MEETING YASMINE GOONERATNE

Another session I greatly enjoyed was with Professor Emeritus Yasmine Gooneratne. We exchanged several emails before our session and I almost felt like I knew her before I met her. It helped that she gave me a spontaneous pat on my back by saying "I was a fine moderator" during the session itself. Usually, such words, should they be merited at all follow in subsequent emails. But Yasmine has spent a life-time grooming people - students and writers alike. And just like her writing, her real life has taken on many forms. A University Professor, literary critic, editor, bibliographer, award winning novelist, essayist and poet, she has published 20 books so far.

She has won several awards for her distinguished work. These include the Marjorie Barnard Prize for Fiction, India's Raja Rao Award for outstanding contribution to the Literature of the South Asian diaspora and the Order of Australia for her services to literature and education. Many of her books have been commended internationally and 'The Pleasures of Conquest' was shortlisted for the 1996 Commonwealth Writers Prize.


Despite her busy schedule, Yasmine hasn't just stopped at writing. She runs 'Guardian Angels' (more on it in the interview) and together with her husband, Dr Brendon Gooneratne, she established 'The Pemberley House' http://www.pemberleyhouse.com/ in Haputale, on a tea plantation 4,000 feet above sea level. The House which was inspired by their stays at some writers residencies also hosts 'The Pemberley International Study Centre' which opens for Residential Scholars from June-August. Over they years, Yasmine tells me how this labour of love has played host to writers, poets, musicians and just about anyone interested in the creative arts.

Strangely or not quite, all Yasmine ever wanted to do was to be a Cordon Bleu chef. That's till she expressed her thoughts to her teachers. They ensured the knives would be laid to rest, her bags would be firmly packed and life would point in the direction of a literary career. So cooking's loss, has been writing's gain. Most of this is from an email interview and I've added what I can remember from the session. Trouble is, we got lost while getting to Lunuganga. I barely made in time to get this session started and in the flurry that was marked by pulling the tripod, fixing the camera, yanking the tapes, I forgot thee most important thing - the battery. Not all is lost though since I still have the email interview with Yasmine. Here are the excerpts:

Q : You dreamt of being a chef and ended up being drawn to the world of writing and teaching. How did the best laid plans change?
A : Due to the influence of two English teachers, and the University Arts Scholarship, awarded on my Finals at Peradeniya, which took me to Cambridge University rather than to cookery school in Paris or London.

Q : And absolutely no regrets about the shift?
A : None at all.

Q : Can you still combine dream cooking with writing?
A : Yes. A character in my new novel (Latha) does this too.

Q : How big a role did your family, your school and your teachers have in helping you discover your creative self?
A : An essential role. My husband, especially. My family are all great readers, and wide reading is, after all, the foundation of good writing.

Q : You have always been quick to express your gratitude about growing up in Sri Lanka - "the biggest influence on my writing as regards to
subject matter has inevitably been the fact that I had the good fortune to have been born in Sri Lanka, and to grow up and be educated there at a "golden" period in the island's cultural life." So much has changed in the island, how does it reflect in your writing?
A : One cannot expect life in the island - or anywhere, for that matter - to stand still. But I have discovered that I can recapture and recreate lost Edens and Arcadies through writing fiction. That was a really happy discovery, especially when I found I was able to 'recover' people I had loved as a child, and give them a permanent life in my book 'Relative Merits'.
(In 'Relative Merits' nostalgia, research, detail are matched by the charm and intimacy of personal reminiscences. Delightful anecdotes bring to life an array of eccentric uncles and the rest of her family.)

Q : Given such a rich and varied up-bringing, it is no surprise that you have a multi-faceted professional life. How do you combine all these roles?
A : Teaching, research and creative writing have all dovetailed satisfactorily in my experience. I think I've been very lucky in this.

Q : You've said and I quote: "To write poetry, you have to be pushed into it by some deep emotion - it could be love, happiness, despair or dislike, but it has to be strong enough to resonate in your poetry. " What pushed you to it?
A : A death in the family. My father died in 1969. I was his youngest child, and we were very close.
(Her father's death led her to pen a poem called 'Review' and she ended up writing poetry almost non-stop resulting in the first volume of poetry 'Word Bird Motif' in 1971.)

Q : When you wrote to me, you mentioned that you never consciously set out to be a 'writer' or even a 'teacher'. What other experiences shaped your writing?
A : Travel, expatriation, and a love of reading 18th century English authors and 20th century Indian authors are three of them.

