have to strip the hard and fibrous stalk of its bark with your teeth before chewing the inside. The weight of one fully matured sugar cane stalk, perhaps eight feet tall is heavy enough, but imagine carrying bundles and bundles all day long in the midday sun to wooden carts pulled by oxen or as in the case of Guyana, by mules along the many canals and waterways that led to the sugar plantations. I have stood in a vast sugar cane field and listened to leaves rustling as though they were whispering to each other. It is quite an amazing experience. But as beautiful as the sound, is the experience also leaves you with a great sense of sadness and loss. ‘The Natal Baby’ is based on a real-life account by a Brigade-Surgeon (1885-7) who tells of the discovery of the body of an Indian baby in sugar cane field. The submission, an extract of which you will find in the book, is only about 300 words long but it was a powerful reminder of the tragedy and hardship that many, many Indians faced.

What was the biggest challenge you encountered when writing the book?

By far, the biggest challenge has to be writing ten short stories in six months. Was I naive or ambitious? I am still trying to decide. The first four stories were pretty straight forward. I had characters and plot lines already planned but as the weeks went along, I found myself running out of steam. I was supported by Arts Council England with funding to help me take time to write the collection and to pay for a mentor. Jamie Rhodes, who had written his own collection of short stories read through my drafts and provided me with feedback. I began the project in September. I had a tight timetable of researching and writing each story within a two week period. I allowed myself a week to redraft each story and while I was waiting for further feedback from Jamie I began researching the next story. Well, that was the theory anyway – in reality the process took on a very different rhythm which involved a whole month sleeping on the sofa, yes I mean literally sleeping on the sofa. Every night in January and a little into February, I got some sheets, the duvet and a pillow from the spare bedroom and made my bed downstairs on the sofa. I wrote until 1am and then resting the laptop on the coffee table I went to sleep and rose at 5am. I made a coffee and then started writing again until the family started getting up around 7. My daughters made me breakfast and my husband made me coffee. The day that I finally submitted the first draft of the manuscript to Rosemarie Hudson, my publisher was on 6 February 2017.

I realise this is rather like asking someone to pick their favourite child but is there a story you feel particularly proud of and, if so, why?

I have two children and in the interest of fairness and let’s face it an easy life, I have two favourite stories. The first is ‘The Natal Baby’. Often when we talk about hard labour, we do so in the context of what men did, but listening to the stories of the descendents of indentured women and indeed, remembering the stories my own mother told me about life in Guyana, it appeared to me that women worked incredibly hard on the sugar estates and as such I wanted to reflect that. The female characters in ‘The Natal Baby’, Nelu, Devki and Radha are all strong, determined women who retain compassion and love despite the difficulties they faced. And then there is ‘The Berbice Chair’, set in Finsbury Park, North London in 1986. Alicia, a curious English woman with an eye for a bargain owns a second-hand shop in Finsbury Park. When she buys an old colonial chair from an auction she is determined to sell it for a profit but in order to do so she must find out its history. I love this story because I think it reflects our modern interest in old things like buildings, chairs, lamps, games that we played at school, books we used to read when we were children. Most of the time, these old-fashioned items remind us of the good times we had and sometimes, as is the case in ‘The Berbice Chair’, they unleash in us dark emotions that we thought we had left behind a long time ago.

What message do you hope readers will take away from the stories in your book?

I’m not sure if there is a message that I would like readers to take away with as such.   I like that the stories give a sense of pride and visibility to the many descendents of indentured Indians that live in the UK and in other parts of the world. It is a collection that I hope readers will cherish as part of their cultural heritage and one which they will pass on to their children. Sugar, Sugar, is also a very British story and I think readers will be charmed by some of the characters in the collection and surprised and shocked by others. First and foremost however, I would like this collection to be a great read and then perhaps, readers to come away having discovered another relatively untold part of British, Indian, South African, Caribbean, Fijian and Mauritian history.

If readers want to find out more about the subject matter covered in Sugar, Sugar how can they do this?

On 10th August 2017, I will be hosting an evening event at the British Library where readers can come along and find out more about the issues covered in Sugar, Sugar or they can find out about up and coming writing workshops and events by going to https://www.facebook.com/sugarsugartales/

What are you working on next?

Now, that’s an interesting question…

LainyMalkaniAbout the Author

Lainy Malkani is a London born writer, broadcast journalist and presenter with Indo-Caribbean roots. In 2013 she set up the Social History Hub to bring the stories of ‘unsung heroes’ in society to life. Her critically acclaimed two-part radio documentary for BBC Radio 4, ‘Sugar, Saris and Green Bananas’, inspired her to create this collection of short stories. She has written for the British Library, the Commonwealth and the BBC. She is married with two children and lives in North West London. Her cross-cultural roots; from Britain, India and Guyana, in the Caribbean, has been a great source of her work, both as a writer and journalist.

Connect with Lainy

Website www.socialhistoryhub.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/lainymalkani
Email lainy@socialhistoryhub.com

 

The Good Father by S. R. Wilsher

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Today’s guest on What Cathy Read Next is S. R. Wilsher, author of The Good Father.  I’m delighted that Simon has agreed to answer some questions about the book, its inspiration and his approach to writing.

