{"id":145,"date":"2011-04-11T21:52:59","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T21:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=145"},"modified":"2012-05-19T05:47:13","modified_gmt":"2012-05-19T05:47:13","slug":"round-table","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/round-table","title":{"rendered":"Roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Routes and Roots<\/strong><\/strong><\/h1>\n
(Poet, Amatoritsero Ede, in conversation with novelist, Madeleine Thien)<\/em><\/em><\/h6>\n

Amatoritsero Ede<\/strong>: It is our pleasure at MTLS to be able to get you to sit down with us. We know you have a busy schedule. Thank you! First, lets talk about your move (?) from Canada to Germany. Are you on a break from Canada or do you now live in Germany or you are simply travelling?<\/p>\n

Madeleine Thien<\/strong>: I’m in Germany because my partner, Rawi Hage, won a fellowship here from a German institution that brings writers, composers, filmmakers and visual artists to live in Berlin for a year. So it’s been a break of the most wondrous kind! I’d been to Germany three or four times, and to Berlin once before, but having the chance to live here, to meet other artists and be part of the cultural life, has been incredibly lucky. It’s fed my writing and my life. At the moment, we are here only temporarily, but I’d like to find a way to keep a foot in Berlin. It’s an ever-surprising city. I feel like there’s space to create and think and room to breathe.<\/p>\n

A.E.:\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>Incidentally I lived in Germany for eight years as a student. I have my own views about her cultural, political and social life. What are your own impressions both as a writer experiencing the literary milieu and as an individual living in or visiting that space?<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> Here, I have the feeling of living on a partition, even though that line \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the Berlin Wall, or the divide between former Communist governments and the West \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is no longer immediately visible. Maybe this feeling comes from being situated between Western Europe and Eurasia, and having always looked both east and west, rather than only to the West. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great deal of memory here, and at the same time, a kind of push-pull correlation between remembering and living, memorialising and creating. It’s the most spacious city \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in terms of artistic ideas, openness, and freedom \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that I’ve ever encountered. This is not to say that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a perfect city and that xenophobia or racism don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exist. They do, as they do in every place in the world. But in Berlin, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great deal of questioning, and this makes me hopeful.<\/p>\n

A.E.:\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>In an interview you mentioned being a nomad. You do move around. What was your experience of Nigeria like?<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> I loved Nigeria. The visit was short, less than two weeks, the kind of visit that is more of an opening, an introduction or a temptation! We taught in Abuja and did readings in Lagos, and being in these cities was one of the great experiences of my life. I knew immediately that I wanted to come back. Even just sitting in the infamous Lagos traffic was energizing. Plus I became addicted to the spices, the pepper soup and the local beer I needed to put out the fire.<\/p>\n

A.E.:\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>I know you were in Nigeria for the Fidelity Bank organized writing workshop anchored by you, my friend, Helon Habila and Tsitsi Dangaremgba. What was it like working with writers from other places who, along with you and other young writers, are reshaping 21st century world literature?<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> Even though Helon, Tsitsi and I come from very different places, we each write about the mechanics of government and ideology, and about histories that are far from over. We share a great many things. In the end, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure the young writers taught me more than I taught them. They had experienced many things in their lives . . . I felt there was a hunger for expression, for ways of finding the right words and the right language to tell stories that are not being heard, whether at home in Nigeria, in Africa, or internationally. They had a lot to say about Nigeria, the current political situation, the complexity of home and language, and the lives of minorities \u00e2\u20ac\u201c ethnic and religious \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and women. They are some of the bravest and boldest young writers I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve worked with. There was no sense of entitlement. Instead, there was real and difficult engagement with the world around them. Writing is not an easy life choice, and these writers are facing much more serious obstacles than writers in Canada, the UK or the United States, and I found the depth of their commitment substantially different from writers elsewhere. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hoping to return to work with Tsitsi later this year in Zimbabwe. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re still figuring out logistics, but I would love to collaborate with her again, and of course with Helon. We also had some ideas for a more pan-African workshop for young writers.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> From your direct experience of their stories could you give us an idea of the kind of obstacles these young Nigerian writers you mentored have to deal with?<\/p>\n

