WEBVTT - Read This: Zanzibar Is Still Home for Abdulrazak Gurnah 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.480 Hello there, It's Ruby Jones and I'm back to share 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.119 another episode of Read This, Schwartz Media's weekly books podcast, 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.680 hosted by editor of the Monthly Michael Williams. It features 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.000 conversations with some of the most talented writers from Australia 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.520 and around the world. In this episode, Michael sits sound 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.840 for a chat with Nobel Prize winning author Abdul Razak Gerner. 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:24.439 As usual, I'm joined by Michael to tell me a 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:25.759 little bit more about the episode. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:27.440 Hi, Michael, Ruby Jones. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.520 Hello, So Michael, I think it's fair to say that 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.120 your guest on Read This this Week reached the pinnacle 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:36.920 of literary success in twenty twenty one when he was 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:41.760 awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. How life changing is 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.720 it to win a prize like that for a writer. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.040 Look, it's the big one in many ways, but the 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:52.559 Nobel Prize is a peculiar beast, truth be told. I 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.120 digress for a second, but there's this amazing video that 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:57.800 you can watch on YouTube from a BBC report when 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:02.200 Doris Lessing won the Nobel and it's just this fantastic clip. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.080 She's climbing out of a taxi and she's got all 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.240 these bags of grocery. She's eighty eight, She looks tired, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.840 she looks grumpy, she looks over everything, and then all 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.399 these people start thrusting kind of microphones and cameras in 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.520 her face and bombarding her. And eventually she's like, who 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.880 are you here to photograph? And the journalist says, we're 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.360 photographing you. Have you heard the news You've just won 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:26.240 the Nobel Prize And she looks at them, massive eye roll, 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.800 shoulders slumped, and she just says, are christ utter perfection? 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.679 Here is someone who's won arguably one of the biggest 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.120 literary prizes in the world, and she has no fucks 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.440 to give. I love it, and the Nobela is a 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.200 bit like that. It's kind of exalted in literary circles, 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.240 and yet it doesn't really have an impact on sales. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.280 It doesn't really cut through to the consciousness. The best 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.160 thing about it really is that it highlights authors outside 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:54.680 the anglosphere. So the kind of works that we would 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:57.720 normally only find in translation. You know an E know 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.800 or I don't know, ogatok. People like that suddenly get 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.040 attention in the English language world, and that's amazing. And 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.440 the guests this week. As you noted, Abdul Razak Gurner 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.679 won the Nobel Prize in twenty twenty one. Now he's 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.040 London based, tanzan enborn. He writes in English, but the 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.960 Nobel for him becomes this kind of massive boost. He's 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.680 been spending a career writing these kind of extraordinary novels that, 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.560 more than anything else, capture what it is to be 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.200 a refugee, the nature of human displacement, the kind of 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.880 long shadow of colonialism. But it takes those works from 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.240 the kind of literary sphere and make sure that they 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.880 get greater awareness, greater recognition, and that's super exciting. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.360 And so in this episode, you and abdol Razak speak 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.040 at length about his latest novel, Theft. So tell me 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:47.280 a little about this one. 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.679 Yeah, to be fair, he actually started writing Theft before 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.400 he won the Nobel Prize. And it's in many ways 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.160 classic Gurner. It follows three very different young people, Karem, 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.600 Falsia and Baddah, and their lives kind of intersect in 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.639 all these interesting ways that culminate in this shattering false 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.560 accusation that splits them apart. Is it such a terrific 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.200 novel and oneful bit of writing. And you know, for 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.000 all my bladder about the Nobel Prize, it's a reminder 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.519 that it's what's happening on the line, in the sentence 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.960 that really makes great literature, not all the literary accolades 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:25.120 that surrounded and Abdulraza is a writer that listeners really 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:27.560 should catch up with, if they haven't already. 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.320 Coming up in just a moment, Zanzibar is still home 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:33.600 for abdul Razak Gurna. 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.120 I might start with what is, in many ways the 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.720 ultimate obvious and banal question, which is the tyranny of 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.560 expectation your first novel after being awarded the Nobel Prize 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:54.520 for Literature, and whether that felt like a burden or 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.640 at the very least something that got into your head 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:58.360 as you are writing theft No. 