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TheGoodFatherAbout the Book

Description (courtesy of Goodreads): In 1994, nine year old Effie and her twelve year old brother Ajan, endure the horrors of life in the besieged city of Sarajevo after the loss of their parents. Desperate to help preserve their city, Ajan becomes involved with a criminal gang among the makeshift defenders. When Effie is forced to flee alone, she must survive long enough to reach those outside of the city who have come to help. But the influence of those pursuing her is such that not even the soldiers of the UN might be able to save her. Any hope of a future for Effie eventually lies with only one man, Captain Nathan Lane. It is 2017, and an attempt is made on the life of Foreign Secretary, Caroline Hardy. As the Security Services hunt for her attacker, the reality she is only a bit part player in the affair doesn’t occur to anyone. Not until her daughter, Mia goes missing and is implicated in the disappearance of a well-connected lawyer. As the focus switches to Mia, a secret that Caroline has kept hidden for a long time threatens them both, until there becomes only one place she can turn, to the man who shares her secret.

Book Facts

  • Format: ebook
  • Publisher:
  • No. of pages: 434
  • Publication date: 27th April 2017
  • Genre: Thriller

To purchase The Good Father from Amazon.co.uk, click here (link provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme)

Find The Good Father on Goodreads

Interview: S. R. Wilsher, author of The Good Father

Without giving too much away, can you tell me a bit about The Good Father?

I’m always fighting against writing a novel length synopsis when I try to describe my books. But here goes. The story is told from two time points. The first opens in the present day with a car crash involving the Foreign Secretary and her daughter, Mia. When Mia goes missing after the crash, the presumption that it was a failed assassination attempt has to be rethought. As the search for Mia continues, it becomes unclear whether she wants to be found. Events also threaten to reveal a secret that the Foreign Secretary knows will end her career. The second part of the story meshes with the first, opening in 1994 with two children trying to survive the siege of Sarajevo. This part of the story moves forward in time until the point before the crash, and reveals the reason for the secret, and of Mia’s disappearance.

How did you get the idea for the book?

Originally, it was conceived as a dialogue between two fathers with different perspectives on the positive characteristics of their children. I wanted to explore what it takes to be a good father. I thought there was a good deal of potential tension between two fathers from either end of the parenting spectrum – with each taking credit for their child’s achievements; a pet hate of mine. A little piece of it can still be glimpsed in the scenes between Nathan Lane and Richard Osborne. But the original concept was never enough to sustain a novel, and my desire to write it as a thriller meant it became vastly different to how I originally envisaged. The story in its present format came from a front page image of a Syrian refugee standing behind the barbed wire of a camp in Greece, holding up a small girl for the press to photograph (presumably it was his child, although he’s not the Good Father of the title). It looked like he was offering the tiny girl to be taken. It was a pitiably sad image, and it made me wonder what might become of that child. Although that is not the final story either.

The book is set partly in Sarajevo in the 1990s.  What made you choose that location and time period?

The siege of Sarajevo was a modern day tragedy that fitted with the timeline and the ages I had in mind for the characters. But, as a Civil War, it also offered a unique interaction between, and motivation for, the characters. History offers start and stop dates for a war, as if they begin on day one and everything returns to normal on the final day. But there is always a pre-war genesis and, for those involved, their effects never end. I’m intrigued by the way effects travel across time.

The book involves a secret long hidden by one of the characters.  Why do you think secrets are so enticing to us as readers?

Secrets are intrinsically tied to intrigue, which, by definition, arouses our curiosity and interest. We can take pleasure in the discovery of a secret, especially one that is known only to us at the outset. Then, when we share it with others, that revelation of knowledge gives us another boost. As books are a solitary pleasure, we feel as if we are the first to uncover their secrets. I think the revelation of a narrative secret creates a bond between book and reader.

You’ve written that with books “a good ending is more important than a strong beginning”.  Why do you feel that?

I do recognise why so much emphasis is placed on the beginning of a book. If it isn’t good enough then the ending will never be discovered. But I remember reading some advice many years ago, by a published author, who claimed to work and rework the first forty or so pages in order to excite his publisher. Yet, in revealing that, he implied that the rest was somehow less important. It struck me, even then, as limiting advice, and put me off reading any of his books for fear of what might happen after the first forty pages or so. For me, the ending is the emotional heart of any story. It is what creates the memory. It doesn’t matter whether it is happy or sad or ambiguous, as long it matches the tone of the story and stays with me afterwards. Conversely, a poor ending will undermine everything that has gone before. I think the ending deserves as much time spent on it as the beginning – and the middle! Although, having said all of that, I am aware how I’ve set myself up for a fall.

You’ve said that you like the challenge of making a story work.  What was the biggest challenge you encountered when writing The Good Father?

Technology presented a particularly tricky area to navigate this time. Most of my stories are largely pre-internet, or off-grid, where it’s much easier to keep characters in the dark about developments, and also the readers if necessary. But as communication is so fast and all-encompassing now, it doesn’t allow for the actions of characters to go unnoticed for long. Instead of fighting it though, it has to be embraced, and it does speed up events. As a thriller, I was also mindful there would be certain genre expectations of the protagonist. Yet I didn’t want to create a ‘superhero’ type main character. It was a constant battle between making him real and yet capable, and more astute than smart-ass.