M.T.: <\/strong>All of the writers were working or studying full time, some could not afford computers and were not able to access online resources, most were just staying afloat financially. Some did not have easy access to books or contemporary literature. Artistically, they were writing in English but trying to stretch the English language not only to accommodate local dialects and melodies, but to profoundly resonate with them. In some ways, they’re making a new literary language while drawing on the traditions of English literature, Nigerian literature in all its diversity, and the other languages at their disposal. Finally, they’re trying to actively respond to and challenge the things they’ve witnessed and the current political situation. History and politics are in no way abstract or removed from their daily lives. Finally, they’re distant from the centres of publishing, London and New York, and have to be ten times as good in order to get read. As my mother used to say, You need to better so that you might be equal.<\/p>\n

A.E.: <\/strong>This leads me to your most recent Novel, Dogs at the Perimeter<\/em>. The setting shuttles between Canada and Cambodia. How do the emotional geographies you traverse and the memory of places shape that work?<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> I remember, the first time I travelled to Asia, I was about twenty-three years old. Before I left Vancouver, I went to the apartment where my father was living. He sat down at the kitchen table, took out a piece of paper and a pencil, and drew a map of the town where he was born. He wrote down the names of streets, drew individual buildings, including a shop my grandfather once owned, the location of a bank, churches, and other landmarks. In thirty years, my father had travelled back to Malaysia just once, and he rarely talked about the first half of his life. I still have the piece of paper. It was like watching something unspoken and very private suddenly come to life. I think the unspoken, past (dismantled) life has shaped all my work. In Cambodia, the emotional geography is intense and difficult and deeply humbling. My characters are almost always carrying geographies that are invisible, and they are trying to honour the memory of people they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve left behind or lost forever. Canada is full of the ghosts that people from all over the world are carrying with them. At the same time, these characters want to reinvent themselves, to have the chance to become someone new.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

A.E.:\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>And identity. You have been asked a lot in Europe \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and even in Quebec: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwhere are you from?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Is the idea of origins and roots, nationalism over-emphasised in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s world? Lets think multiculturalism, and of Canada as model.<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> Migration is something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always been fascinated by. The movement of people is as old as human history; I think we could even argue that migration is human history.\u00c2\u00a0 Every generation of my family has, as far as I know, a history of moving, whether it be internal migration in China, or across the seas to Malaysia, Australia, the United States, England, Poland, or Canada. People move in search of resources and livelihood; the current generation of my family is lucky because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been able to immigrate as skilled workers, researchers and professionals. In earlier generations, they migrated, or fled, because of poverty. In the end, I think it would be hard, and perhaps unnecessary, to definitively categorize their origins. I feel that my home is Canada, but also feel that my roots stretch in many directions. They go back much further than I could ever see, and they are never a straight line. I took part in this wonderful DNA project with National Geographic, and found that my ancestors left Africa 60,000 years ago, and one branch is believed to have settled in Australia; another branch eventually crossed the Bering Strait and became some of the first peoples of North America. Meanwhile, others went through India to present-day Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and China. When I was growing up, we moved houses almost every two years. Each time, my parents hoped the new apartment would bring good luck or changed fortune. It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, but the motion of moving, the hopefulness and the yearning of it, has stayed with me.<\/p>\n

A.E.: <\/strong>In an interview with Ian McGills you responded to a question in these words: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The idea that we don’t rely on altruism but choose to be altruistic might take us farther than simply believing that we’re naturally good.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The context is your sensitive treatment of war and trauma in Certainty<\/em>, your second novel. The 18th century Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considers the idea of original goodness an illusion. Is this pessimistic?<\/p>\n

