Ep. 222 Behind the Pages: A Deep Dive into Sri Lankan Politics & Family with V.V. Ganeshananthan
Saadia Khan 0:03
Hey Immigrantly family, it's your host Saadia Khan and welcome to a podcast that celebrates the extraordinariness of immigrant experience and beyond. I hope you're doing well and enjoying the beautiful spring weather. I can't thank all of you enough for coming back every week and listening to our conversations you don't want this experience has been mind blowing. And let me tell you, it wouldn't be possible without you. Because if you don't click that play button for Immigrantly, and there wouldn't be any Immigrantly. So I'm so thankful. And I also wanted to share a nice review with you that someone wrote recently, and I was blown away.
Saadia Khan 0:50
So Andrea94 wrote, and I quote, "I mean, what else is there to say? This podcast is an absolute classic and inspiration. The graciously shared stories in this show are so important, and Immigrantly does an amazing job at shedding light on them," unquote.
Saadia Khan 1:09
Thank you so much. It made my day I was having a rough day. And when I read this review, I was like, Oh my gosh, it's all worth it. Anyways, I shared last week with you that I have been taking regular hikes. And I must say it's been such an invigorating experience for me. However, it got me thinking about how enjoying outdoor activities can often be a privilege, right? Many people associate the outdoors with physical labor, sweat, and tiredness. This led me to ponder how people in America view outdoor activities compared to those in other countries, not to mention the gear required for activities like hiking and mountain climbing. And as always, I'm here to share my thoughts and ideas with all of you in this safe space. So tell me, have you ever considered this before? I would love to hear your take on it. Write to me at saadia@immigrantly pod.com. I'm interested in knowing what is your relationship with outdoors? And do you see how it could mean different things to different people?
Saadia Khan 2:18
Now before we get started with this guest I also want to remind you that we are active on social media platforms. If you haven't already, please follow us on Twitter @Immigrantly_pod on Instagram @Immigrantlypod and TikTok at @Immigrantlypodcast. Yes, we are on TikTok. And you can follow us there and watch our interesting videos. Don't forget to share our work and engage with us on all these different platforms. It makes us happy. All right. Now let's dive into today's conversation.
Saadia Khan 2:52
Today I got to sit down with novelist V.V. Ganeshananthan. But she goes by Sugi too. Her work has appeared in many leading newspapers and journals including Granta, the Atlantic Monthly and the Washington Post. We had this rich conversation about her recent novel Brotherless Night, which came out at the start of this year, and a little bit about her debut novel, Love Marriage. Both are about families impacted by Sri Lankan politics and conflict. Sugi has talked a lot about the plots for the books, the books, incredible structures, and more. If you follow soucis work, I'm sure you've heard a lot about her: the novelist. But now we get to hear more from Sugi, the person. So let's get started.
Saadia Khan 4:06
Hi, Sugi. How are you doing?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 4:09
I'm good. How are you?
Saadia Khan 4:11
I'm good. You're in Milan, right?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 4:13
I'm outside of Milan in a small town called Carate.
Saadia Khan 4:16
How is it going?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 4:18
It's great. I met a residency with just a few other writers. And it's really wonderful and relaxing. I mean, obviously, since the pandemic happened, travel is totally different. And I haven't traveled as much in Europe as I would have liked to have never been to, for example, Spain or Belgium. I've spent a fair amount of time in Italy and France and Germany. And so it's great to have a chance to spend more time here.
Saadia Khan 4:39
What do you like about Europe?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 4:41
I appreciate the commitment to sustainability, which is just really kind of built into how people live in terms of using smaller things, fewer things, trains, more things being organic. Of course, it's a place that's so rich with history, and it's a complex history that as a South Asian person, it's hard not to have a lot of feelings about.
Saadia Khan 5:02
You're right. When I think of Europe, I have so many feelings, so many emotions conjure up and I'm unable to move past them. I have been to Germany, France. I visited Amsterdam last year. And it was beautiful. It was so nice. And yet I feel if I've seen one city, I've seen them all. Really? Yeah, I don't know, if you get that feeling. I feel the streets are the same, you know, the landscape, the architecture, and I may be pissing some people off right now. But I don't know. That's how I feel.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 5:35
To me, it does feel like each place is different. I mean, across Europe, there are certain commonalities. And one of them to me is the relationship between people in space, right. In the United States, we have so much room. To be fair, like Europeans. It's not our room. But I think like just I live in the Midwest, it's a place with an enormous amount of space. Just a lot of, you know, huge houses, huge roads, huge cars, huge fields of grain.
Saadia Khan 5:59
Yeah.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 6:01
So sometimes I get here and I'm like, wow, the steps are so small.