Your books are all very different and set in a variety of locations.  However, would you say there is a recurring theme in your writing?

In my early twenties I found an author I particularly liked, and I read book after book of his. At some point, I realised that I was essentially reading the same story each time. When I started writing, I decided I didn’t want to do that. As I write for pleasure and can please myself what I write, it is easy for me to just see what I can make of different types of story, in different corners of the world with various voices. I can see how frustrating that might be for a reader, not really knowing what to expect from each book, and it’s probably not the best way to sell books. But then I’ve never had any idea who my readership might be. I can’t see somebody who enjoyed The Collection of Heng Souk, for example, thinking much of …was played by Walter Johns. But in experimenting like this, it stops writing becoming stale for me.

Yet there are still themes running through all of them. There is a ‘father’ theme in many of my stories. My own father died when I was eleven, which provoked a particular world view in me. And I am a father myself, which is the biggest role in my life, so it’s a relationship that I’ve given a great deal of thought to. Because of that, I’m much more fascinated by the micro-view of the interaction of a small group of characters, than I am the macro-view of the wider world.  I do also like to slip in themes that concern me, such as: the abuse of power – with a small p – the hijacking of philosophies for self-interest; and the way that sometime in the future the decline of man/woman will be traced back to the introduction of multiple choice exams, and the training of people to become no more than inspired guessers! That last one is less a theme, more an example of why I tend to keep my real life opinions private – there are already too many in the world that nobody asked for (I guess that’s irony) – but they are often voiced by my characters somewhere.

What is your favourite and least favourite part of the writing process?

 I like having an idea roll around in my head for days or weeks, trying to see if it will work, and looking for the originality in it. I like the beginning when I start laying out ideas and dialogue; building something from nothing. I like sensing a story come together, and when I finally ‘see’ the ending. And I love editing. I probably spend more time editing than I do writing; the words we don’t use are as important as the ones we do. I also love designing book covers. However, there are times when I’m defeated by a blank page, or I’ve painted myself into a corner, and then I go off and do something else. It is frustrating to hit a wall within a story, but great when you find a way through it. I think of writing a novel as a puzzle to be solved, and there’s always pleasure in finding solutions.  But it is the post writing phase I really dislike. For me, the solving of the novel puzzle comes when I finally publish. But, of course, that isn’t the end of it. Then comes the marketing, and I don’t find anything much creative in that. Quite possibly the reason I’m not very good at it.

Which other writers do you admire?

As a child, I especially liked Anthony Buckeridge and Richmal Crompton, although they were very old-fashioned even then. Buckeridge wrote a series of books about two boys at boarding school, which always made me wish I could go away to school. As a teenager, I liked adventure stories with pace, such as Len Deighton and Douglas Reeman, or intrigue like John Le Carré. Although my tastes have changed a lot since then, those were the books that kick-started my desire to write. And, of course, two of my favourite books: John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men and Nicholas Monsarrat, The Cruel Sea. Nowadays I don’t read enough. I work full-time, so my spare time is spent writing more than reading, and I regret that. But recently I’ve enjoyed books by Kate Atkinson, Gillian Flynn, Sebastian Faulks and, several years behind the pack, I’ve discovered I like Neil Gaiman. But all writers inspire me. Not in an inclusive, ‘every one of us is special’ way. In the way that, if I read something I feel is poorly written, then it encourages me to write. And if I read a great book, then it encourages me to edit.

What are you working on next?

My next story is The Glass Diplomat. I wanted to write a love story, and so I’ve ended up writing about a young English boy’s relationship with the children of a Chilean diplomat. The story opens in 1973, at the time of Pinochet coming to power, and continues through the horror visited on that country by him and his kind. Because of that it takes place across a long time period, and I’ve enjoyed revisiting the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. This is already written, but I’m resting it before I return and view it with fresh eyes for a rewrite. In the meantime, I’m redrafting a children’s book that didn’t work the first time, and I’m mapping out two adult novels to follow The Glass Diplomat.

Thank you, Simon, for such a fascinating insight into your approach to writing. I’m really keen to read The Good Father and see how it deals with some of the themes you’ve mentioned.

SRWilsherAbout the Author

S. R. Wilsher says: I began writing when I was twenty, even though I was uncertain that I had a book in me. And I was so afraid of being a failed writer that, for a very long time, nobody knew I wrote. I’ve dealt with that fear of failing by always continuing to write. I figure that if I keep going I’ve not failed yet. However, I continue to write for no other reason than I enjoy it deeply. I like the challenge of making a story work. I get a thrill from tinkering with the structure, of creating characters that I care about, and of manipulating a plot that unravels unpredictably yet, hopefully, logically. I like to write myself into a corner and then see how I can escape. To me, writing is a puzzle I like to spend my time trying to solve. Publication is the deep sigh of setting the completed puzzle aside. The marketing bit beyond that is something else entirely!

Connect with S. R. Wilsher

Website
Twitter
Goodreads