Q : What was the point when you stopped thinking that 'fiction was for other people' to write?
A : When I wrote my first story that was entirely set in Australia.

Q : A dear friend and a writer whose work I admire a lot - Meira Chand - discovered her writing self when she moved to India and there was no stopping her after that. You moved to Australia and discovered you could barely write any poetry. What was that period like?
A : A barren desert. Fortunately, it didn't last very long. My enjoyment in teaching carried me through it.

Q : How did being in Australia impact your writing?
A : Australia provided a new perspective on life, introduced me to people from a variety of backgrounds, and removed me from what had been a somewhat confined society in Sri Lanka.

Q : In fact, it was during this period that you wrote your first short story wholly set in Australia - 'How Barry Changed his Image'. What predicament were you trying to portray through this story?
A : The predicament of immigrants who find they must change themselves in order to settle comfortably into a new and unfamiliar society and participate fully in it. It's a challenge that demands a great deal of the newcomer, and not everyone can meet such challenges, or wants to do so. Many immigrants prefer to retreat into the safety provided by numbers, live a ghetto existence, and dream of returning 'home', not realizing very often that 'home' has changed, and is no longer what they once knew.

Q : That story became Chapter 15 of your first novel 'A Change of Skies' (1992) - did it inspire work on the novel?
A : The opening sentence of the story, 'My husband was having problems with his image', spoken by my narrator, a young and pretty young woman who comes to Australia from Sri Lanka, was the starting point of the novel.
(The novel won the Marjorie Barnard Literary Award for Fiction that year. It has since been reprinted several times and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize.)

Q : It is never easy to write about family. Often readers love such books, but there will be at least one person in the family who will be invariably unhappy. At the Ubud Writers Festival, Michael Ondaatje had narrated this hilarious incident from 'Running in The Family' where an aunt had to be in an 'either, or' situation due to pressure from the family. Did you experience anything like that when when you wrote 'Relative Merits' (1986)?
A : Not at all. On the other hand, editing it was not easy - there was so much marvellous material ready to hand, and I could not use all of it. So some things had to go. But I was - and still am - very happy with the result. And no one has sued me yet for libel!

Q : Your third novel - 'The Sweet and Simple Kind' has some real life parallels - what did you hope to capture through it?
A : I wanted to capture - or recapture - the 1950s, a period on which I look back as a kind of Golden Age in Sri Lanka.

Q : Through your writing you have delved into so many issues of our times. Do you think the future is still filled with possibilities?
A : I think you are referring here to political issues. If so, you have got me wrong - I don't write about political issues, I write about human issues, and human personalities. As for the future: where writing is concerned, there are always possibilities, if one keeps an open mind.

Q : Being a Professor you are constantly interacting with students, you are in a public space as it were, what happens when you have to do your serious writing. How do you isolate it from your real life role or is there no conflict of sorts?
A: I am not conscious of any conflict or difference at all.

Q : You are an author of studies on Jane Austen, Alexander Pope, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Leonard Woolf among others - what drew you to their work?
A : In each case, excellence and sincerity. Pretentious writing - what is sometimes called 'beautiful writing' - turns me off. But I read and re-read the writers I admire: Austen, Pope, Jhabvala, Leonard Woolf. There is always something to discover and to learn.

Q : Apart from these authors, which other author/authors work has inspired you?
A : R.K. Narayan, V.S. Naipaul, Paul Scott, Dr Samuel Johnson. Among Sri Lankan authors, I believe that by writing and publishing 'The Jam Fruit Tree' Carl Muller liberated Sri Lankan writers from convention and hypocrisy. I'm personally very grateful for that, and I think the first two books of his 'Burgher Trilogy' should be required reading for beginning authors.

Q : Criticism isn't always easy to handle - so whose advice do you take most seriously?
A : My family are my first readers and my most reliable critics. But I have two or three close friends outside the family whose advice and criticism have always proved worth taking.

Q : You are also an avid traveller and movie buff, which places have had the maximum impact on your writing?
A : India, most of all. America provided good material for satire. And Australia and Sri Lanka, of course.