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.440 Actually, I can say without any sort of pretense of 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.760 you know or whatever, it so happened that I was 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.160 some way into the writing of the book when the 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:13.360 announcement was made, maybe the first quarters of the book 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.640 in the end, but with the announcement that had to stop, 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:21.920 because I mean, there's just too much going on, and 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.160 my sort of slight anxiety is doing all these wonderful 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.680 things for the next several months or a year, and 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.560 several months I should say, was when I go back 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.640 to it, it's still going to be alive. And I 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:36.919 went back to it, and it was, so I just 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.479 picked up and carried on. And I guess, you know, 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.880 because I wasn't writing it, but I was thinking about it. 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.159 I was able to get back to it and move 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.360 quite rapidly in the writing because I had so much 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.880 time to plan and think and anticipate. 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.200 Tell me about that process or that feeling of a 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.960 liveness when it comes to writing a book. How much 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.120 which is that about a narrative or a story, and 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.880 how much of it's very much about character? Because this book, 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.880 perhaps alongside several of your earlier ones, but this one 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.880 is very acute la, a kind of three hammer, and 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.920 character is essential to the energy and the beating heart 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:20.400 of this book is that what's alive? Is it that 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.159 you can return and see those people. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:27.800 Yes, not only that, but the loveliest thing and the 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:29.960 most wonderful thing you can I can feel as a 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.240 writer is to say, I haven't said this yet, and 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.080 I haven't done that yet, and I haven't done the 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.480 other yet. So it's not only what's there is alive, 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:44.320 but they anticipated next parts are also already kind of 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.160 like stirring. So in that sense, you see, you feel 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.800 there is a destination. It isn't something that feels as 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:56.000 if it's kind of so what. There are things to write, 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.480 So that's the thing, that's the life. 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.920 That's a nice thing. So I'm not stat that there 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:03.640 is that kind of a desire to kind of push 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:05.320 forward and for motion. 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:06.320 That's it. 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.520 There is something to continue with, you know, So it's 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.840 not it doesn't feel as if it's kind of run 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:14.400 into the ground or something like that. 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:16.400 So there was that sense. 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.240 But also in the meantime, of course, if you're talking 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.800 about those figures, the characters, then I've had all the 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.320 time to think about them and to sort of shape them, 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:30.400 perhaps more in greater detail. Often I think of writing 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.480 as this kind of process of accretion. I start with 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.280 the core idea, and many of the things that end 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.880 up being the novel are not there already, but there 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.599 is the core idea, and then as you write, things 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.360 pile up, as it were, and get more dense and 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.360 more intense and so on. 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.920 I want to return to the three young people at 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.200 the heart of theft in a moment. But it seems 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.359 to me the other element that's integral to this book 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:00.880 is the setting, not just in terms of place, but 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:04.600 in terms of time. And I'm curious about that period 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.400 of the nineteen nineties in Zanzoba and what it was about, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:10.760 the kind of nineteen nineties into the turn of the 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:16.000 millennium that so captured your imagination that you knew that 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.559 was a period in life in Zanzeba that you wanted 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.160 to explicitly write about. 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:21.000 Yeah. 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:24.720 Sure, it was very much the period that it does 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:27.920 start earlier, So I wanted that to be the kind 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.080 of the focus period. But I also wanted to have 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.160 the before as well. And the before was the period 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:39.840 of just independence and the possibilities of that, the usual 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:46.240 disappointments that almost all our former colonial territories countries experienced 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:50.040 one way or another. But the nineties was a period 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.880 of kind of change in the sense of some of 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:58.800 the early ideas about what transformational society had already been 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.720 abandoned in a way. The various attempts to make a 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.480 socialist corporative state clearly. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.120 Did not work for Tanzania anyway. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:13.000 The excesses of the revolution in signsbag had quietened down. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.400 And one of the biggest factors, and this was tourism. 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.880 You don't want to have people being mistreated and whatever 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.680 when you have tourists around, because they won't come back. 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:27.720 It does take the edge of the cocktail. 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:30.680 Yeah, it does. 