WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT READING

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

Bond! Ruskin Bond! That’s who my generation would come up with when pressed to name an author writing Indian stories in English.

My generation was raised on a diet of mainly English authors describing things we became oh-so familiar with through their books.

We – and those who became young adults in the years that followed – read Charles Dickens and Shakespeare at school and Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse for pleasure.

Barring Ruth Prawar Jhabwala or Kamala Markandaya, and VS Naipaul if you were so inclined, there were few Indian authors. The absence of Indian writing was so pervasive that, paradoxically, we didn’t even realize they were MIA.

English translations of Tagore’s works were available, but he wasn’t writing in English and remained, largely, esoteric.

Change came slowly, with authors like Rohinton Mistry and Vikram Seth at the forefront of a movement. Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, they transported us to realms we knew. We felt the frisson of being on familiar territory.

Now, there’s a veritable feast of Indian writing.

Last year, Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) presented Pankaj Mishra and Nandana Sen, among others. This year, the roster is expanded to include, among others, Canadian authors Ali Hassan, Danny Ramadan, Devakanthan, Farzana Doctor, Madhur Anand, Manahil Bandukwala, Mariam Pirbhai, Shani Mootoo, Shyam Selvadurai, SJ Sindhu, Sonya Singh and Zarqa Nawaz.

Fresh off the success of Motive, the crime and mystery festival that brought big names in the genre to the city, festival director Roland Gulliver is looking forward to the 43rd edition of TIFA this month.

Motive presented the best in the genre. Linwood Barclay, Shari Lapena, Ian Hamilton, Robyn Harding, Thomas King, Nita Prose, Kathy Reichs, Beverley McLachlin. And Val McDermid doing a reread of Agatha Christie’s classics. It presented The Hidden: An interactive immersive mystery experience for families created by Visible Fictions at Brampton Library.

Motive also upped expectations.

As TIFA director, Gulliver knows there’s a lot riding on the upcoming festival as we return to in-person programming.

His mandate, when he joined back in 2020, was to essentially rejuvenate, refresh and redesign the festival, he says. “Not just the 11-day main festival, but year-round programming. To reposition it as a top literary festival. TIFA is the longest running and largest literary festival in Canada and bibliophiles have a lot of love for the reputed festival, but some of it was in the realm of nostalgia. How did it fit in the present context? In the current time and space?”

Gulliver was brought in to make it bigger and better, to grow it, so it met the demands of what Toronto is. Into a world-class festival that engages with the GTA.

He landed in Toronto in the last week of February. Three weeks later, COVID-related restrictions brought things to a standstill.

But Gulliver is not easily fazed.

He reimagined the plans he had for his first festival, turning it into a virtual offering at short notice. To achieve his vision, he consulted local partners and authors on who he should be talking to, who he should be reading – even while working remotely during the pandemic. These included Margaret Atwood, Anne Michaels, Andre Alexis and Ivan Cayote.

“A lot of the ideas translated very well into digital, actually,” is how he puts it.

“Some more so, in fact. We had podcasts, programming in different languages. We took Critical Conversations and Masterclasses online. It was interesting! It also opened up different possibilities. You know how some people say parking is a nightmare in downtown Toronto, that it’s expensive? That it can be wet and windy? Well, all of those elements were out of the equation, we were able to meet people in their living rooms. People who’d seen my work internationally – authors and publishers – were able to participate digitally and see what we were doing here. And we were able to host events on our website, not through Zoom links, so people visited the festival.”

Pivoting to a virtual festival was not without its challenges, this was not something anyone had any experience of. And specially so, because in the initial days, nobody knew how long the lockdowns would last.

There were all the what-if scenarios.

What if they decided to go all-digital but then had to compete with live events come October (when the festival was to be held)?

There were questions around how to create a digital festival, how to draw people, to make it an interactive experience as close to a live event as possible.

Sorting out the digital and technical requirements for high quality, professional events. Simultaneous streaming of live events is not easy, and Gulliver says it was great that Harbourfront Centre, the home of the festival, had set up a digital transformation team and helped figure out which platforms would work best for which format.

At the mostly virtual in 2021 festival, celebrated authors had shared their thoughts on books.

Karl Ove Knausgaard in conversation with Gulliver had described the “Fabulous feeling of disappearing from yourself when you’re reading”. He also talked about a sense of panic, encapsulating what many of us feel: “I know so little, have read so little, so few years left.”

Anthony Doerr, while discussing his book Cloud Cuckoo Land with Canadian author Randy Boyagoda said, “libraries are the last public spaces one can access in winter. They are lifesavers in so many ways. Mom would drop us off at the library – they were portals into another world. I used to think of them as part of life, like leaves on trees. Only realized later that humans kept them going. That fires, fungus, termites, tyrants, so many people and things can hurt books.”

During lively audience interaction, people talked about libraries as safe spaces, as a refuge.

This year, the festival is turned around again, with more in-person, keeping some digital elements.