Saadia Khan 6:06
Yeah, that you're right. You know what I was thinking, I really want to travel to places like Morocco, Egypt, I haven't seen them. Indonesia. Those are some of the places that I'm really interested in traveling to. But I am so anxious when I travel. It's almost impossible for me to get on the plane. If my parents were not living in Pakistan, I would not leave New York.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 6:31
Really?
Saadia Khan 6:31
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I'm so freaked out. I'm petrified.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 6:36
Wow. So what was it like the first time you flew?
Saadia Khan 6:38
I was scared. And I feel like it's gotten worse as I've grown older. And I don't know if there is any correlation. But I am a lot get now than I was 20 years ago. And I don't know why, despite the fact that I am scared. I still travel. As I said, I've been to Europe, I've been to all these incredible places. But every day my travel, it gives me a lot of anxiety. But once I am at the destination, then I'm fine.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 7:07
So what's your favorite way to travel
Saadia Khan 7:09
Car. If I could drive to Pakistan...
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 7:14
That's a very long drive.
Saadia Khan 7:15
I know. I know. I'm just kidding. That could never happen. But theoretically, if it could sign me up. So Sugi, I have been listening to the podcast that you've been on. I'm reading your book. I love what I'm reading. I'm still reading. But it's such an interesting read. It's morbid. It has avalanche of emotions. That is so much nuance to it. But today beyond your books beyond Love Marriage and Brotherless Night, I want to know you as a person. And what really intrigued me about Love Marriage, your debut book, which came out in 2008 is that you create this story family that is impacted by Sri Lankan politics in a series of vignettes over decades. And I was thinking, if you thought of your life as a series of vignettes, what parts of your life would you share with me right now?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 8:21
I guess. I do think I mean, of course, on the page, it's a vignette. And I think in terms of community storytelling, or just storytelling, period, or gossip, it's an anecdote, right? Anecdote is the currency. Well, I can tell you that in a car on the way here to this residency, I was in a car on the west side of Lake Como, and traffic completely stopped, just totally stopped. And I thought, Should I get out and walk I'm almost there. I've been traveling continuously for like four days now. And the driver seemed to call every other driver he knew. We started using Google Translate to talk to each other. And finally we arrived, but he seemed to have never seen anything like it before. I can't say I had either. So I'm someone who travels a lot, especially lately, and it stands out among my travel experiences. I don't know how many times I've been in a car that is totally not moving at all for a really long time. And there was no accident.
Saadia Khan 9:13
Ah.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 9:14
it's just the road is so narrow, that if a truck and a bus meet, one has to give way and if they haven't planned properly, I think it just turns into a bit of a nightmare. So that's how I've come to arrive where I most recently AM. In terms of other anecdotes, I guess I'm a collector of anecdotes, but perhaps not very thoughtful about my own, I guess here at this residency. Also, there is a mountain near the residency. So some of us have been climbing it every morning. So we tell each other anecdotes of wildlife. I saw a wild boar I saw a deer. I saw a snake.
Saadia Khan 9:49
Oh wow.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 9:49
I screamed. I didn't actually scream but I have a history of screaming when in unexpected encounters with wildlife. So I'm trying to improve my habits. I'm extremely out of shape at the moment. So climbing this mountain is very good for me. And when I'm done doing it, I feel extremely virtuous.
Saadia Khan 10:05
Let's go back to your childhood. Share some anecdotes from your childhood.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 10:09
When I was little, I was terrified of dogs. Many people in my family are scared of dogs. And I had a saxophone teacher who had a tiny white dog named Poopoo. And my parents would take me to his house for the lesson and Poopoo who would be really excited to see us and would jump on us. And I found this terrifying. So I always have to kind of like, get my courage together to go to my lesson. And it would only take about 10 seconds. I now own a dog. I've come a long way. And I would imagine that Poopoo was maybe one of the first dogs I knew, and he had such a ridiculous name.
Saadia Khan 10:41
You know, it's so interesting. You say that, because I'm scared of dogs. I'm petrified. And I wonder if it's something about South Asians. But I have been told I should get a dog. And then I will get over the fear. I'm really thinking of doing that. And the other day, I was at this shop, and there was a dog inside and the dog was so cute, and so mellow in a way. And I really wanted to go and pet the dog. But then I was like, I don't know, what if the dog jumps on me or something. So I didn't do that. But yeah, I'm scared too.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 11:16
Well, I was scared of dogs for a long time. And I do think that it does have something to do with being South Asian, at least in some countries. In Sri Lanka, there's a in Colombo, there's a significant population of street dogs, I have relatives who have been, say, chased by a pack of street dogs, and there is also rabies.