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:33.719 So in a way, it did lead rather strangely to 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.480 quieting things down, But that's not the only reason. The 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.280 other reason was also the kind of a new generation 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.080 of politicians and leaders now who many of whom were 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:49.120 people who traveled elsewhere, studied elsewhere and coming back with 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.480 different ideas about what is possible and what the future 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.160 should hold. So it's a period of possibilities. But possibilities 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.720 can also be seductive. They can seduce people from acting 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.760 within integrity if you like, and or strengthen others and 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:05.800 to say no, this is what I think is the 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:06.400 best thing to do. 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:10.199 So I wanted that sort of suggestion of things. 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.360 Opening up, but also opening up in ways that were 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:16.320 not always as clean as they looked. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.320 What was your relationship with zenz Aba at that time, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.199 during that period you had returned after the many years 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.839 in which you hadn't visited, did you feel it all 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.000 on the outsider returning after your period of exile or 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:32.920 was it still your place? 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.440 Can I just change that word exile? Yes, I don't 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:39.560 like to use that word. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.000 Because I don't think it's it's a description of my circumstances. Really, 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.520 because can me tell you why I think of exile 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:50.720 as a condition one finds oneself in a principle, usually 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.400 because you've said something in opposition, and in addition to that, 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.040 your life is at risk in some way, so you 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.120 choose exile rather than prison or being shot or whatever 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.199 it is. I left because I wanted to study and 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.840 it was impossible at that time, So my life was 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.599 not at risk when I left. I was not in 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:13.600 danger in any way at all. I was deprived of 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.640 this or that, or that or the other, but I 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:20.920 was not in danger. I think of exile as a vulnerable, dignified, 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.160 indeed an admirable position. I don't blame that for what 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.600 I did, which was to leave in order to improve 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:29.040 my life. 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.839 I'm very interested to hear that. I absolutely understand and 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.480 respect that distinction. I mean, in that period you're away, 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:39.920 even though it was by choice, did you feel a 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.000 sense of estrangement from your homeland? 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:42.680 Yeah? 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.400 Well, I did what I did because I was eighteen 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.920 years old and didn't know what I was doing, not 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.760 suggesting that it was simply a straightforward, heroic thing that 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.160 I thought, right, this is what I'm doing. Perhaps somebody 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.600 who was older and knew a little bit more about 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.439 the world would not have done that. But then at eighteen, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.760 you don't know those things. You do something which may 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.360 be reckless, which may which may be brave, or what 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.680 you don't know. You act because certain situations are intolerable. No, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.360 I don't want to live like this. So yeah, as 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.640 soon as I left. One of the first questions I 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.600 asked myself when I arrived in England was what have 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:19.040 I done? 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.720 I mean, I think that's a reasonable response to England 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:28.280 in many respects historically, so that's a fair question, even 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.320 beginning with culinary opportunities and they're moving on from there, 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:33.760 what have you done? 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.720 Yeah, No, it was more. It was more the being 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.520 so far away from everything I knew. And I think 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:44.960 this probably is not spectacularly unique or anything like that. 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:48.960 I'm sure it's the reaction of a stranger in a place, 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.240 particularly young, without skills, without money, without you know, any 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.719 kind of preparation. Really, but your question really was how 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.120 did I feel when I return? Yeah, So the very 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.560 first time I returned was after about seventeen years of 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:06.199 being away because, like I said earlier, knew new leaders 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.200 and so on, so there was an amnesty. So okay, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.280 everybody who left can return if they. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:11.880 Want to, and so I went. 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:14.560 At that point, I was not sure what kind of 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:18.000 reception I would receive. I thought, and this is to 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.240 do the guilt of the person who's been away. You 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.040 think either they will have forgotten me, or they'll say, 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.160 as soon as you open your mouth to say you've changed, 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:30.840 you're different, we don't know who you are, or something 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.440 like that. In fact, none of those things. The welcome 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:38.680 was incredible, and sure I was able to just come back, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.200 go back rather and feel at home. And subsequent returns, 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.079 of which have been many since then, I have kind 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:49.400 of simply reassured and endorsed and whatever all that feeling. 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.000 The first thing my father said to me after I 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.000 sort of greet at him, and he said, yes, hello, 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.679 have you said your prayers today? And I said no, 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:00.480 not yet. He said, well, you've got the mosque, now 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.400 I say your prayers. And I felt like I was 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:02.920 a son. 