M.T.: <\/strong>No, I don’t think this is pessimistic; and in a way, maybe optimism and pessimism aren’t the most useful ways of looking at our natures. Self-interest, for individuals and groups, exists and is persuasive. If we knew this fact (innate selfishness rather than original goodness), and chose to work against it, would our actions change? I do think that if we didn’t see ourselves as elevated or chosen or set apart on this planet, we’d be better creatures.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> Lets us look at the idea of the writer as an altruistic figure in modern society, mapping for us human foibles and how to better negotiate it; in that case would you consider writing an altruistic act?<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> I come from a family where the stories were hidden and so I’m curious about what gets articulated: how stories are told, how they’re read and interpreted, how they get lost and resurface again in unexpected, changed, forms. Writing, by its nature, isn’t altruistic. But I’m drawn to the endeavor of trying to write about a world beyond one’s self; and at the same time: how to make visible the complexity of a character’s humanity, to make it as vivid and true and real as one’s own life? To live many lives faithfully, if such a thing is possible.<\/p>\n

A.E.:\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you look at the events of the Arab spring, which is not finished in Syria, would you say Rousseau is right?<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> I think it may be too soon to tell, but their bravery is extraordinary. Syria, Libya, Iran, Tunisia and Egypt\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI feel, and hope, that a lasting movement is happening. In my lifetime, we’ve seen this kind of mass protest before, when students and workers and people from all walks of life occupied Tiananmen Square for almost three months in 1989, and also the activists, writers and artists in Burma, and the individuals in Cambodia who are fighting against widespread corruption and brutality. I hope that when the fighting is over and people are no longer on the streets, we won’t relegate these places to the back pages or to silence, and forget that change is also about institutions and structures. It takes the work not just of a season, but of a generation.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> When I ask if Rousseau is right, I also mean to ask whether you think his underlying premise \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that the human being is innately evil \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is justifiable looking at the figure of Syria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Assad for example \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or any specific types of events, say the holocaust, slavery, terrorism etc.<\/p>\n

M.T.: <\/strong>I don’t think we can say that a human is innately good or innately evil. Maybe the most precise thing we can say is that a person, or any creature for that matter, tends to look after his or her own self-interest first, and the interests of his or her group. Richard Dawkins calls this the Green Beard effect: that is, we protect and show altruism to individuals we recognize as being like ourselves (or, to put it another way, carrying copies of ourselves. Thus, if we have a green beard, we instinctively protect other people with green beards). One way to work against this is to expand the circle of ourselves, to open the world and not close it off. More specifically, to answer your question, power, and the drive to maintain it, brings out the worst qualities we have, and this happens at every level of society, from top to bottom, from groups to individuals. Genocides, torture and occupation could not happen without this drive for power. It’s clear, I think, that Pol Pot didn’t start off as an innately evil man. But once the Khmer Rouge won the war, he and his circle believed that any sacrifice paid by Cambodians would be justified.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong>How should a writer feel in the face of the tumult in the world? Does literature matter or how can literature matter?<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> I hope so. I think the best way is to write books that do matter. Writing a book takes patience. I think you have to stand still and look at things for a long time, so that you can begin to see under the surface. I also think that reading is like this. We look at other lives and we engage with other lives, and we do this not merely to improve ourselves or for individual self-interest, but because the world, on its own terms, matters.<\/p>\n

A.E.:<\/strong> Finally we do appreciate you taking the time off your projects and reading tours to do this. Merci!<\/p>\n

M.T.:<\/strong> Thank you so much! It was a pleasure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Routes and Roots (Poet, Amatoritsero Ede, in conversation with novelist, Madeleine Thien) Amatoritsero Ede: It is our pleasure at MTLS to be able to get you to sit down with us. We know you have a busy schedule. Thank you! First, lets talk about your move (?) from Canada to Germany. Are you on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-145","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1307,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions\/1307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}