Tiny Interview #15 - Farah Ali
Here we ask authors we admire to share their musings on art and writing, spill their current reading obsessions, and give us a tiny wedge into their creative life. In this Tiny Interview, meet Farah Ali, co-founder and fiction editor of Lakeer Magazine, and author of the short story collection People Want to Live and the forthcoming novel The River, The Town.
(Interview by Cameron Finch)
‘River Bank in the Vale of Neath,' G.B. Gething, 1855
Q: What book(s) are you reading right now?
A: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, and The Maniac, by Benjamin Labatut.
Q: What brought you to the writing of your novel, The River, The Town? What was the process or evolution of its emergence?
A: I had a picture in my mind of a man or a young boy who either travels to a place where there is a need for water, or who lives there. As I reworked the first few pages, the character and the setting solidified into Baadal and the Town. Originally, it was to be Baadal's story, but then I became deeply curious about his mother, Raheela, and what her own growing up had been like. That turn was unexpected to me. But once I started writing it I was completely sure it needed to be a part of the novel. The other thing that changed from how I had thought it would be is the sequence of the characters' narratives. For instance, I wanted Raheela's past to start right after her major confrontation with her son. I want to add here that the first ten pages took me six months. It was an obsessive period of trying to get the voice right.
Q: Do you have any other projects you're currently working on?
A: I am very slowly translating a collection of short stories by Ghulam Abbas called "Jade ki Chandni" (Winter's Moonlight.) I am also working on a new book, a novel.
A: Music definitely does, in how it sets the mood for the words on the page. Frenzied or moody, it aligns my head with the head of the character I am writing.
Q: Do any other art forms influence your writing? If so, how?
Q: Where is your favorite place to write, and do you have any writing rituals?
A: Sometimes I write at my table, which is not a fancy desk but has a large surface where I've got some of my books. I don't have any rituals, really, but I need to be by myself when writing. When, rarely, I have written in a cafe, it's in the corner-most part of it.
Q: Who is a writer you wish more people were reading?
A: I'll say that I wish people would stay with a range of an author's works, and reread a favorite book or three.
