While Christine Jordis is known for her extensive research in English literature, she is also a contributor, a novelist and an essayist. Works such as Une passion excentrique: Visites anglaises, Gens de la Tamise: Le roman anglais au XXe siècle, Le paysage et l’amour dans le roman anglais introduce the readers to aspects of England through the perspectives of painters, writers, poets and philosophers who have inhabited the island. Her quest for spirituality also led her to India where she has worked on Gandhi (Gallimard, 2006) and has travelled extensively in other parts of Asia, perhaps seeking the unknown like only writers can. Quite in common with Tiffany Tavernier, who spends her time straddling the screen and the page as a writer and a screenwriter, with her first novel Dans la nuit aussi le ciel (In the Night you find the Sky) being based out of Calcutta, a city she fell in love with while volunteering here at the age of 17 and a city that she still speaks of with a glint in her eyes. Her book Roissy has been translated into English and published by Seagull Books. As both writers reached Calcutta as a part of Bonjour France, held in association with Embassy of France in India, Institute of France in India, the Alliance Francaise and the Prabha Khaitan Foundation’s ‘The Universe Writes’ initiative, The Telegraph sat down with Jordis and Tavernier to talk about writing and cross-cultural exchanges. Excerpts.
Christine Jordis
So what has been your association with India like?
My association with India is very deep and it’s also part of the reason why I wrote a biography of (Mahatma) Gandhi. I’ve been feeling rather lonely in France, because France is now detached from any kind of spiritual quest. Of course, they say, and it may be true, and I hope it’s true that India has kept the spiritual dimension, which is lacking in the rest of the world. So I’ve been very attracted to Asia, generally speaking, and though I hate travelling, I have been several times to Asia, almost every year, if not several times in a year. I’ve been to Cambodia, I’ve been to Burma and written a book on Burma and Buddhism. I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been to Indonesia, and so on, you know, almost everywhere, which doesn’t mean that I know these countries, but I was able to write on them based on my first impressions and also to pursue a spiritual quest to try and know about Buddhism and Hinduism. And Gandhi was part of my research. So when I was invited, I accepted immediately, and very gladly, and I must say that I was very well rewarded by the meetings I had.
As an author, how do you approach the process of writing a book, especially about topics that are not necessarily familiar to you?
Travelling is a way to give me a kind of a movement, not only physically on the map, but intellectually. I choose my topics in order that they should make me travel. A lot of my books are travel books, but travel is not only a way of going on the maps, it’s a way of inwardly moving, transforming yourself, opening up yourself, getting to know new cultures. So you know, travelling and writing, to me, is part of the same process. It means opening up to others and opening to the world. And besides, it’s very selfish, because in France, everyday life is a kind of humdrum. It’s a routine, and I feel very stifled by the atmosphere and the country. I need a bit of magic in order to be reborn every time and this magic I get through Asia, and this time, through India. But it is not entirely magic, I see this poverty as there is anywhere else and maybe quite visibly. But still, you know, for me, it moves me inside very much.
I know about your love for English literature and your work with it. Just in terms of the colonial influences, do you see them in the works of Indian writers writing in English?
You see, I have been working for Gallimard, which is quite a well-known publishing house and I’ve been all over the world. I was working for 20 years as an editor and was responsible for the selection of English language fiction. And as such, of course, I read a lot of English, Indian or Indian-English books. And I can’t say that I found so much influence of colonialism. No, it seems to be in the identity.
In India, what I find absolutely wonderful and marvellous reading your writers, is to see that you have incorporated England but you haven’t been incorporated. The new writers have a lot of personality, I think. They have very special and strong characters, with a strong narrative line in the books. They have a lot of imagination, they are near the country, but at the same time open to the world. So I wouldn’t say that there is a crazy colonial influence.
France is known to be the birthplace of the ideals of liberalism and freedom and those sorts of ideals might be a little threatened in the world right now, due to the socio-political situation. Writers are supposed to be the voices of the times that people will read for posterity. So from that perspective, what do you think about keeping your work relevant and anchoring it in a certain time, yet, also providing an expression of art?
I think it’s very much sociology. In France, especially with the troubles we have between communities, minorities are playing a very radical role and it is very hard to be a writer because either you follow the ideologies that are fashionable, and in France, they are fairly marked ideologies, like “woke” and is very influenceable, or you are treated as a conservative and reactionary, which is very bad if you don’t follow those trends. I mean, this is limited to the intellectual world in France. France is very divided right now. And as a writer, it is difficult because either you are in tune with that or you are like me, you know, rather conservative, meaning that you write to stay open to the world, certainly, but also to remain French. Unity is a very difficult thing to obtain. I don’t think we’ve reached that stage. So as a writer, it is difficult because either you get accepted or rejected for these opinions.
