Sebastian Faulks
Sebastian Faulks has been to India a few times. First in 1983 to what was called Madras and then to Kerala. Post that he has been to India multiple times as a cricketer, tourist, and for work. But Calcutta was always on his list. The British novelist, former journalist and broadcaster who was in the city with his latest book The Seventh Son, was a tad disappointed with the weather. He said, “I always wanted to come to Calcutta and it’s been great to be here finally. People are friendly but the traffic is truly terrible and the air is not good. I haven’t been able to see as much as I would want to because of the inclement weather, so I will have to come back to see more.”
Sebastian is known for his French Trilogy and gained the spotlight for The Girl at the Lion d’Or and Birdsong in the series. His other notable books include Human Traces, Devil May Care, Paris Echo, Snow Country and others that have often been in the bestsellers list and that made him recipients of many awards. A few of his works have also been adapted to the screen.
Before taking over the stage on Day 2 of the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet in association with Victoria Memorial Hall and partnered by The Telegraph, Faulks, who has over a dozen novels to his credit and who has been a regular in bestsellers lists, engaged in a tete-a-tete.
How does it feel being in a city that has been an erstwhile capital of the British and to a venue with the imposing structure of Victoria Memorial in the background?
It feels quite bizarre. The first morning when I was here people were talking about colonialism and the legacy of colonialism in front of this gigantic structure. I have been to India so many times and I have Indian friends here and at home and I think we all find ways of dealing with history. There’s so much in common between Indian and British people. At the superficial level, there’s cricket, we have a similar sense of humour and we have a shared love for literature. We appreciate Indian writing and we have seen a boom in Indian writers in the last 50 years. I think we will always be re-examining our past and looking at it in more different ways. And in my sense, it is in a very constructive way.
You are here with your 20th novel and you have been in bestsellers lists multiple times. Seems like the decision to quit journalism and become a full-time author paid off…
The transition happened gradually. My job in journalism disappeared when I was working for Sunday Telegraph, which merged with the Daily to make cost-cutting. It happens often in England. And after they have saved enough, they de-merge. It meant my job disappeared, which was fine because I wasn’t enjoying the job anymore. So, I told my wife let’s take a year and see how it goes with just writing books. We left for Italy for a bit and I published A Trick of the Light, which didn’t do particularly well but I still had enough money and was working as a freelancer. My fourth book Birdsong didn’t immediately go well but when it came out in paperback three years later it launched itself in the bestsellers list where it stayed for about two years. Money started coming in and I said to my wife we are okay for a couple of years. Journalism has changed a lot now and probably is unemployable, so I don’t think I am going back to it.
The Seventh Son is very different from what you have written till now. Tell us if it’s special in any way.
Every book is special to you in a rather pathetic way. You think this is the book the world is going to be changed by and then you realise that’s not the case. I had a friend, a playwright, who once said, “The fate of every artistic endeavour is qualified disappointment.” Not completely but qualified. A book never changes the world as you think it might. This one is different and I have hopes for it but it deals with ideas that have been turning in my mind for a long time about the nature of human beings and why we are so strange, and it deals in a more scientific way. I don’t think it’s science fiction; I just think it is fiction that happens to be set in 2040. My most famous book, Birdsong, I don’t think it as historical but a fiction set in 1916. So, it’s not that different from the other books that I have written. I enjoyed writing it and I hope readers will enjoy it too.
We live in a world where a work of fiction or any literary work can upset a group of people and the author has to face consequences. Do these things bother you and keep you on guard?
What goes on in the back of my head is how do I create living characters in a book and whether characters who are invented by me will appeal to the readers. My anxieties are around the creation of characters who are credible and not necessarily likeable, but they have to be interesting.
How big a social responsibility is it for authors to express themselves without being fearful?
We are very lucky in Britain it’s not like in India or Russia. As far as politics is concerned you can say whatever you want to. There are battles over free speech and we have all sorts of culture wars but I am not really involved as these battles are fought by people of a younger generation. So, I just read and observe and try not to be a part of it.
Moving on, you said you play cricket as well. Was it at a professional level at any point?
I have played at club levels and with professionals when they have been retired. I have played with the legendary cricketer Gary Sobers at a friendly match and my proudest moment was hitting a four over the square leg. We actually had a good laugh about it later.
Do you still play cricket?
No, I had to leave cricket because of my eyesight. I play tennis though.
What else keeps you occupied apart from writing?
I cook Indian food sometimes. I got a recipe for cashew nut curry in Sri Lanka and it’s absolutely delicious. Whenever I have tried making it at home it takes me the whole day to grind the spices and prepare it and it doesn’t turn up the way it tastes at the Indian restaurant near our home. I would love to explore Bengali food.
