12 or 20 (second series) questions with Sabyasachi Nag
SabyasachiNag is theauthor of Uncharted (Mansfield Press, 2021) and two collections ofpoetry. His work has appeared in Black Fox Literary Magazine, CanadianLiterature, Grain, The Antigonish Review, and The Dalhousie Review. Heis a graduate of the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University and the HumberSchool for Writers. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University ofBritish Columbia and the craft editor at
The Artisanal Writer
. He wasborn in Calcutta and lives in Mississauga, ON. www.sachiwrites.com. 1 - How did your first book change yourlife? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feeldifferent?
Back in2006, when I published my first book I was uncertain – what did I write? Is itany good? With my recent title, Hands Like Trees (Ronsdale Press, 2023),I am still full of self-doubt. So, what changed? I think the nature ofuncertainty changed. Much like copper fresh out of the mill greens with time,acquires a patina, I found newer things to be anxious about. Luckily though, mymost recent work deals with similar questions as my first title – questionsabout identity; belonging; the true nature of heroism – hopefully the answersevolved with time.
2 - How did you come to poetry first,as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I came topoetry for my love of language – the sound of words and the relationship ofsounds to meaning. Also, because poetry can fulfill you immediately; instantgratification keeps you hooked. During the early phases of my writing, thatinstant and guaranteed payback was vital for me to continue.
3 - How long does it take to start anyparticular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is ita slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, ordoes your work come out of copious notes?
Some formsare relatively easy for me, some are harder. I find short fiction, for instance,particularly hard. I take a long time to craft a story. My most recent title forinstance – it’s about 200 pages and includes nine stories, involving one familywhere characters repeat, yet it took me eight years from start to finish. Why?Because there are more than a dozen ways to write each one. Some writers take along time to write anything. I belong to that category for the most part.
Sometimes astory comes quickly and is pretty bad. Sometimes it comes quickly and is about okay.I think, for me, in general, everything cooks on low flame, as I like to takeeverything through the same alchemical process – something burns somewhere, youwatch it become ash, you dissolve it in water, extract the hard pieces from thedistill; mix them again and something else forms…and now something else burns,somewhere else and you start over.
My firstdrafts are rough. I rarely look at them again. I find note-taking as a processto get stuff off my brain. It’s a good method for my mind to stop wandering andpay attention. But I easily forget the notes I have taken. Good ideas usually stick,they never leave the brain.
4 - Where does a poem or work offiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end upcombining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" fromthe very beginning?
For me, poemscan start anywhere – a washed-up grocery list; a weird arrangement of shoes;late blooming tulips; the neighbour’s cat; the sound of a word; an image, realor imagined. Meanings inside poems have to be mined, so one can be courageousto start.
Stories,for me, usually start with an idea, not fully formed, but something with a headand a tail and I pickle it in a bell jar; let time work out the middle before Iapproach it again.
By thetime I start the actual writing, I usually know what it is going to be – astory or a novella, or a poem. Of course, each form requires a differentapproach. I don’t think of a “book” at first.
5 - Are public readings part of orcounter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doingreadings?
I thinkit’s important to get out there and read. It’s a great way, if not the onlyway, to listen to the sound of one's writing. I don’t do that as regularly asI’d like. I intend to do it more often.
6 - Do you have any theoreticalconcerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answerwith your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I liketheoretical constructs about writing to stay in the background, in the Jungianunknown. I don’t like to think of my writing as a response to anything otherthan my urge to string up words and hopefully make sense. I don’t carry apredetermined set of questions. I believe new questions emerge from the same oldquestions whether such questions were once answered or not.
7 – What do you see the current role ofthe writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you thinkthe role of the writer should be?
I feel thewriter’s role in culture is to keep telling stories. Stories are so important,we couldn’t live without them for more than three minutes – the time it takesto be completely breathless. While telling stories, one may discover storiestend to repeat. So then, I think, the writer’s role is to keep finding newerways to tell the same set of stories.
8 - Do you find the process of workingwith an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I feelit’s essential. The editors I have had the chance to work with were all sogood. They often did for me what a good photographer does. They made thematerial look better; removed inert bits; made sure the balance between spaceand conflict is optimal; challenged me for clarity.
9 - What is the best piece of adviceyou've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Show up.Writing will happen.
10 - How easy has it been for you tomove between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
I like theidea of it because, first of all, it’s a great way to push something awaythat’s breaking the brain. It’s liberating. But I like to not overdo it as I ameasily distracted. If I don’t move between two ideas or two pieces of writing carefully,I fear, I might be so consumed by the new stuff, I might never come back to thething I was doing when I got deflected.
11 - What kind of writing routine doyou tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you)begin?
A typicalday for me starts with a cup of piping hot Darjeeling tea with 2 green cardamompods, 2 cloves, 3 black peppercorns, and a piece of cinnamon stick, the size ofmy thumb. Other than that, I don’t like routines.
12 - When your writing gets stalled,where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
When mywriting gets stalled I like to read. That’s where a good bit of my inspirationcomes from; some of it comes from films; and the rest comes from sitting by awindow, doing nothing. I also like to listen to podcasts about wasps andbutterflies.
13 - What fragrance reminds you ofhome?
Home is acomplex idea for me and it means many things – identity, separation, alienation,rift, etc. Honestly, no one fragrance can capture the whole essence of the word‘home’. It means different things at different times and carries many differentfragrances.
14 - David W. McFadden once said thatbooks come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work,whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I agree. And to add, Cormac McCarthy said "Books are made out ofbooks, the novel depends for its life on the novels that have beenwritten." I depend a lot on books. And sometimes on films, nature, music,science, religion, people, art, and a host of things that are too many to list.15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work,or simply your life outside of your work?
Other writers important to my work are far too manyto list. I like returning to Tagore – who I listen more often that I read; Premchandwho I like to read in original; of course Borges who continues to amaze mealways; and Marquez, Cesares, Alice Munro, Atwood, John Williams, Don Delillo…it’s a long, long list. I easily forget the books I read and have toreread the same books many times over, only to realize I wasn’t payingattention the first time. I think, for artists, the boundary between life andart is so fluid, it’s impossible to recognize where ‘life’ starts and the ‘story’stops.
16 - What would you like to do that youhaven't yet done?
LearnSpanish so I can find out what I missed in the translations of César Vallejo, Roberto Bolano; Neruda and Antonio Machado; Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa to name afew.
17 - If you could pick any otheroccupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think youwould have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
If I couldpick any other occupation aside from writing, without a doubt, it would have tobe a farmer’s; I love the idea of small scale farming.
18 - What made you write, as opposed todoing something else?
I thinkthat’s because it’s one of the few things I can do well.
19 - What was the last great book youread? What was the last great film?
I finishedreading Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold last week,before that I read Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand. Last great film – Iwatch a lot of Bengali films – Kaushik Ganguly’s Nagarkirtan about genderidentity; Atanu Ghosh’s Mayurakshi about home, place, and time; GoutamGhose’s Shankhachil about borders and belonging; Indrashis Acharya’s Pupaabout euthanasia. I also like revisiting older films – Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, Michel Gondry’s EternalSunshine of the Spotless Mind, Christopher Nolan’s Memento to name afew.
20 - What are you currently working on?
I amcurrently working on a novel about a place that no longer exists, where I believeI had lived briefly, many years back, perhaps in a previous life.