Saadia Khan 11:31
And they are aggressive.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 11:32
Yeah. And so you know, for example, I know someone who old school had to get the full series of rabies shots back when they used to give them to you in the stomach. And I think it was quite painful. And then also that the dog that had bitten them was a family dog. And then that dog was put down, and they never had dogs again. So I think I don't know the population of strays doesn't necessarily invest people with good emotional history with dogs. And so my own dog's name is Kunju. And she's not exactly an anecdote of my childhood. But maybe she's connected to these dog anecdotes, and that I was terrified of all of these dogs. And then I wanted to get a dog. And I was saying to my husband, oh, I wish I could get a dog.
Saadia Khan 12:12
Yeah
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 12:12
He's like, why can't you get a dog? It's like, oh, I mean, I guess you know, I have a sibling who's allergic to dogs. My parents don't particularly like dogs. And I thought maybe they'll never visit me. And then he was kind of like, we could figure that part out if you if you want to get a dog. I mean, we could always board them or something. And, and so he kind of went online. And so he got a successful application. But then it was early in the pandemic, and it was very hard to get a dog in Minneapolis. There were 12 Havenese puppies and 400 applications.
Saadia Khan 12:41
Wow.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 12:41
Yeah, we were like we're not going to that's like harder than getting into college. Like we're not going to succeed in getting one of these like tiny, adorable puppies. And then he found this dog online at a shelter called 4 Luv of Dog. Four the number, luv, of dog and it was in the Fargo Moorhead area. And he found a particular dog and she looked so frail and tiny. Ah, she just had surgery. And her name was Dolores. And I kind of looked at this picture of her and I was like, I don't know. And he was like, I think this is the dog. And I was like, Are you sure? He was like look at her face? And I was like, Yeah, but like, maybe she's new. She just had knee surgery, maybe she can't really run around like and we wouldn't know how to take care of her. And he was like, this is the dog. So I was like, Okay, if you're sure. So we drove up there because it was the pandemic. It's like a four and a half hour drive. So he planned all the stops that he thought would be safe. And several of them were like, we went to a restaurant that we thought would be safe. And like no one was masked and the food was disgusting. So we like kind of fled. And she was so energetic and cute and kind of like pranced around a little bit. And she didn't have a tail and she was adorable. And her foster mother said, well, if you'd like to take her, you can.
Saadia Khan 13:52
Oh, wow.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 13:53
She was on the verge of tears giving her up and she kissed her goodbye. And her name was Dolores. And we renamed her Kunju and she got in the car and sat on my lap. And just like, really, let's go. This seems fun. You guys seem nice. And so I'm holding her on my lap like, I don't know, effectively. Like I've never had a dog in my lap before which probably borderline hadn't.
Saadia Khan 14:15
Were you scared at the time?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 14:16
I wasn't scared of the dog. I was scared that I would like hold her wrong. Or like, I don't know that she wasn't having fun. I wanted her to have a quality experience. You know?
Saadia Khan 14:25
So you were scared for the dogs. Not the dog. Okay
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 14:29
I wasn't scared of the dog. She was actually, our great good luck is that she was reasonably trained by someone. I think she was a breeder release but she knows basic commands and we didn't teach them to her. And I don't think we would have known how so she's just very sweet dog. And she just is pretty well behaved by nature. And I think a lot of rescues have had a hard time and haven't necessarily emotionally recovered from it. And she she has a little bit of abandonment anxiety. But other than that, she doesn't bite. She doesn't like eat plants or chew cords. Yeah, she's fairly well behaved. And so she's just the easiest dog in the world.
Saadia Khan 15:14
Talking about vignettes, something that I read in one of your interviews was how you grew up on stories of Sri Lanka and the news coverage, sometimes on the kind of propaganda that circulated in the Tamil diaspora. And that really struck me in ways because I grew up in Pakistan. And I used to hear about civil war in Sri Lanka. But it was just fleeting news that I never paid attention to. But I knew of. And I was curious to know, when you see the kind of propaganda that permeated Tamil diaspora, how did it impact you and your childhood growing up? Because both your books are set against the backdrop of Sri Lankan Civil War, right?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 16:04
Well, some of that propaganda came in printed form, and some of it was kind of conveyed via community. And I think that they're intensely sympathetic stories, a lot of them like, right, and I should say, it's true that there's a lot of propaganda in the Tamil diaspora, a lot of it Tamil nationalist, some of it having been produced specifically by the Tamil Tigers, or adjacent groups. Also, quite a lot of it is factually accurate in an interesting way. Because, yeah, they were true, but they would leave things out, or just if you had that story in isolation, without other stories next to it. And around it, it was possible to interpret things also in a very nationalist way, with a kind of blind loyalty to Tamil militancy. And I think that I'm in other regards, like, I mean, in other aspects of the conflict, that was also true, like the state was also putting out propaganda. Like, I think that propaganda went to other parts of the diaspora. And sometimes you would see it coming out of something like the embassy, or, you know, various arms of the Sri Lankan government. So that was available too. But I had, like, I think, kind of right off the bat, right? You you grew up with an ability to question the state. And that was coupled with like a lack of, I think, in some cases, I was too young, but like, yeah, like a lack of critical analysis of what it was I was reading. So like, at what age do you start to develop the ability to look at a story critically and think that is the whole story?