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.680 Yeah he is he hasn't seen me for seventeen years. 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.760 The first thing he says is have you said your prayers? 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:10.840 Go to the mosque? 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.240 Reverting to type with one's parents is exactly is a 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:16.160 great privilege. 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.120 You're still my son, I think, and do it what 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.800 I expect you to do. So it was very easy 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.920 to not even think about that, apart from obviously when 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:29.280 our hosts, but it was very easy to sort of 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:33.040 put that one side and be this other person that 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.800 I recognizably like the one I left, even if obviously 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:37.040 I'm not. 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:42.160 When we return, we discussed the three characters of the 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:46.080 heart of Theft, and Abdul Razakh is the problematic phenomenon 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.439 of tourism in his hometown of Zanzoma. 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:50.600 We'll be right back. 0:13:50.920 --> 0:14:04.640 So coming back to Theft of the kind of central 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:10.040 characters Kareem, Fasia and Bada. Was one of them prominent 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:11.920 in the conception of this book or was it the 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.800 interplay between the three of them that was your kind 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:16.520 of insighting idea? 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.960 Yes, better was the starting point. 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.560 In fact, I think I began by writing that section 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.600 which is now like the third chapter where he's taken 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.600 to the house of Uncle ost Man. I think that's 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.680 where I started. But because the starting point was the 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.880 accusation of theft, so that was the starting point of 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:43.880 the injustice of that, and it did how somebody in 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:48.520 his situation powerless to resist such an accusation, how he 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:53.880 might take that accusation, or what he might do about it. Yeah, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.760 So it was to start with, it was to see 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.440 to position him, prepare him, if you like, for that 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.600 episode that it's going to be that he's going to 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.360 be accused. And as I was thinking of that, I 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.480 was thinking, well, how is he what are going. 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:08.480 To be his options as he were? 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.400 And then that's how Kareem came to mind that he 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.360 was going to be somebody who befriends him and takes 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.920 him away. And then I'm not saying anymore because it 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.160 really might spoil for the reader. 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.280 Part of what I think is so acutely realized in 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:29.920 this book is that the nature of a wrongful accusation 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.160 is so embedded in ideas about how you are perceived 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.840 by others and the ways in which they get to 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.000 define who you are and what your capacity and your 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.280 limitations are. And that seems to me to be a 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.440 particularly interesting idea in this book. 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.840 Yes, indeed one of the reasons for making better as 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.280 he is, which is that he's a set powerless, but 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:59.160 he's also aware of his powerlessness. He's an intelligent young man, 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.360 which in a way is precisely what makes him so 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.400 watchful and looking and seeing and trying to understand all 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.040 the time. So for me, it seems that this is 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:16.800 his greatest defense. He doesn't protest, he doesn't try to 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.120 defend himself against these accusations, or rather he does only 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.400 feebly as well. But he doesn't he doesn't have an 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.920 answer because he has no position, he has no power, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.560 he has no support. But what he has is this 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.600 ability and capacity to see and kind of think about 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:37.800 it and learn something. And as you know, as as 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.640 you said, you've read so of in your books, I'm 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:44.440 always interested in how people manage to draw back from 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.840 a traumatic situation, At a situation which is which is oppressing, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.320 how do they find the means to retrieve something from that, 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:57.400 to get out of that. Whereas somebody like Kreem moves 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:03.680 on because of his dynamism, I suppose it's it's ambition, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.520 et cetera. Something like whether doesn't move on but kind 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.840 of calmly tries to understand. 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:14.359 And at the heart of that is that kind of 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:21.880 relationship between passivity as a character and active kind of engagement. 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.720 And you know, between those two that becomes a kind 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.400 of a major point of tension. There's that and I'm 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.320 sorry I'm going to misquote this, but there's a wonderful 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.960 moment when but things to himself, I've learned to endure that. 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:39.080 You know, the steadiness that that not being reactive, that 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.480 not defining yourself in oppositions to the things that happen 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.560 to you can be a virtue in and of itself. 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.680 Well, especially if you don't have the means to defend yourself, 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.719 if you don't have the means to say that's nonsense, 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:54.359 I'm not having that, don't talk to me like that, 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.560 or something like that. It won't it won't achieve anything 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.399 because of the situation that he's in. But in any case, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:06.040 it's also a kind of defense. Courtesy and silence and 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.720 whatever can sometimes work to disarm. 