A voice from silence

Ishtiyaq Shukri

1. Where did you find out about the EU Literary Awards?
   
   One of my readers in Cape Town forwarded me information of the award to London.
   
   
2. What made you enter the competition?
   
   I received information of the award soon after I returned to London from India, where I'd spent six months finishing the manuscript. When I showed my readers in London details of the competition, they urged me to submit the manuscript. They thought the timing was perfect and that the structure of The Silent Minaret, which straddles the UK and SA, echoed the prize itself, an EU Literary Award which aimed to encourage and support new South African writing.
   
   
3. How did you go about writing this story - was it an idea you had previously or did the theme inspire you?
   
   The story came in stages. It grew out of another, very different story I had been working on for a while. But that story changed when the community in which I live in London became a target in the British Government's domestic theatre in its "war on terror". Suddenly, I felt like an enemy. As I said in my address at the Goethe Institute, the story as it is now, chose me. My characters became more and more vexed about what was happening in the world and, looking back, it feels now as though I were taking dictation from them.
   
   
4. Did you expect your story to do so well?
   
   It would be true to say that my readers have always been more confident about Minaret than I. I have tended to be reticent about this story. And, I think, about writing in general. I found it hard to admit to myself that I had writerly ambitions, let alone to anybody else. When I received the news that Minaret had been shortlisted for the prize, I had to listen to the message several times before I believed it and passed it on. It still hasn't sunk in totally that the novel has won this prize. When I read the words, "The Silent Minaret, Winner of the EU Literary Award", it is to me as though they refer to someone else's story, not mine, scribbled in secret when the world had gone to bed.
   
   
5. What do you think about this new Award? Is it going to benefit previously unheard voices?
   
   I hope so. But awards are only one way of stimulating interest in new writing. Not everybody who follows the media coverage they generate will necessarily go out and buy the book - that is regrettable. Book awards need to be followed by book buying and book reading. That is what truly benefits new writers, yet that is where the problem lies.

   But I am also partly sympathetic with reader apathy in South Africa: books are expensive and therefore the preserve of the few who can afford them. The increased corporatisation and Eurocentricity of bookshops doesn't help. Perhaps we should follow India's example where books are presented cheaply but are widely consumed and bookshops are beautifully intimate spaces, not bland, franchised affairs.

   Awards have their place, and I think it commendable that the first EU Literary Award was presented to a novel that is at odds with Europe and laments some of Europe's recent failures. I hope that the EU Literary Award will grow into a khotla for an open and egalitarian literary exchange between South Africa and the EU. But making the books which this prize will celebrate accessible to readers, that is the challenge. And that is where the real benefit to new writers lies.
   
   

6. How does it feel to go from being an unknown name to a name on everyone's lips?
   
   It feels strange to see The Silent Minaret in public arenas, in newspapers, on the internet, because it was a private, secret title for so long. I guess all writers must feel that. And while I am pleased that the novel will soon be available to be read, part of me will find it hard to let go. I guess all writers must feel that, too, a little like what it must feel like to let a child out into the world for the first time. The Silent Minaret is now no longer mine alone. It will soon belong to everybody who reads it. I hope that after all this publicity, they will find it worth their while.
   
   
7. Who are your favourite South African authors?
   
   Es'kia Mphahlele, Olive Schreiner, Sol Plaatje, Peter Abrahams, Athol Fugard, Wally Serote, Caesarina Kona Makhoere, Bloke Modisane, Achmat Dangor and Antjie Krog. More recently, I have enjoyed Chris van Wyk's Shirley, Goodness & Mercy and Damon Galgut's The Good Doctor. I found Mbongisi Dyantyi's story "The Witch of the Land" one of the most compelling in the Caine Prize anthology, Discovering Home.

   After hearing the judges at the award ceremony talk more about the other four novels that were shortlisted for the EU prize, I look forward to reading them all; they sound like incredible novels and I hope that they will all be published soon.

   I think that Phaswane Mpe and Sello K Duiker both captured so much so well and their loss is tragic for post-apartheid South African literature. We will cherish their contributions, but they clearly had so much still to write.
   
   

8. Which international authors or books have influenced you?
   
   Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatjie, Amin Maalouf, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi, Manuel Puig, Naguib Mahfouz, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy. They are never far away. I feel very at home in their books. Also Carol Shields and Edward Said. I am sad that their pens have fallen silent. Particular Said's. I miss him.
   
   
9. What is your opinion on the condition of South African literature?
   
   I detect an urgency in new South African writing, a need to grapple with current unresolved dilemmas, though that perhaps has always been a hallmark of our literature. Issues of identity seem to be a major theme for South African writers now, perhaps because the way in which we view ourselves has changed so dramatically in the past decade or so. I think there is a strong urge to capture something of the current reality, or rather, realities in South Africa.

   If the response to the EU Literary Award is anything to go by, then it seems to me that South African writers are at their desks doing their work. The organisers were overwhelmed by the response they received and the quality of the submissions. I'd like to commend all those writers who submitted their work for consideration. Writing, as they well know, is hard slog and it's not easy to lay down one's work for public scrutiny. I would like to urge them all to keep on writing, which perhaps isn't necessary - writers write because they have to, it's what they do, they have no choice, so I think they'll keep doing it anyway.

   But the condition of South African literature is also in the hands of South African readers. Nurturing a vibrant national literature is as much the responsibility of readers as it is of writers. Without South African readers, South African writers may as well write with invisible ink.

© Kopiereg in die ontwerp en inhoud van hierdie webruimte behoort aan LitNet, uitgesluit die kopiereg in bydraes wat berus by die outeurs wat sodanige bydraes verskaf. LitNet streef na die plasing van oorspronklike materiaal en na die oop en onbeperkte uitruil van idees en menings. Die menings van bydraers tot hierdie werftuiste is dus hul eie en weerspieël nie noodwendig die mening van die redaksie en bestuur van LitNet nie. LitNet kan ongelukkig ook nie waarborg dat hierdie diens ononderbroke of foutloos sal wees nie en gebruikers wat steun op inligting wat hier verskaf word, doen dit op hul eie risiko. Media24, M-Web, Ligitprops 3042 BK en die bestuur en redaksie van LitNet aanvaar derhalwe geen aanspreeklikheid vir enige regstreekse of onregstreekse verlies of skade wat uit sodanige bydraes of die verskaffing van hierdie diens spruit nie. LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf.