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NO TRESPASSER
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Uzma Aslam Khan's "Trespassing" is making waves on the book circuit. Writing is not a linear process, she tells ZIYA US SALAM in this interview
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IN THE Capital of India you may not have heard of her. That is until recent weeks when her latest work started making headlines. Since then, it is "appreciation" time for Uzma Aslam Khan, a Pakistani writer, born in Lahore, raised in Karachi. A few years ago her first novel, "The Story of Noble Rot" struggled to find willing publishers; never again is she likely to face a similar problem. All thanks to "Trespassing", a tale you and I would struggle to define, a tale she has churned out with great relish, a tale that is being "distributed all over the world" and "translated into 10 languages".
Q. "Trespassing" is said to be doing well. Isn't its success a vindication for the writer in you?
A. I'm very appreciative of the positive feedback I've been getting for `Trespassing' but I don't need `vindication'. If I did, I would have made the changes my former agent asked me to make to my first book; I've never regretted that I didn't.
Q. The book is being reportedly translated into nine languages. How does it make you feel in the light of the struggle you faced in getting your first work across to reader?
A. Actually, 10 languages now. The difficulty with my first book was not with readers; it was with an agent, and by extension, with the market. In contrast, `Trespassing' is being distributed all over the world, and of course I'm thrilled about that. But the more modest reach of my `first love' is in its own way sweet as well. After all, I wouldn't have gotten into this bigger door if I hadn't gone in a smaller one first. Because in our time a handful of debut novels are aggressively marketed each year, people forget that over the centuries, most writers have had to climb the hill from the bottom up. And for most writers, this is still true.
Q. It seems difficult to define your work. It has some passion, it has some nostalgia. It also has an undercurrent of politics. How would your define it?
A. I can't define my work. A story is not an either/or equation. What I'm enjoying about reviews for `Trespassing' is that that no two readers have agreed on what it's about. I take this as a compliment. There are so many layers and strands in this novel that to speak of themes of love as separate from the other themes is to miss how the many parts influence each other, and create the bigger picture. I hope I have linked threads that others may have difficulty unravelling because they work together.
Q. Is the book in part autobiographical?
A. It has little that's easily identified as autobiographical, but I was in the States during the first Gulf War and like my character Daanish, found Americans extremely reluctant to talk about it. Also like him, I was washing dishes to fulfil my work study/scholarship requirements. That's about it unless you also include the fact that I grew up in Karachi. I lived there during the turbulence of the `80s and early `90s, which is when the book is set.
Q. How long did it take to put it all together? Was it a single draft work, or involved a lot of painstaking research, writing, rewriting?
A. I started writing `Trespassing' consciously about six years ago, while looking for a publisher for my first novel, and while teaching in Morocco. But research for it began even earlier. I collected a lot of material on the coverage of the first Gulf War without realising that some of it would wend its way into the novel. And returning to Pakistan helped me complete the book, even though I started it outside the country. It helped in the research - with the silkworms, which I did observe close up myself, and with the visits I made to bus body making workshops both in Karachi and in Lahore. So there was a fair bit of research, yes, but most of it wasn't even needed to tell the story. Regarding, revision, some parts were re-written quite extensively, others hardly at all. But my process is not a linear one. The book began with a scene that appears 30 or 40 pages into the novel, the one where Daanish is driving home from the airport. His character grew when I developed that single image. The same is true for all my characters. And the visual catalyst that sets the wheels in motion can appear anywhere, at any time, but it's seldom the first glimpse readers have of the character.
Q. Finally, is having a writer spouse helpful for a writer?
A. I recently told another interviewer that as a writer, I'm like a caterpillar: When I write, I'm connecting threads and I don't want anyone watching, or probing. I'm driven by some kind of inner clock. It's a compulsion. My attention is exclusively on my characters and their world - and I trust their feelings and thoughts before I trust any others. And when I have something, it feels like a birth, a metamorphosis. My husband understands this, and perhaps if he weren't a writer, he would be less tolerant of my need for privacy. After all, he has it too.
Equally important is the fact that so much of our daily conversation is about literature - what we like or don't like, and why. We keep learning from those conversations.
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