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.600 Tell me about the kind of third key figure in 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:19.160 the present day narrative or the latter narrative of the book, Fauzia. 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.359 Tell me about her and where she came from, and 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:22.280 how you say her. 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:27.160 Well, I got interested in the idea of epilepsy as 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.040 I started to write, and somehow, you know, this is 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.600 what I think of his writer's luck. I had this 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.600 idea that I was starting to work or whether and 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:39.240 I heard a story of somebody I knew whose son 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:45.000 was born epileptic and very intelligent, gentleman, really talented, and 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:50.280 the anxieties and difficulties that the parents had for this boy, 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.840 this young man growing up. I think I was about fourteen, 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.000 And so I became interested in the idea, Well, what 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:57.320 are the symptoms, what is it? 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.600 How can it be dealt with? You know what I mean? 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.399 And in the circumstances of a place like Zanziba, where 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.000 where really health services are not very advanced still in fact, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.560 if anything they've gone down, how would that have been perceived? 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:17.040 And how would the parents have coped with that? So 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.320 that first gave me fare, but it also gave me 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.040 Fausia's parents, you know, to see how they might cope, 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:27.720 particularly the mother. And naturally, you know, in a novel, 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.920 you've got to have a romance going on somewhay. 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.320 You have a deeper romantic heart. It has to be said, 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.880 you know, you know, more than many novelists with ten 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.320 eleven books. And then I think I come to expect 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:41.840 when I read a book from you, that there is 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:42.880 going to be a romance. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.400 Absolutely okay, So it was obvious that this young woman 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.080 was going to be part of the relationship with either 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:56.200 possibly this career, but it becomes it's not just romance 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.160 for on its own sake. It also becomes away of 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:04.360 trying to understand human relations and how people are sympathetic 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.560 or kind to each other all the opposite. And it 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.560 seems to me that one to one, that is to 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.119 say that a loving or not a loving relationship is 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:20.080 the most intense kind of stage in whicher to explore 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.639 capacity for compassion and kindness and empathy and all of 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.359 those six and so we see how people cope. 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.680 And I think compassion and kindness and empathy but also accommodation. 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.520 You know that thing about modifying one's life for one's 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.240 expectations because of love for another. And I think you 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.280 capture those rhythms of a love story incredibly well, that 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:49.399 idea that there is stuff that you give up willingly. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.960 For love, absolutely, and not only for love of man 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.960 and woman, of course, but also for love of a child, 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.200 to parent parent child, and all of these ways. So 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.120 Farsia is also, of course a dutiful daughter as well 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:11.560 as a clever and interested young woman. As Karim says 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:16.960 of her, you think, maybe slight condescension, she's an intellectual. 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:22.040 Coming back to the thing that you flagged before about 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.080 Zanzibar in the nineties and the rise of tourism, because 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.800 I do. I think that that's one of the threads 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.320 in the book, and one of the kind of pressures 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.800 that I just don't remember reading before is it's such 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:41.399 a kind of potent postcolonial theme. But you deal with 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:43.280 it very gracefully, very sharply. 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.560 I think, well, of course, I know that tourism is 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:51.439 a problematic phenomenon, and I know that very well, whereas 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.000 answer Base can sert, but that wasn't the show I 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.080 was interested in here, or rather, what I'm interested in 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:01.000 is also in a kind of original way, the way 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.360 these become disruptive forces. There is a way in which 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:06.840 they are very much disruptive forces in the way they 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:11.800 affect the economy, the way they encourage our leaders to 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.159 become more corrupt than they're inclined to be. Because of 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.680 all these commissions to get here, commissions to get there. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.400 But there is another way in which, as I said earlier, 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.480 it forces. 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:29.960 The administration like the government, to provide a more peaceful environment. 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:34.159 It forces all kinds of developments to happen, roads to 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:40.639 be made, so the country kind of gains something even 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:46.560 as it loses some of the normal you know, rules 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.040 of behavior and so on that people are drawn into. 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:51.680 Less so now than I think at first. 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.240