Saadia Khan 17:26
So tell me, how do you see it now versus when you were a young kid? If you were to look back at Sri Lankan Civil War? How would you describe it?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 17:36
Well, I was born very slightly, very shortly before the war started. So my ability to describe the whole war, especially in its earliest parts, arises from research rather than experience. And certainly from a lot of distance, the war, most people date it to be as starting in 1983. There are many, many things that happened before that that kind of lead up to it. And it's really between the Sinhal that dominated government security forces and Tamil militant groups, primarily the Tigers, and there are a lot of other players like the Tamil diaspora and the international community. So you know, international mediators, like the UN being heavily involved, Indian peacekeeping troops. I mean, the war had so many different phases. And my second novel in particular, which is set mostly in Sri Lanka is really about the first phase of the war. So there are things about the world that it actually doesn't cover. And I guess, like that propaganda, I think about Adichie's kind of tale of the single story, right, what is propaganda, but a single story, and, therefore it's like, I mean, it's a it's a whole lot of unreliable, what more unreliable narration could one find than a government or like, at least our present government, this like a horrible unreliable narrator.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 18:48
So the war ended in 2009. And it had really a second and third phase. And some people might argue with fourth phase as well. And like, sort of later in the war, you see kind of things becoming prominent, like women [inaudible], suicide bombings, conscription of children, the state blockading like routes to the north, causing people to be repeatedly displaced, declaring areas, safe zones, and then shelling them. Thisis an extremely selective list of atrocities. So I mean, one could go on for a really long time. And I'm also here not really describing, but I described those two parties, but there's also like a Tamil-speaking Muslim population. There are multiple Tamil communities. So there's also Malayalam Tamil, many of whom, whose ancestors came to Sri Lanka to pluck tea, and then like a different community in the north, a different community in the east. So it's, it's an enormously-
Saadia Khan 19:45
-complicated.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 19:46
Yeah, well, it's also a very multicultural place, which I think is not really reflected by the common description.
Saadia Khan 19:52
Sugi, in your book, at least the part that I've read so far, I feel like you're describing the term ‘terrorist’ with a lowercase t, which refers to complexity of human nature. It's not with capital T, where you see a ‘Terrorist’ in this one-dimensional light. And I want to quote something from the book with the narrative Sashi, she addressed the reader after her hometown library was burned, saying:
"Imagine the places you grew up the places you studied, places that belonged to your people present, but I should stop pretending that I know you."
Saadia Khan 20:33
Unquote. I am interested in this question of knowing and this continuum that we set many of our relationships on? How do we really know somebody? And when do we know somebody? Is there a measure or a yardstick of how well do we need to know someone to truly know them?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 20:53
I don't know that I think we really can. I don't know how well we particularly know ourselves. The first page of the book goes to some pains to kind of use that language of terrorism, and then to also to say that that language is insufficient to say that it's excessively binary, that it is attempting to remove people from discussion to say that they're on addressable and to refuse that as a notion of storytelling to say that that's not acceptable for this particular story. So in terms of the line that you quoted, the book also addresses it a "you." And I think a lot of writers and particularly writers from marginalized backgrounds, and particularly writers of color, and women are often asked, you know, who is your audience, right? So then that does get at the question of like, what do you know about your audience, and people are concerned about representation, and they think about representation in the story. But what about representation in the audience, I have sometimes been sitting in an audience and felt that the author, sometimes another person of color, was actually addressing a white audience or an audience that assumed I didn't exist, and that I was the least important part of the audience. So the audience here that you that is addressed often shifts, it does address, say, you know, people who might have very little knowledge of Sri Lanka, you know, that the line that you're quoting, is basically acknowledging that some of the people reading the book may well have exactly the experience that they're reading about, and that I can't actually know. So it continues to turn in a kind of collide, kaleidoscopic way to suggest that, what is it that I can know about you? I'm writing this story, presumably, for you. And I may be guessing all sorts of things incorrectly.