Attendees have a lot to look forward to. Headliners include Ian McEwan, Douglas Stewart, Maria Resa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize. There’s programming in lots of different languages including Bangla, Tamil and Spanish. Indigenous stories are a big part of the festival. Ann Michaels, who’s done a great piece on the poetry and history of Toronto will be back and First Story Toronto will be doing their tours.

Of special interest to desi readers, World in Other Words offers Bengali Stories in Canada. Members of the Bengali writing community in Canada – Rana Bose, Rummana Chowdhury and Sachi Nag – will share their experiences creating, sharing and translating stories. This panel will be moderated by Subrata Kumar Das at the free outdoor event at 12 pm on October 1.

At 3:30 pm, another free event hosted by Das, offers Bengali readings. Bhajan Sarker, Akhtar Hossain, Shabbeedur Shuja, Debanjana Mukherjee Bhowmik, Sreyoshi Bose Datta and Badal Ghosh, read their work in English and Bengali.

With a mix of readings, poetry and short films, Celebrating Toronto’s Tamil Stories showcases the vibrant community of Torontonian storytellers sharing Tamil experiences. Curated by Nedra Rodrigo, this event is presented in partnership with Tam Fam Lit Jam at 4:30 pm on October 1.  The ticketed event features Geetha Sukumaran, Devakanathan and Sriranjani Vijenthira.

In conversation events, readings, interviews... There will be many opportunities to engage with favourite authors and other festival goers in different ways.

Gulliver has spent the last two years preparing for it, getting to know his audience. And building on skills and learnings from the previous festivals. 

“We pre-recorded some performances for the 2021 festival, some were in different languages and we were able to do the subtitles. We drew a good number of people internationally, 25 per cent of the audience was outside of Canada and we’d like to build on that. Meeting and greeting one’s favourite authors and other book lovers, there’s a sense of energy to that. But digital supplements, complements that. So do a live event and maybe record a podcast we use later.

“We’ve also moved dates, The festival is happening now in September, better weather! I’d wanted to move it to a more conducive time of year. We have great outdoor venues, and everything feels more doable in nicer weather.”

We tend to think of people who love books as a homogenous community, kindred spirits, who all enjoy the same experiences, and extrapolate that to festivals.

Asked if that is true, if festivals the world over are similar except, perhaps, in scope, or if they have a personality, a distinct voice, Gulliver provides an interesting take.

“At the heart, book festivals are very similar in that they are all about people who love stories coming together to meet writers, to exchange ideas. But the festivals that work best are those that build their identity from where they are located. The International Festival of Authors (IFOA) became TIFA because it was important to reflect Toronto in the name both locally and internationally. That gives it its distinct character. Think of the Jaipur Literary Festival. Another that comes to mind is the Boswell Book Festival in Scotland. That’s focused mainly on memoirs and biographies, so very niche, but it responds to the place. James Boswell was born there.

“My ambition was to change the character of TIFA. Coming from Scotland, Toronto is such a huge city, there’s such a wealth of stories and languages. So much material to respond to, so much potential to celebrate the multiplicity of cultures, experiences and perspectives. That’s what we’ve been working on and what we’re presenting with the festival this month.”

Talking to Gulliver, his love for books and everything related to them is evident.

His English teacher introduced him to George Orwell’s 1984, to works of John Dunne and Tennessee Williams. Though he’d planned on studying science, Gulliver went on to study English literature at university in Edinburgh.

But he still didn’t visualize a career in books, he says. At least not until an internship with the British Council took him to Brussels.

There, he helped organize a conference, a part-time position became full-time and Gulliver was back in Edinburgh as associate director at the Edinburgh Book Festival via stops as general events organizer and arts manager at literary and design festivals, picking up invaluable site-specific and pop-up work experience along the way.

His mother, who is from an arts background, was very pleased with the way his career was shaping up. His father, however, had wanted Gulliver to be a doctor.

“Then he settled on scientist. And then he went very quiet,” says Gulliver with a chuckle.

Things are much changed now. His father was visiting Toronto at the time of this interview, very happy to be in a Top 10 global city, very excited to see his son as the director of the city’s flagship literary festival. 

Tickets and programming details at festivalofauthors.ca.

BOOK, LINE AND SINKER

TIFA Director Roland Gulliver on what he’s reading and how:

What are you reading currently?

Heather O’Neill’s When We Lost Our Heads.

How many books do you have on the go at one time?

Several – it’s a professional hazard! When we’re in peak-programming mode, it could be as many as 15. When someone asks if I’ve read a particular book, I often go, “Well, I started it...” But I do circle back! I think as readers, one of our greatest existential angsts is “too many books, too little time”. With so many books in the world, there have to be elements of pragmatism in your approach to reading as a festival programmer: Dead authors can’t do live events; authors on the other side of the world can be too expensive; then there are living authors who don’t do public events.

As a festival programmer, nothing can beat the annual buzz of excitement when you find out about the books for the coming year, whether they come from an international superstar or an exciting new debut. One of my own personal discoveries since becoming Director of TIFA is seeing new publishing landscapes open up as my perspective has shifted from the UK to Canada, and a new global world of books has opened up.