Tiffany Tavernier
Your first novel was based out of Kolkata. What drew you to this city?
I was 17 years old and I wanted to give one year of my life to help and volunteer. So my first choice was not to come to Kolkata but I wanted to go to Egypt, for which, I would have to wait for two years. And then suddenly, someone suggested that I could try Kolkata, where I could get started right away. And I said okay so it was like my destiny. I found myself in Kolkata working as a volunteer for one year with Mother Teresa. Volunteers are very, very important because they will learn so much, so young. And you know, you understand that you are very spoilt and that’s very, very important to understand.
I discovered Kolkata and Bengali people, and felt an immediate kind of connection. I really got connected to the culture of Kolkata. You got libraries everywhere, concerts, movie theatres, people reciting poems. So every night, I was going out and listening to music or meeting Bengalis. So I had a very different connection than most volunteers.
Kolkata is something else and for one year, I had the time to be connected to something higher. I would say that Kolkata is very close to the French spirit. I have travelled to 40 countries now but this sense of curiosity that Kolkata has is amazing. So when I’m saying that Kolkata is very French, it’s not just because I just went to Kolkata, I went everywhere, and really the only place where I feel so close to the French is Kolkata. Both cultures love literature and art, and are rebellious people. We will never become slaves. There is also this appetite to meet other people and understand how it works. The city is so lively that it vibrates with joy. Kolkata is different from all the cities I’ve seen in India, even if I didn’t see all of them. This vibration was so important for the writer I was yet to become, when I was volunteering here. And naturally, I got the idea to put Kolkata in almost like a character in my first novel. I put this 17-year-old girl, totally destroyed and from a very low social class and how Kolkata, in a way, helped her to get back to life.
And I understand that you’re also a screenwriter. Do you find the transition from page to screen challenging?
I find it quite easy. A novel is very difficult, because you’re alone while writing it for one year or two years. Sometimes you miss a point and you have to do it all over again. And then you have to work because you have to earn money. Being a novelist is not enough, even if you have success.
But I like doing screenwriting. It’s a challenge too but I like it. I also like to experiment with all kinds of writing. And writing a script is very often with somebody else, which is a totally different experience. Script-writing is about dialogues mostly and the structure, which is very important for moving but you know, you have so many rules. You have to know the rules. And then you have to listen to the movie director because you are his servant.
What kind of Indian films have you been exposed to?
I’ve been looking at a lot of Indian movies. Bollywood has some interesting stuff. I have watched a few films by Satyajit Ray and there is a big gap between the films he made and what we have now, even in France. He was just in a league of his own. It’s also a way of contemplating life, you know — to take time, not to rush with your camera, to have only one line of dialogue, but it’s a perfect dialogue.
The big challenge is to slow down as a movie director, and add a vision. The political stuff, which I put in my novel, are mixed with reality — a very tough one but also mixed with poetry.
Like you just mentioned that you have watched a lot of Indian films, how important is it for you to have this cultural exchange?
So important! It’s almost a political matter and I think it’s the future. I might be too advanced for France, because I’ve been travelling so much and have a totally different point of view from most people I know out there.
Because if you stay in your own country, you just have one way of looking at things. The more you get in touch with a foreign country, the more you can get cantered. This helps in not fearing new things. This is why I encourage my daughter to meet new friends of all kinds.
The big question in all my novels is “who am I?”
So as an extension of this question, now that the socio-political situation all over the world is quite volatile, as a person of the arts, what do you think about censorship?
I think we are in a moment in the history of our humanity for the first time that we are in contact with the entire world like we are now. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube and everything is shaking, because suddenly, in one or two generations, we are connected to the entire world. You might be studying in a different country and your home could be somewhere else. Your travels could be in Africa but your home could be in Russia. A girl studying at Oxford might want to return to Saudi Arabia and drive and a lot of change provokes fear. There is a huge opening-up that is happening and then there are people in Afghanistan refusing to let their people change.
I feel that this resistance is often from people who have already lost. So they’re resisting with super high violence as they want to resist the change for as long as they can. And it will be the same for some countries and even in our countries, like in France, some people cannot stand the fact that everything is mixing. Even the brain doesn’t like change and confronts it so it’s neurological. But change is good and is needed for progress in rights of genders, animals, ecology and more.