Saadia Khan 22:28
Talk to me about the term terrorist, I want to go back to that that's something that's thrown around, especially in Western political discourse in the media in a very one-dimensional way. And it seems like you're trying to add nuance to it. And if we were to add nuance to terrorism, what would that look like?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 22:48
Well, I mean, here, I'm quoting many activist friends of mine, if you're talking about terrorism, then you're necessarily talking about non-state actors, which is fine. I think that non state actors who commit atrocities against, for example, noncombatant civilians should be held accountable, but it doesn't hold the state accountable in any way. And states are purveyors of terror. We don't talk about state terror, we don't talk about it in the same way, we don't talk about it hand in hand with terrorism. So I guess I would suggest that either we not use the word terrorist, or that we begin to talk about state terror very aggressively. And there are many, many opportunities to do that available at present. I think that that would be my interest in that. But I do come from a community where the word terrorism was lobbed around our community at our community long before 9/11. And so to watch, all of a sudden, many other people become conversant in that language. And what it felt like to have it aimed at them was interesting. And of course, I felt intensely sympathetic to it. Because you could see right the category of people people perceived to be Muslim, there's like Muslim people, then there's people perceived to be Muslim.
Saadia Khan 23:50
Right?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 23:50
All of these new categories springing up to respond to this kind of profiling. And I mean, I remember going on a date in like, the late 2000s, where I went on a date with someone who was like, Oh, you're Tamil, and your parents are Sri Lankan. Like, and then like the second words out of his mouth, were about the Tigers. Oh, interesting. It's often like the first thing that people know, or like people who would make jokes about it. And it's not funny, or if it is funny, you are not the person to make the joke. Right. So yeah, I mean, it was it was a byword. So why should I get to interrogate it a little bit? If everyone else is going to interrogate things?
Saadia Khan 24:27
You're right. And I feel sometimes the word itself is thrown around by people who are privileged. And you've talked about the state committing crimes against civilians, and nobody talks about that. So it could just be how people perceive themselves versus how certain communities are treated and how the word is thrown around is pretty much a function of who you are and where you are on that spectrum of hierarchical structures that exist within societies.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 24:58
Sure. I mean, I think it's a minoritized word. It's a it's a word invented by a majority so that they don't have to deal with minorities. And I wish them the best of luck with that.
Saadia Khan 25:07
Sugi, I want to pivot a little and talk about your writing. Now, I was reading somewhere that you said, you know, long passages from books, and you can really quote them. And I was really curious to know if there is a particular passage that you've read from a book that you can really quote right now. And why is it meaningful to you?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 25:30
There's a passage in the Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken, that I really like, which is at the end of a chapter, it's about the narrator, kind of realizing that her love for another character is in a conventional sense going to fail. And instead she she sort of decides that she's going to love this person anyway. And so the description of her set of thoughts becomes physical. The metaphor is her moving into a room like moving into a tower in a castle, right. And she talks about, you know, sometimes you don't marry the prince, sometimes you marry the spinning wheel, you marry the tower, you marry your tiny room. And it's just like a really lovely passage. It's not even correct to say unrequited love, but like love that isn't going to in the most conventional logistical sense, work out.
Saadia Khan 26:13
Why is it meaningful to you?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 26:14
Well, it was written by someone I love, who was my teacher, and as my friend, and I think I also read it right. Some of these passages, I think, are passages that I read at a formative age probably at about age 16, or 17. When you know, I had a teacher who would often find a book that she liked, and hand it to me. Sometimes because she had bought me a copy. I think she also gave me a volume of Andoche's collected works. So it had like three novels and a bunch of poetry in it. And because I had read them at the right moment, there are things about it that are quotable, or I heard a massive amount of Anna Green Gables. I read a lot of like a children's literature of the former Commonwealth. There'll be like a Roald Dahl who I guess it's also literature of the former Commonwealth. And so I can kind of remember specific descriptions, or little jokes, like a description that you really love, right? Like, that makes it easy to remember, like there's in The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. There's like a bunch of stuff that I remember, because I love that book so much.
Saadia Khan 27:14
Sugi, can you talk a lot about your teachers, and you're talking about them right now as well, how they've influenced you how you use their advice in writing. And I was wondering if there is a balance between how much you intake that advice, and how much you create your own writing? And in what ways that advice can be constricting? And how do you overcome that?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 27:38
I think I allow my memory to sift things. So in the same way that when I take notes, I don't always go back and look at them, right? Sometimes you take notes, and it's a physical act, that is also inscribing things into your memory. And then later, you remember parts of it, you don't necessarily go back and look at your notes. And so I suspect that the parts of the advice that might have been constraining are just parts that I don't remember.
Saadia Khan 27:59
Hmm.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 27:59
That's the work of my subconscious to do that filtering and not my conscious, because I'm not really consciously thinking about what would X person have said, and more doing it on instinct, and then later trying to think about why why did my instinct operate in that way?
Saadia Khan 28:15
Okay, let's talk a little bit about Brotherless Night. You worked on this for 20 years. And I was doing the math in my mind. So you were basically in your early 20s, when you started working on this novel, right?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 28:30
Yes, that's correct.