Damon Galgut
Damon Galgut is essentially a solitary person. When we spotted him at the author’s lounge, wearing a printed blue T-shirt, he was sitting alone in the company of his thoughts, undisturbed by a melange of people present around him. The soft-spoken South African novelist and playwright who won the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel The Promise, also loves walking and had plans of exploring the city as a tourist again on foot. On his 14th India visit and second visit to Calcutta, Galgut’s The Good Doctor also earned him many awards including The Commonwealth Writer’s Prize in 2004, International Dublin Literary Award in 2005 and a Booker Nomination in 2003. A t2oS interview
You have been to India quite often. Was it for work or leisure?
I’ve travelled a lot in India. This is my 14th visit to India and I think I’ve spent a few years of my life in Goa. I certainly can’t claim I know India very well because nobody does, but I know it better than quite a lot of other Westerners.
You have already written about India in Arctic Summer; has Calcutta ever been part of your narrative given your novels have this element of travel?
Not yet. I mean, I would need a much stronger sense of it. I’ve literally spent four days here before and for a few more days now but my knowledge of Calcutta is very limited, unfortunately. I would need to know more and spend quite a lot more time here before I felt secure enough to write about it.
What was your perception of Calcutta and have you been able to explore the city?
I found this city to be very different from other Indian cities; a very, very interesting one, in fact. You know, my impressions are superficial but I found it a marvellous city to walk in. That’s not true of Delhi, for example. I don’t enjoy walking there and Mumbai to a lesser degree. But there’s something about Calcutta and its aesthetic which makes it a very pleasurable city to walk in. It’s the centre of intellectual and cultural life in India and I’m an enormous fan of the films of Satyajit Ray and I know that his work is very much centred here. So I have far more interest in Calcutta than I have knowledge of it, if I can put it like that.
Since you’ve mentioned Satyajit Ray, you are also a playwright and your The Promise has been adapted for the stage. Tell us about that.
Yeah, well, I’ve been involved in an adaptation of The Promise for the stage for a year now. We had a run in Cape Town and Johannesburg and we’re hoping for an invitation to the UK. But, you know, it was a great experience to be involved in that adaptation. Well, you know, I think every writer would like their book to be filmed. I’ve had one book, The Quarry, made into a movie twice. Neither movie was entirely satisfying to me, but that’s a different story. The Promise might also become a movie soon.
Life obviously changes after winning a major international prize. How are you managing your writing process or are you discovering a new process of writing altogether?
The truth is I haven’t had much time to do it. I hope this year I will get back to my desk and my work. I’ve been travelling and talking, it feels to me, without stopping, since the Booker axe fell on my head. It sounds ungrateful and that’s not the case. I am very grateful to have won it, but it has changed my life in ways that don’t always suit my temperament. I’m quite a quiet person and a solitary person and that’s not been possible in the last couple of years. We all have our basic character and mine has always been introspective. You need to be able to be comfortable with yourself because, you know, the work is made by you, nobody else. But in a funny way, the work is recognised with a prize like that and that gets taken away. As I say, I hope it will come back to me this year. But in certain ways, although it’s been thrilling, it’s been a bit of a trauma.
Does it also pose a new responsibility to a writer?
I think what’s unnatural about it is that people expect you to have opinions about everything. And often it’s subjects you gave no thought to at all but for some reason, you become a kind of intellectual talking head and people think your opinion counts. My opinion on most matters is of no worth whatsoever and I have some thoughts about writing that may have value but that’s about it.
Talking about the time that we’re living in that’s rife with censorship, book banning and stifling voices by various means, does it affect you or your writing?
There have been a couple of times not on the page but on stage where discussion is happening where I’ve realised that to express a certain opinion is going to bring trouble. And one does avoid it, unfortunately. Not because you’re afraid of trouble but because if you say something, it may make sense in the particular context. But if you take that quote out of context, it can be used against you in multiple ways.
I think it’s extremely important that people be free to express any ideas at all. You don’t have to agree. You know, by all means argue but don’t stop me from speaking. I’m very bothered by this notion that writers can only speak for themselves. In other words, I may not write a book with a Black woman as a character or I may not speak for an experience that I have not personally lived. The very premise of fiction is imagining being people that are not you, so, if you take away the right to do that, you take away fiction. Then, in the end, what are you left with? People can only write autobiographies and memoirs because that’s the only authority that’s left. I’m very, very opposed to that. But I have not personally had difficulty in this area yet.
Apart from writing, travelling, and maybe watching movies, what else interests you?
I like to walk. Table Mountain is, you know, the main feature of Cape Town and I try to climb the mountain every week if I can. There are many different trails that one can walk in South Africa.
My enjoyment of keeping with my character is quite solitary. So I don’t like big music concerts or any activity that involves too many people or too much noise. Solitary pursuits are the ones that make me happy.