Q : Have movies been part of your text?
A : Yes, indeed. I have had the pleasure of teaching Ruth Jhabvala's novels to third-year and Honours students in Australia. (In fact, I put her novel 'A Backward Place' on my text list long before she won the Booker Prize with 'Heat and Dust'.) Part of my interest in her work focuses on her ability to bring her screenplay-writing technique into her writing of fiction. Her novels 'A New Dominion' and 'Heat and Dust' are especially interesting in that regard.

Q : Ever experienced the dreaded writers block?
A : Never experienced it, I'm glad to say. But if I ever did, I'd turn to work of some kind that doesn't engage the emotions - tutoring, editing, compiling bibliographies and activities of that kind - and wait for the inspiration to start flowing again.

Q : I shouldn't even be asking this, but what's next?
A : Who knows? Maybe I'll go back to my first ambition, and write a cookery book, as one of my characters - Jean - does in my first novel, 'A Change of Skies'.

Q : And before we wrap this up, let's hear about another project that's been keeping you busy - 'Guardian Angels'.
A : Yes, I find literary editing a very satisfying activity. It's also very restful to focus on someone else's writing; and after completing 'The Sweet and Simple Kind', which went into over 600 pages, I've needed a rest. I have gained a great deal myself from the help given me by Australian literary editors when I was writing my first two novels, and I'm very much aware that writers in Sri Lanka don't have the benefit of such expert assistance. I really love making someone else's writing sparkle and shine; and if I think highly of a work, I'd be ready to spend a lot of time and effort on it. I felt like that about Nihal de Silva's book 'The Road From Elephant Pass', and also about the little sketches about a village boy and his friends that he wrote for The Sunday Times. I suggested the issuing of the Paduma stories in the form of a children's book.

See related posts on Nihal here:
http://readatpeace.blogspot.com/search?q=nihal+de+silva

COMMONWEALTH WRITERS PRIZE

Sharon's done a comprehensive post on this. We've exchanged a couple of emails, she's kindly posted my comments on her blog.

You possibly know the categories and the short-list already. If not, its all here.

In terms of South Asian writing, I'm delighted to see Vikram Chandra and Yasmine Gooneratne in the shortlist but I am dismayed by the categorisation.

If Africa can be a category unto itself why not South Asia? Is our writing not competitive enough, not good enough or simply not enough?

What's even more confounding about the categorisation is the clubbing of South Asia with Europe. I could understand a South Asia/South-East Asia club, 'Europe and South Asia' beats me.

So while we get the token representation through Chandra and Gooneratne, if you were to look the 'Best First Book' shortlist, its entirely dominated by entries from Britain. Seriously?

The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther (UK) Abacus/Little Brown
The Mathematics of Love, by Emma Darwin (UK) Headline/Review
This Time of Dying, by Reina James (UK) Portobello
Giraffe, by J M Ledgard (UK), Jonathan Cape
Londonstani, by Gautam Malkani (UK), Fourth Estate
In the Country of Men, by Hisham Matar (UK), Viking
The Amnesia Clinic, by James Scudamore (UK), Harvill Secker

Again delighted to see Hisham Matar, not sure of the rest.

Judging our writing this year are esteemed folks from this panel. They are literary forces to reckon with it, but was it really that difficult to get South Asian or South-East Asian representation on this panel?

At a time when you know who is dominating the lit lists, this prize for one calls for a serious re-look. Giving some thought to its categories could just be the start.

CONGRATULATIONS ALSO TO

The lovely Yasmine Gooneratne. Her novel The Sweet and Simple Kind has been nominated for the 2008 Dublin International IMPAC Literary Award.

And in double joy for her publishers, Ameena Hussein's novel The Moon in the Water has been long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize.

Twenty-three candidates made the cut from 243 entries for the inaugural prize, exceeding the organisers expectations. What doesn't surprise me though is 11 Indian authors feature on the long list. Here's to more interesting times ahead.

THE HIGHLIGHTS

After all the Carl Muller reports from last year, almost gave this a miss. If not for the Tim Severin lunch at Kogalla, might not have made it for this. Muller had his wits about him as he tracked his brushes with the law, getting in and out of jail, crashing his computer, reminding himself to Read The F****** Manual 'I call it RTFM, to his new book that a publisher in Madras has picked up. 'I can't help it, if it bears resemblance to a certain character we know only too well.'

They've got the beat - Jeet Thayil and Suman, were the stars of the slam. Catch them wherever you can. It's worth staying up all night.