Saadia Khan 28:31
And I am curious to know, from conceptualization or the concept to publishing, it's a long journey, right? What life events happened during those 20 years that impacted how this novel came about? Were there any that impacted the way you wrote it?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 28:50
Well, I think, you know, partway through my writing the novel. The war ended.
Saadia Khan 28:54
Right.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 28:55
Which I experienced as a life event, and which I think a lot of other people I knew also experienced as a life event. I mean, that changed the shape of the novel in a really fundamental ways. I went to Sri Lanka several times. And I would mark each of those trips as a life event. A number of people passed away some of whom were people who had endured some of the events in the novel, and in some cases, I wasn't necessarily able to, I mean, Sri Lanka is pretty far from the United States. And so in some cases, I didn't see those people when they passed away or wasn't able to reach them. I saw Sri Lanka itself change a great deal. The tsunami happened, the Easter attacks happened. There was a ceasefire between 2003 and 2005 for the war, which was a period of time during which I went to Sri Lanka. I got married, I became an aunt, I began to be a teacher. I left a full time job in journalism and really kind of left journalism as a primary career. So you're right. 20 years is a long time a lot can happen. A lot did happen. And I guess you know, I moved out of New York City, which was the place where I was when the war ended.
Saadia Khan 29:57
And why did you decide to move out of New York?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 30:00
Well, I was running out of money. Just the thing that happens in New York, I was really just bleeding rent. And it didn't seem like the smartest thing to do. And then also, I found that in New York, I have a lot of friends I love in New York. And I also felt that to live in New York and publish a book at the same time, I was struggling to figure out where my work life ended, and my social life began. And I also was struggling to say no to things that I felt obliged to do. And a really big way to say no to things sometimes to like, leave the state.
Saadia Khan 30:28
Right.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 30:29
And then I was also hugely, hugely excited to teach at the University of Michigan, because just even interviewing with them. They felt like people I had known my whole life, the people I taught with there felt like people I had known my whole life. So I was eager to go, actually.
Saadia Khan 30:42
So how has the transition from being a journalist to a teacher been like? Are there any overlaps?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 30:50
I think there's a lot of overlap. A lot of my best time as a student was in a newsroom, sitting next to people who are rewriting my sentences, because my sentences were bad or unclear. And that gave me a lot of appreciation for the line edit. And I hope that that's something that I'm able to convey to my students, like it's really, really nerdy fun to edit a sentence you really enjoy it. It sort of felt fortunate to have been paid that kind of attention not only by my teachers in the traditional sense, but also really by my peers. Like I was edited by people who went on to become like award winning journalists. And that was an incredibly educational experience. And then my first job in New York, before my book came out, I was teaching journalism to high school students, specifically high school girls via the Asian American Writers Workshop. So that was like a interesting bridge between all of those worlds, and a lot of fun. Also, I got to kind of test out some ideas. And the girls themselves were really remarkable. Like, they were very smart and very funny. And the pedagogical model was unusual that they were getting paid to be in the class, which was something I had never seen before. And I thought that's so cool.
Saadia Khan 31:57
That's interesting.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 31:59
Yeah. Because, right. It's like, valuing their time and their commitment.
Saadia Khan 32:03
Right.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 32:04
So I think that taught me some important fundamentals about how to teach and it did also bridge my journalism and teaching worlds.
Saadia Khan 32:12
Sugi as a writer, what have you learnt that really surprised you about your writing or your writing style?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 32:21
You mean from other people?
Saadia Khan 32:22
Or from yourself? It could be a self discovery of sorts.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 32:27
I think there are a few different things. Sometimes I do hear things from other people. And then I'm like, oh, that's completely correct. I have a friend from college. She's a very good reader of my work. And then she's also very apt to psychologize me, she'll be like, Oh, this is about your preoccupation with X. And I'm like, oh, god. Maybe you should be a therapist instead of a lawyer. So I guess, yeah, I think that after you start to learn about your own preoccupations, what are the things that fascinate you? You describe my book as morbid. I think that's correct. I am interested in medicine. And I think in my first book that was submerged more, and I think here in Brotherless Night, the main character is pursuing a career in medicine. So it's more obvious. I'm interested in writing about the body. I'm interested in writing about kind of like ethics on a really pure level. And yeah, I think I also am aware that I'm successful in writing when, when I don't know if I can do it. And I think that's true of a lot of people probably like, right, if you knew that you could do it, then it wouldn't be that interesting to do. Because it would mean that it would be easier.
