David Chariandy lives in Vancouver and teaches in the department of English at Simon Fraser University. His first novel, Soucouyant, was nominated for a total of 10 prizes at regional, national, and international levels. He is working on a second novel, Brother.
Amatoritsero Ede: Soucouyant is your first novel. For a first book you display the virtuoso of a master – it is highly charged prose within an economy of language, which, nevertheless expands the field of signification and meaning at the same time, and as such pulls in the reader on several levels. I am trying to say that a lot of experience went into that effortless effort. When and how did your literary journey begin?
David Chariandy: This is extremely kind and encouraging of you to say; but I suspect that I’ll forever feel that I’m only just beginning to learn how to write. I’ve told people that Soucouyant began with my efforts to explore both the deeply saddening condition of dementia and the broader mystery of “forgetting” with respect to personal, cultural, and historical narratives. But I also think that my journey in writing Soucouyant began with my meditation on the word ‘Soucouyant’ itself, a word that signalled to me a past that I couldn’t quite understand or authoritatively ‘pronounce,’ a word that I would have to investigate carefully, with a heightened degree of self-consciousness about the story that I was telling and the language that I was invoking.
A.E.: Ordinarily the subject of your work, dementia, would be boring in less capable hands. How did you manage to intimately evoke such pathos? Have you ever observed the condition first hand?
D.C.: I had a grant-aunt who suffered from dementia and who “unbecame” in the devastating ways particular to this condition. I witnessed the sorrow and personal crises that her decline and death caused her loved ones. But I wanted her condition to mean more than loss and sorrow. Foolishly or not, I wanted to imagine her forgetting (and uncanny remembering) as a mysterious journey that others might learn from.
A.E.: Usually, as a poet, I find it hard to be engrossed by most prose writings – either due to the flatness of language or the elevation of plot over everything else. In your novel, there is a marrying of plot to language and the result is a sublime and powerful poetry. Are you sure you don’t write any poetry?
D.C.: I don’t write poetry, but I read a lot of it – probably as much as I read prose. I have enormous respect and admiration for poets (such as yourself). But I think, for now, that writing prose is more than enough of a challenge for me. I feel grateful, once again, for your most generous thoughts on my writing; and I do think I’m one of those prose writers who, for good or bad, rivet themselves to the individual sentence and word when developing a plot. But I also think that poetry presents its own peculiar set of challenges for a writer, and that prose, too, presents its own challenges.
A.E.: Well, I think I noted some online commentary describing your novel as ‘literary prose’. Is literature not supposed to be literary in the first place, and something different than what the Germans call Unterhaltungsliteratur (entertainment literature)? Good writing should do both, don’t you think - entertain and engage, while defamiliarizing language?
D.C.: I agree that literary prose ought to draw attention to language itself. I’ll always have a high investment in matters of style and form (whether or not my work is thought successful upon these terms). At the same time, I do want my work to be read by people from a variety of backgrounds, including those, for instance, who may not be familiar with the theories of Russian formalists. I teach English literature at a university, but I come from a working-class background, and I think that the combined effect of my upbringing and current profession is that I’m attentive to heated debates on style and cultural politics, while remaining mindful of readers outside of the academy who are entering into the pleasures and demands of reading from other valuable angles.
A.E.: So where do we place all those in-between writings, which plot and plot and plot? Their emphasis is usually on cliff-hangers and suspense and plot.
D.C.: I’m not really interested in those kinds of books. But I’d like to think that good prose writing accomplishes both, and that one can plot in ways that genuinely build and sustain interest, without sacrificing ‘literariness’ and stylistic surprise.
A.E.: When I write poetry I discipline the act through many re-writes till am satisfied. I do not believe in Allen Ginsberg’s “sanctity of the first draft”. You as well, sir, seem to be a very careful writer… How many manuscripts have you thrown into the garbage can?
D.C.: Soucouyant went through many drafts. I consider rewriting (and rewriting and rewriting…) the truly generative imaginative moment of writing and not just a matter of ‘tidying.’ I’m amazed at writers who can produce more or less satisfactory first drafts. I’m certainly not one of them; and I tend to produce a very raw first form and gradually shape it into something better. Also, I decided from the very beginning that Soucouyant would have a non-linear plot; and this, too, lengthened the writing process, since I had to explore different ways of plotting out the same story.
A.E.: And how do you deal with rejection slips? How many rejection slips did you get for Soucouyant?
D.C.: I got a lot of rejection slips, as most new writers do. They were disappointing, of course; but they also helped me to rethink and improve my book and, at the same time, to find the courage to remain ‘true’ to my essential vision. I was fortunate enough to be treated seriously, even when publishers didn’t want to take on my book. Even a brief rejection slip or letter, when thoughtfully articulated, can mean a lot to a new writer.
A.E.: I am really surprised that Soucouyant did not win a major literary prize, like say the commonwealth first book prize despite its unusual ten nominations. What is it with prizes anyhow? I basically think sometimes prizes can be misleading when politicized…
D.C.: I must say that I never at all anticipated the attention that Soucouyant has received, and I feel enormously grateful to those judges who decided to nominate a first book from a small press and unknown author. I don’t envy those who have chosen to serve the writing community by sitting on prize committees and doing their best to ensure that important writing gets noticed. Oftentimes, they are fellow writers who are forced to make agonizing decisions. It’s absolutely true that prizes and awards can exhibit biases, and that we all have to think seriously about which books, reflecting which cultural and political values, and which terms of production and promotion, end up winning awards. However, I’d have to say that I’m simply not one of those authors or critics whose primary concern is who wins or doesn’t win a prize. I’d like to feel that I have deeper questions on my mind, and deeper conversations with others to look forward to.
A.E.: Anyhow we would give Soucouyant the MTLS prize if we had one.
D.C.: What a surprise! Thank you for this kind gesture.
A.E.: Thank you for taking the time.
D.C.: My pleasure. Thank you for reading my book.
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