Expected someone straight out of the sets of The Pirates of the Carribean. Explorer, adventurer, film maker, writer Tim Severin surprised me. His adventures put every other travel trip to shame.

Pioneering women all. Sri Lankan authors Punyakante, Yasmine Gooneratne, Jean and Vijita. They showed us, if you've got to write, you will. Jean, though needed a session all on her own.

Alexander McCall Smith had made exactly the same speech a couple of moons ago in Singapore. Yet, who can resist the company of the 'Number 1 Ladies Detective', the books are travelling at the same pace, he told us. Mechanics are still mechanics. 'Lots of things are happening at other sessions at this festival, serious stuff is being discussed, not here. Like my books, very little happens in my talks,' he told the crowd in the Hall de Galle.


They told us we took ourselves too seriously. Wonder if that's a bad thing. In any case if the session isn't going the way I expect it to, I'd rather let my legs do the talking.

GALLE LITERARY FESTIVAL

Back after a week in Sri Lanka. What a week it was. Between the spectacular Galle Literary Festival, we squeezed in day in Colombo, a day at Captain Elmo Jayawardena's River House in Moratuwa to visit AFLAC's 'Swim for Safety' project. And soaked in all things literary at the Galle Literary Festival. Making this one of those trips where you come back longing for more.

First things first. Since this trip happened largely due to the Galle Literary Festival let me get to that. It all seemed to come together with a chance meeting with the amazing Libby Southwell at the Ubud Writers Festival (strange how so many things invariably go back to Ubud!). I was lugging my cameras and my books after a long day of sessions when I bumped into Libby. One thing led to another. We spoke about many things - her book, her life and then the festival. When she mentioned in September that she was putting together a festival that was to take off in January - four months time - I had half a mind of choking on her drink. 'No way', I thought to myself, just as did a bunch of other writers and people in attendance.

Over the next couple of days, as Libby told us more about her life and started with her checklist of - accomodation (no problem), transport (no problem), writers (hmmm!) I knew the makings of a great literary festival were there.

So the critics (who are now hopefully chewing their own words) did their damaging bits in the run up to the festival. But after addressing all the issues at the opening press conference, the festival founder Geoffrey Dobbs and Libby ensured that it took on a pace of its own.

And it sure did. It was four action packed days of all things literary. It took us to 12 stunning locations. It brought 61 writers - both Sri Lankan and international names together.

For me it was yet another occasion to catch up with old friends like Janet de Neefe and Nury Vittachi. As Nury rightly said "we almost feel like family now." Yes, we truly do. We've collectively seen the trials, tribulations and of course the critics. Then there were writers we'd all met before - Romesh Gunesekera, Suketu Mehta, Christopher Kremmer, Madhur Jaffrey and Elmo.

As always, there was the process of learning about new names. Last year's Man Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai was a true revelation. If only every other author could remain as modest as her despite the laurels, meeting the writers could turn out to be quite another story. A full Q & A with her will be up soon.

Speaking of revelations, meeting Sri Lankan authors turned out to be quite another. I bought Ashok Ferrey's 'The Good Little Ceylonese Girl' after listening to the fantastic reading at Sun House http://www.thesunhouse.com/sunhouse.html and it hasn't disappointed. I got my induction into Dilmah's 'Lover's Leap' tea courtesy Manuka Wijesinghe who turned out to be a laugh a minute. Had the most entertaining van ride from Geoffrey Bawa's stunning estate Lunuganga http://www.lunuganga.net/lunuganga.html to our Galle abode 'The Lighthouse'. Our meetings may have been brief, but we knew this was a friendship meant to last. As a parting gift, I got a signed copy of Manuka's debut 'Monsoons and Potholes' - which happens to be next on my reading list.
I was also visibly impressed by Professor Emeritus Yasmine Gooneratne. She has penned 20 books, leads a busy life between Australia and Sri Lanka. Offers editorial services to budding authors and runs a residence for all creative people alike - The Pemberley House. She responded to each of my emails in great detail and I believe we had a truly fine session. I learnt so much from her, that her life and her writing merits another post.

All of this happened thanks also in part of the hospitality extended to us by 'The Lighthouse' - http://www.lighthousehotelandspa.com/. A special thanks is due to Gehan de Silva and Sanjiva who ensured we were truly at home.