Saadia Khan 33:28
It's so interesting, I was listening to one of the podcasts recently, and I don't remember the guest's name, so I won't take it. But the guest said something which was so profound. Now this guest is a writer, and I will look up the name and put it in our show notes. And I'm paraphrasing it here. Writing is not fun. If you're a good writer, it can be fun if you're bad writer. As a good writer, do you think that's true? Do you enjoy writing?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 33:55
I love the premise of this question. The premise of this question is that I am a good writer. Yeah. What a great premise for a question. I mean, I think that there's a certain kind of satisfaction to doing something difficult well
Saadia Khan 34:07
Right. I like that.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 34:08
Yeah, one of my favorite memories of writing this book is that I have a motor disability that limits my typing. So I work with University of Minnesota students and recent graduates who there are two of them who helped me to to edit things. It's very easy to compose with voice recognition. It's terrible to edit. So I read the book aloud, just read the whole thing straight through to one of them, like more or less the whole thing, and you could hear anytime it was wrong. Kind of like being a really good musician. And hearing that like a note is wrong, that the acoustics are bad, like there's a tuning of the air that occurs and so it was completely brutal to do this because I then verbally edited each sentence and they would make that. So it was excruciating. It was also so fun, but really a kind of sick fun.
Saadia Khan 34:54
I can imagine that. It was great.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 34:56
I can't wait to do that again.
Saadia Khan 35:00
In a way, it's visceral, right? Because you're experiencing all those emotions in real time as you're reading your writing.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 35:08
Yeah. And it was also possible like, I would ask them things like, Do you remember the reference on the earlier page that adds up here? Or do you remember what happened to this character before? Oh, no, this doesn't make sense. Because this character did that on this other page. And like, like there was a lot of me just talking aloud to myself but with an audience.
Saadia Khan 35:25
Sugi, you mentioned somewhere that storytelling has the ability to capture nuance. Talk to me about the nuance that you're trying to capture through your writings, especially the two books that you've written so far.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 35:40
A lot of what I did, and really both books was in part after reading a lot of Anthropology, which is a very prominent social science in Sri Lanka. There's, there's a specific history of Anthropology in Sri Lanka. And then of course, there are lots of things that I do differently. So in terms of nuance, that you can ask a question, but you don't have to answer it. You don't have to make an argument actually, like my book, maybe, actually, my book, maybe make some arguments, but you don't have to make arguments.
Saadia Khan 36:06
Hmm.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 36:06
You can kind of just be like, hey, look, it's a mess. You can just render the mess. So its ability to contain contradiction is perhaps unsurpassed.
Saadia Khan 36:17
Yeah.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 36:17
Right like that someone may behave badly at one moment and excellently at another. logic does not hold in the same way. It does not hold an actual reality. And it also does hold in the way it holds an actual reality if you were writing realistic fiction.
Saadia Khan 36:31
You've been on so many podcasts, people have written articles about you, you've interviewed in so many places. Is there one question that you wish people asked your someone asked you and hasn't been asked yet?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 36:46
I'm not sure what shape the actual question would take. But I am hungry for people who intimately know the history that I wrote about to ask me that, because someone asked me it was kind of like a who is the book for question, right? Like, oh, if you're reading this book, that is I mean, it's published by a big five publisher, it's it's an English.
Saadia Khan 37:05
Right.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 37:06
Probably, the majority of people reading it are not Sri Lankan, at least at this moment. But then the book is actually very much for Sri Lankans, which I hope, a Sri Lankan and specifically someone who is a minority will recognize.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 37:17
And so there's a lot of code in the machine of the book that is designed for those readers. And I would love for the book to resonate with those readers. And for those readers to be able to have like an interesting conversation about it. And then also, I think, in the way that anyone wants it like to, as you have, right that there's a conversation going on, in some ways between the two books. So for example, there is a historical figure who appears in both books in different guises. And you will only know that that has happened if you already knew about the existence of that person. Right? And then there's, there's another historical figure who's in the book, who also appears in a number of other novels. And she's not marginal, like, I think probably quite a lot of Sri Lankans would know who she was, and probably a lot of South Asians who work in human rights would know who she was.
Saadia Khan 38:09
Yeah.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 38:10
But like, people don't have the bigger conversation, or if they are having the bigger conversations, maybe out of my earshot. And it's also very, like, the book is very young, you know, it's happy five months birthday to this novel so far.
Saadia Khan 38:23
Oh, congratulations!
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 38:24
But yeah, something like that. I mean, it was it's May 1, and you know, the book came out January 3, so I think it still has to find a lot of readers. But I'm very excited for it to find the readers who intimately know this period of history, and it's found its way to some of them. And then, you know, I get notes from people who are like, Oh, how did you think about X issue or Y issue or like, sometimes they'll just tell me stories of their lives during this period? And other times, they'll have really specific questions about it. So I think the size and specificity of the conversation is something I'm hungry for.