John Boyne
On his maiden trip to Calcutta, John Boyne connected with both young and adults at his sessions. The man behind the heart-wrenching tale, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas that sold 11 million copies worldwide and has been adapted for screen, stage, opera and ballet, looked fresh and excited in a crisp blue shirt before taking over the stage. Not ready to toe the line, Boyne is proud of his novel which is still talked about and that still generates reactions from people. We caught up with the Irish author who has written a dozen novels, novellas and short story collections, on a cold and rainy Day 2.
Welcome to Calcutta. Are you visiting for the first time?
Yes, I’ve been to India before and have visited cities like New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, and I’m going to Jaipur from here. My brother got married in Delhi, his wife is Indian. So my two nieces are half Irish, half Indian. I think the Victoria Memorial here is absolutely stunning. The traffic is insane and the way people drive is crazy. I don’t know how the drivers do it without causing accidents. So it’s quite terrifying but I find, like, everybody is always so welcoming. I really look forward to coming back each time because people are very generous and very kind. I went to a school this morning, and the kids were amazing. Their understanding of world events and history, and just their sheer intelligence is extraordinary to me.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas came out in 2006. Do think you could write that now as freely as you could back then?
I think it would be quite difficult to publish a book like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas today. And I don’t think that’s a good thing. I think it’s a bad thing that it would be difficult. You know, publishing has changed, the culture has changed where right now we’re going through a period where people feel that you should only write your own stories, and so on, which I disagree with, because I think a novelist is free to use his or her imagination, and that, as a reader, I don’t want to just read about my own life. I want to explore other cultures, other parts of history, other people. A writer should know what they’re writing about and should have the freedom to write about it. With social media and everything, people will just jump on you the second you’re writing about something, that is, theoretically, outside of your experience. But, you know, I just refuse to kind of toe the line on that. I feel what I want to write about, I can write about it. If you want to read it, read it. If you don’t want to read it, don’t read it.
You have been in such situations earlier. For instance, in connection with your 2019 novel My Brother’s Name is Jessica and then again with Auschwitz Memorial.
I’ve had my share of critics, for sure. My Brother’s Name is Jessica was a book written to support trans teens. But unfortunately, the way social media works, people who aren’t trans, or even gay or lesbian or anything, jumped on it. There’s a very strange cohort online. As for the Auschwitz Memorial, they had certainly said that the book should be avoided by those who were studying the Holocaust. But I didn’t write a textbook, I didn’t write a student book. I wrote a novel, and it’s a fable. And I think it’s done an awful lot to encourage young people to read more and to explore more about the subject. So, you know, I’m proud of the effect that the book has had around the world and I’m not going to be shamed about it.
Since you identify yourself with the LGBTQIA+ community, do you think this community is more of a soft target, or more vulnerable to attacks?
Well, I actually don’t identify myself as being part of any community. I’m a gay man. But I don’t see myself as being part of any wider group. Because I think that, for me, the problem as a gay man, of an LGBTQIA and all that is that you put heterosexual people all over in one spot, and everybody else over in another. As if we all have the same opinions and thoughts and views, and in some way that we’re opposed to, in some opposition. I don’t feel that way. I’m just a guy living his own life and I don’t want to be appropriated by others into any sort of grouping based on sexuality.People can attack all they want. I just don’t care. I just live my life, write my books. I’ll say what I want to say. If people want to attack, that’s entirely up to them. But the days of me getting upset about that or worried about that are way behind me. I just don’t take any of it on board.
You’re a brave writer that way.
Well, you see, the thing is, so much happens online and I just don’t read any of that stuff. Like, I did an event in Calcutta and it’s full of people who got their books signed. And to me, that’s what it’s about. That’s who I’m writing for. So, I’m not going to get upset about people online saying nasty remarks. If I couldn’t sell my books around the world anymore, I would be upset about that. But that’s not the case. I have a wide readership around the world, and they stick with me. So, that’s good enough for me.
Returning to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, I’m sure you didn’t realise at that time that it would become so big. How do you feel about it?
I’m very proud. It’s 17 years later, and people are still talking about it. Not many people get a book like that in their lives. It’s one that continues to be talked about and continues to sell and continues to provoke controversy; it’s better than being forgotten. So many people here have said to me how important it’s been to them in their lives. And even the people who are aggressive towards it, it still had an effect on them. They still have some sort of emotional response. So I couldn’t be prouder of it. I’m really pleased I wrote that book. It changed my life.
Did you feel any kind of pressure to perform post the success of the book?
I didn’t because I knew at the time that you don’t have an experience like that every single time. So I just chose not to allow myself to get into any kind of pressure. I just thought let me write the best book I can write every time and hope that it reaches an audience. Some books will do better than others and some books will be better received than others. But all I can control is the words on the page.
What are you working on next?
At the moment, I’m publishing four short books. I’m working on short novels, Water, Earth, Fire, Air, a sequence of novellas that will be called The Elements as a total. So Water has just come out. Earth is coming out soon.