If the setting is the story, Galle had just about everything to offer. Full marks to Geoffrey and Libby for ensuring that writers went out and explored every bit of the beauty in and around Galle. There were times when I wished I didn't have to drive out for an hour and risk getting lost. But when I take one look at the footage I've got I'm not complaining.

Putting it all together, in addition to the festival committee, were the volunteers who were their bright and cheerful selves from morning till late in the night. They ensured each festival day ended on a high note. Often it was their smiles that made my night.

In his closing speech, Geoffrey set all wagging tongues at rest by promising yet another spectacular festival next year. If you haven't already marked your calendar, you'd do well do it. The longlist is still in the works, but if the inaugural Galle Literary Festival was anything to go by, it's bound to be a week to remember.

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THESE

This was the one that got away. Several efforts to get a copy of Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje's memoir Running in the Family before my session with him remained unsuccessful. There were about 25 copies at the counter that sold books at the entrance of Indus. I'd made a mental note of getting it soon as the session ended. By the time I got there, every single copy was gone. That came as no surprise, as Michael had regaled the crowd with his wonder days in Sri Lanka. The clincher came in the form of this passage:
"She kept losing the contraption to servants who were mystified by it as well to the dog, Chindit, who would be found gnawing at the foam as it were tender chicken. She went through four breasts in her lifetime. One she left on a branch of a tree in Hakgalle Gardens to dry out after a rainstorm, one flew off when she was riding behind Vere on his motorbike, and the third she was very mysterious about, almost embarrassed though Lalla was never embarrased."

Then there was the part of keeping everyone in the family happy, so the line went : "a man who may or may not have been in the Cabinet."

Ondaatje had dwelt on the challenge of penning a memoir, writing something that calls for a return to the roots, for understanding his family, for long conversations, exchanges and putting it together in a the form of a book. I was dying to read it all. It would be a long wait, but worth every minute of it.

I finally spotted the book at the Vijitha Yapa bookstore in Colombo and saved it's reading till I got back. Just like I do with every book, I've come to cherish, I took it slowly. The scenic way of reading merely heightens the experience. And there was so much of it here.

Ondaatje's strong mother, his eccentric father, his grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings. Like the colourful Sri Lankan landscape, this was as rich as it gets.

While some memoirs end up focusing on all things that fell away Running in the Family turns everything it touches into a rollicking read. Right from the time his father falls in love, falls out of love, gets engaged, then disengaged, then married, then divorced, to the drama on the train - his father was eventually banned from the Ceylon Railways in 1943, this is an amazing account of a time, period and lives go by.

Ondaatje's attention for detail and his dextrous pen miss nothing, including the war that brewed between his father and Sammy Dias Bandranaike, a close relative of the eventual Prime Minister of Ceylon.

It all started with an exchange at the Kitulgala resthouse, which happened to his father's favourite. Sammy bitched about everything, to which his father responded:
"No complaints. Not even about Mr Bandranaike."

Soon ink was being spilt with a ferocity never seen before in the annals of visitors books.

"This literary war broke so many codes that for the first time in Ceylon history pages had to be ripped out of visitors' books. Eventually one would write about the other even when the other was nowhere near the resthouse. Pages continued to be torn out, ruining a good archival history of two semi-prominent Ceylon families. The war petered out when neither Sammy Dias nor my father was allowed to write their impressions of a stay or a meal. The standard comment on visitors' books today about 'constructive criticism' dates from this period."

Also dating back to this period are the legendary breakfasts. Having tucked into some during my stay in Sri Lanka, I can say with a certain degree of confidence that they survive, quite like the heat, the tea country, the silences in the estate and the silence that marked his parents relationship.

It is an evocative rendition of life, prose, poetry narrated with a liberal dose of humour. So whether you like it or not, you'll be heading back to the words, lines or incidents long after you've got that heavy hand as you flip the very last page.

I still end up thinking of the harmless breakfast, the crisp breeze and the toe Michael Ondaatje almost ended up losing. Or that bathing ritual when the author was just five, witnessed by the then bathing prefect, now distinguished author and scholar Yasmine Gooneratne.

Then there are the journeys they would all embark on when his mother moved to England in 1949. Journeys that would keep them on the move, but never together again.

"Magnetic fields would go crazy in the presence of more than three Ondaatjes."

Still looking for reasons to get started on Ondaatje, then get his take on books, movies and more in this interview.

More on one of my favourites - Anil's Ghost here.