Saadia Khan 38:57
You know, Sugi, I can tell you this, after reading your book, and prepping for your interview, I started doing more research about the Sri Lankan Civil War, because as I said, as a South Asian as someone who grew up in Pakistan, I had knowledge of it, but I didn't really know much about the conflict. And what I've tried to do and what I am doing is go back and read up on conflict and read up on all the stakeholders and the political landscape. And the geopolitics of that time, which again, I did not because obviously, I was probably young, or I was not interested because it did not impact me directly, or in some ways. It probably did, but I didn't realize that it did. So I think you have started a conversation, at least in South Asian diaspora. I can speak for myself, which is incredible. And I think that's what books are supposed to do, right?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 39:56
I hope so. I do think also probably a little bit wrote the novel this way, because I think that people write, there's so much historical fiction about so many different periods. And then there's sometimes there's also this line of like, you did not live through this so you can't write about it. But then I think that makes it so that certain periods of history are not addressed. And I don't think they're unaddressable like there are people who think that it's impossible actually to talk about this word, because it has so many phases, and so much complexity and so many unimaginable a variety of horrors, that it's not possible to write about it, that it's unfathomable. And I don't think that that's accurate.
Saadia Khan 40:32
Right.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 40:33
I don't think that I got everything in there.
Saadia Khan 40:34
And you don't have to.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 40:36
Right.
Saadia Khan 40:37
Even a snapshot off history or a moment in time can lend itself to those important conversations.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 40:46
I hope so. And and I think it'll be really interesting when the book is coming out in England, and many of the former Commonwealth territories at the end of June. And I think that as it hits a set of readers who are particularly familiar with the history of colonialism, and therefore have like more of a historical context for the war, I think that it will be like a very different set of reactions.
Saadia Khan 41:09
You're absolutely right, we could do another episode on British colonialism and ensuing conflict.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 41:17
Yeah.
Saadia Khan 41:17
That's such an important note and such an important information that is often overlooked in the Western media.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 41:24
Yeah, I'll be curious to see what that conversation is like. And it's also true that one of the uncanny things about this book is that I can read my first book aloud and that's actually what the character's voice would sound like. But for this book, my voice doesn't actually sound like the character's voice should sound, but the audiobook sounds like freakishly perfect. It's narrated by Nirmala Rajasingam, whose late sister was the inspiration for one of the characters in the book. She just did a great job. And I think that because the audiobook has been available in the Commonwealth before the hardcover, I have started to hear some reactions to that, which is really fun. And people love hearing her voice because she has an amazing voice also. So that has been a real treat. And something that I think like yeah, like, especially for Sri Lankans, South Asians, British people will hit a different note.
Saadia Khan 42:15
Sugi, in the end, if you were to describe America in a word or a sentence?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 42:21
No.
Saadia Khan 42:23
You are going to describe it for me. Everyone does it.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 42:29
Can I just be like, no, that's the sentence.
Saadia Khan 42:31
I like the no. Nobody has ever said no.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 42:35
English is such a flexible language that "no" is like, you know, no is a complete sentence and so many languages actually. So America just right now: "no."
Saadia Khan 42:43
I like that. I think that it would be fun to see how people react, you know?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 42:48
And I should say that the "no" is not declining to answer the question. The "no" is the answer.
Saadia Khan 42:53
Oh my gosh, I'm so curious to know what that "no" entails now, because I'm thinking, you know, what does that really mean? Oh, my gosh, I love it. Sugi, where do you want people to buy this book? Is there a bookstore that you are really fond off? And you want people to go and buy Brotherless Night there? Or is it okay, if they buy it on Amazon?
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 43:13
I would love to support independent bookstores and I live near a store called Magers & Quinn and Minneapolis. You can order signed copies through there if you want. And I will stop by the store and personalize it if you wish. But yeah, any independent bookstore in your neighborhood in Washington, DC. I read it Politics & Prose in Boston, I read at Harvard bookstore. There are many other wonderful stores. So just like whatever store is near you, and those are just a few of my favorites.
Saadia Khan 43:41
Wonderful. Thank you so much. So good. This was so good.
V.V. Ganeshanathan "Sugi" 43:44
Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been a pleasure to talk with you.
Saadia Khan 43:58
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sugi. I really enjoyed it. And I highly recommend reading her books. They bring so much nuance to Sri Lankan Civil War and especially for those listeners who are not familiar with the history. Please do check it out. And also read up on history. It's important to inform ourselves. And if there are any listeners who are part of Sri Lankan diaspora would love to hear your thoughts on it. By the way I talk about this other podcast that I'm listening to and a guest on that podcast. So the guest is Fran Lebowitz and I was listening to wiser than me. And again, I was paraphrasing so no hate mao; or hate comments. ‘
This episode was produced by me Saadia Khan, written by our new script writer who recently joined our team, Rainier Harris. The editorial review as always done by Shei Yu and our incredible editor is Haziq Ahmad Farid. The music for Immigrantly is done by Simon Hutchinson. Until next time, take care.