A good author engages a reader, a great author manages to sync the readers heart and mind so well, that he makes the reader experience the tale. Learning the traits of a good writer and growing older with every book that she reads, writer Sumana Roy, talks about everything from books to her childish desire.
Sumana Roy’s poems, stories and essays have been published in Granta, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, Caravan, Cha, Seminar, Himal Southasian, Pratilipi, among others.
Highlights of the episode
- ‘Childish desires’, often turn out to be an important turn in our lives.
- The label of a writer needs to be earned and is a fruit of great toil.
- Ideas can strike you at any moment , all you need to do is keep a record of them.
- The Afterlife of Trees And Their Lovers.
Quotes and Takeaway
- “It must have come to me from the childish desire to see my small town in a book.”
- “Writing demands a lot of labour, a repetition of labour.”
- “Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti would be the closest analogy of my writing process.”
- “Writing demands its own routine.”
How did you get involved with the theme of your first book “Love in the Chicken’s Neck”?
I feel so distant from “Love in the Chicken’s Neck” (it’s not a “book”, only a manuscript that I eventually decided not to share with the world) now that it is difficult for me to think back to the time when I first began working on it. I suppose it must have come to me from the childish desire to see my small town in a book – I’d never encountered an English language novel which had the name of Siliguri, the small sub-Himalayan town where I live, in it. So you could say that the primary urge was to write about the place.
How did you start your career as a writer?
I am not sure I can call myself a “writer”. One has to earn the label, I am still an apprentice. But to answer your question, I began writing very late, almost to recover from the trauma of academic writing.
If you writing process could be analogized to movie, which movie would it be?
I find writing difficult. I find it difficult to write even a single sentence to my satisfaction. Writing demands a lot of labour, a repetition of labour as it were. I wish I could name a romantic comedy to describe the ‘fun’ of writing. But I’ll have to be honest – Mani Kaul’s Uski Roti would be the closest analogy of my writing process.
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Can you share one of your poem with us?
I wrote a poem on “The Afterlife of Trees And Their Lovers“. The poem was published in Granta last year. It is about plant life, a subject closest to my heart.
What did you find most useful in learning to write? What was least useful or most destructive?
I hate the idea of routine but I now find that writing demands its own routine. However one thing that disrupts the writing process is the Internet.
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What is your message for emerging writers?
I can only share something that I tell myself: it is that writing is a solitary act and demands painstaking apprenticeship.