Alongside this, I cannot resist books about books – and writers writing about writing, of course. I am equally fascinated by the strange alchemy that happens when we write and when we read. Being able to tap into the insight of exceptional writers offers opportunities to find answers to this riddle.

In this category Gulliver recommends the following:

Last Letter to a Reader by Gerald Murnane. A fascinating journey through five decades of Murnane’s literary life as he appraises, reappraises and dissects each of his novels with confessional honesty. Exploring the conflict and Beckettian demands of his work, we see the repetition of imaginary worlds building with each novel. Murnane takes us on an intricate exploration of his craft down to the structure of sentences, the choosing of words.

Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri. One of the many realizations of adulthood is understanding that language and object are not the same thing. The word “book” represents the book but can never be the book. Perhaps that realization is greater having grown up in a predominantly mono-linguistic country like the UK. It was a joy to spend six years in Brussels amongst a mêlée of languages and it is one of my favourite things about now living in Toronto. The role of the translator and the creative art of translation has been deservedly championed over recent years and I love the creative energy that comes from the interplay between languages. Acclaimed novelist  Jhumpa Lahiri captures this in her new book Translating Myself and Others, which documents her progress from English-language novelist to translator to Italian-language novelist. The book is a celebration of words, grammar and dictionaries; it is a journey through the spaces between linguistic worlds, and a fascinating insight into the impact of writing in another language. As Lahiri says, “No words are ‘my’ words – I merely arrange and use them a certain way”.

Favourite author? Or, if that’s an impossible choice, the top three, or five, or more!

Even harder to choose and ever changing. So I will stick to living authors: Juan Gabriel Vasquez; Jo Anne Beard; Kevin Barry; Karl Ove Knausgaard; Richard Powers; Jeff LeMire; Cherie Demaline; Hisham Matar; S.A. Crosby.

Favourite South Asian author?

Nadeem Aslam. Partly because of his book, Blind Man’s Garden.

As the director of a literary festival, are you allowed to have favourites?

Yes and no. It’s important to have favourites, I think. Someone may love what I read, someone might find my reading choices weird. Reading is a shared passion and we pick up ideas and new authors from each other.

E-books or print copies?

Both! I think! A year ago, I’d have said print. When books are on shelves, you see them, it’s a visual reminder. But last year, with KOBO being a sponsor, I began reading e-books and discovered a whole new way of experiencing reading. It’s a great way to carry several books with you, and it’s cheaper than print copies!

Notes in the margins and underlined passages or clean copies?

Normally, clean copies. Unless I’m reading something to interview the author, in which case, I allow myself to mark passages lightly with a pencil. I’ve loosened up a little on this!

Which three books would you like to have with you if you were marooned on an island? Or stuck at home in a lockdown?

I would probably choose things I ‘should’ have read. Does Remembrance of Lost Things count as one book? That would keep me busy.

What do books mean to you?

They kind of keep me sane. Books are soul food. I need them to enable me to be me. I love the process of reading and am fascinated by why and how we respond to reading. It soothes us, it enlightens us. Our place is full of books and yet, I get more. My partner Janet and daughter Anna once described my head as a book.

I struggle on a day without books, on a day that I haven’t read.

“IF YOU ONLY READ THE BOOKS THAT EVERYONE ELSE IS READING...”

In his memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, celebrated author Haruki Murakami writes about his interest and participation in long-distance running.

The Book Lover’s Treasury of Quotation  (Hatherleigh, $12.) carries his thoughts on reading: “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” 

The introduction to the delightful collection says it all: “And by exploring all that books have to offer, we can in turn explore all that life has to offer... When we return from the world of stories, we want nothing more than to share it with others.”

Others in the collection:

Henry David Thoreau: A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint... What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

Harper Lee: Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Stephen King: If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

Albert Einstein: The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.

And then there’s this from Simple Pleasures by Clare Gogerty (National Trust, $16.95):

“Reading in a favourite armchair: It’s a simple enough activity: sitting in a chair long enough to read a book. Why, then, is it such a rarity, such a treat? Perhaps because we think of reading as an indulgence when, actually, it’s a necessity. The joy of devoting time to the straighforward but rewarding business of reading cannot be overstated but is actually hard to do. Life, and people, get in the way.

“The right choice of armchair, however, enables this. Mine is the sort that envelops me in its ample upholstery so comfortably that it’s hard to get out without a struggle. It is the definition of ‘snuggly’, and the place to curl up on a wintry day with a book and a cup of tea as rain patters on the window.

“Another way to achieve ‘reading space’ is to create a designated area – a reading nook. All it needs is that armchair to curl up in, a pool of light to sit in, and a shelf or pile of books by your elbow, waiting to be read. This ‘nook’ signals to household members that you do not want to be disturbed, thank you. Then you can comfortably, and guiltlessly lose yourself in that book you’ve been wanting to read for ages but simply haven’t had the time.”