Interview: The entanglements in Imran Garda’s debut novel

Every woman remembers that guy: the one that sidled up to her at her friend’s party (she was trying to look busy with a drink), sat by her side while other women made eyes at him, and—and without giving a thought to the fact that he should try to butter her up if he wanted to sleep with her—told her frankly that she’d based her opinions about pet political causes on erroneous information. You remember that guy? The one that was cocky enough not to care that his searing intelligence might burn you, and yet so vulnerable that you didn’t know whether you wanted to melt into him or throttle him? That man is the protagonist in Imran Garda’s debut novel, The Thunder that Roars.

Don’t get me wrong here: The Thunder that Roars isn’t a bodice buster, and Yusuf Carrim—Garda’s protagonist—isn’t a Barbara Cartland hero. Carrim is a South African-born investigative journalist who’s already made a name for himself by his innovative, insightful coverage of the Arab Spring. He’s currently based in New York, and professional opportunities are pouring in. Having no real ties to home or family, he’s able to go anywhere, take risks at which others with more responsibilities would balk. We already know that Carrim’s commitment is to his work, to the tangled political knots produced in conflict zones. His drive is built by a deep sense of loss and abandonment—an insecurity that’s perhaps born from having lost his mother at an early age, along with a defiant bravado created by having to prove that he didn’t, in fact, need to depend on anyone’s love.

Yes, he’s a conflicted, complicated man. When we meet him, he’s just bedded Michelle, a “half-Honduran-half Ethiopian siren” who matches him in complexity, but who comes across as politically shallow next to his savvy scepticism. Clearly, Carrim’s interest is driven by things that yield few avenues of entry; Michelle’s desire for him means she poses little challenge. When his father—a wealthy supermarket chain owner—writes him an email asking him to ferret out information about their missing Zimbabwean gardener, he returns to Johannesburg. Sam, the gardener, and the beautiful Lina, the family’s South African born maid, were Carrim’s companions though a childhood that was otherwise marked by loneliness and loss. Whether it is duty or guilt that takes him back “home”, or just the need to be away from the inane conversations that mark his life in New York City we don’t know.

We learn that the Carrim’s long-time gardener, Sam—after years of harassment and even a stint in prison for being “illegal” in South Africa—had decided to go to Libya, in an attempt to “earn good money” (16). Yusuf Carrim’s search for Sam unravels a story about the realities that those Africans with few privileges must face in the twenty-first century—we see that one’s nationality is nothing but a hindrance for people like Sam, whose nation state provides no place for one to make a living; we learn that that to be from such a place means that harassment and the fear of being reported by one’s neighbours are one’s lot. That instability can wear people down so much that they may take risks as great as uprooting themselves to go to Libya—a country that is so foreign to a Zimbabwean that Sam might as well have gone to the steppes of Russia—with little information about what they will be asked to do there.

I interviewed Imran Garda about his debut novel:

This is a story that reveals multiple types of “unhoming”: in Yusuf Carrim’s case, it is a psychological unhoming; he is born in a time when he and his family will no longer have to fear being dispossessed by the apartheid state, but can hardly call the palatial house in which he grew up—or even his body, one marked by scars for which he cannot account—a “home”. In Sam’s case, we see that being “unhomed” in a political sense continues for those who were not born within the borders of South Africa—with real repercussions. Can you speak a little about bringing these two types of dispossession—psychological and political/legal—together? One obviously seems far more privileged than the other, but theorists of exile often write about the impact of both forms.

Yusuf is young enough to be free from the kind of rampant injustices any of his older family members might have experienced under Apartheid. He also comes from money. His sense of dispossession stems mainly from his own family history (that which he knows about and that which he does not, yet) rather than the political and macro-economic factors at play. His actual home, as opposed to his country. And Yusuf has choices. This is the crucial difference between Yusuf and Sam.

Sam has few choices. He must keep moving, hustling, adapting to avert danger in a physical sense and the looming possibility of some authority taking away everything he has, everything he has worked for. He is a product of an unjust age. Internally disempowered in Zimbabwe and an economic refugee from the country — then treated like dirt in South Africa, no matter how long he’s been there for. He is married to a South African woman, has South African kids, has lived and worked in Joburg for years. But he’s still a Zimbabwean, stealing a job from a local.

Sam’s layers of identity – Ndebele, Zimbabwean, working-class, father, gardener… only serve to worsen his lot in life.

Yusuf’s situation is the opposite: The Arab Spring is blooming, journalism is changing and more diverse voices are getting the platforms that only Tom Friedman owned in the past.  Yusuf being South African is a plus. Indian another plus. A liberal Muslim a triple plus. It adds authority to his work (which is good, no doubt) and the power of this zeitgeist combined with social media propels him to a platform he might not have been ready for.

I wondered why you chose to saddle (accompany?) Carrim with a lover (Michelle)—a woman who is in love with him before she ever even has a conversation with him—before he embarks on his epic journey to find Sam. She’s not the traditional hero’s anchor figure, because she doesn’t really create enough of a tie for him. And (without giving too much away), you make it clear to the reader that when Yusuf returns, the return to her is not without challenges – it’s not a sigh of relief; it remains complicated.

Michelle is smart, also figuring herself out. A child of immigrants. She’s a beautiful and fascinating individual. But – we get to see her through Yusuf’s eyes in this book. So we are never quite sure of what to make of her.

Michelle has always wanted Yusuf. He knows this. He brings her into his orbit not because he’s always wanted her too, but because he can. And she was convenient.

It’s clear that Yusuf has mother issues. He cannot commit to any woman. Cannot bring himself to fully making a connection. Michelle comes back into the equation because, in real life, such men do so not because of any deep underlying love – but, as I said, often just because they can.

Readers begin to understand what drove Sam (the gardener) to take such a risk, going to Libya based on a rumour of a possible job. Carrim enlists a partner-in-crime, Professor Odinka (a Kenyan-born academic who provides humour, as well as intellectual analysis when Carrim’s journalistic mind is too dense to get finer points). Together, through some sleuthing, they glean bits of information from various reluctant informants. Much of what Carrim learns from both Odinka and Sam’s family members forces South African readers in particular to reflect on their prejudices and their ignorance. They may love the way their Zimbabwean or Malawian gardener coaxes roses out of the Highveld soil, or how well they care for the children, but there, they draw a line: if you get into trouble with the authorities, there’s only so much such loving guardian-employers will do. Beyond the transactional relationship, beyond platitudes about how much the gardener and the maid are “part of the family”, there’s little knowledge about those family members’ day-to-day lives. However, in The Thunder that Roars, you create entanglements that don’t allow us—or the Carrims—to pretend to a distance. Can you speak about why you added those complications and entanglements into these characters’ lives?

Great question. I love the entanglements. A big part of doing this was a desire to explore the nuances in post-Apartheid SA and how it relates to similar parallels in the global village. We often got to see work on SA (film, literature) that shows a white guy and a black guy, a racist Apartheid backdrop, some sort of Invictus-inspired Madiba-blessed catharsis. The white guy ceases to be racist. The black guy forgives. South Africa rides off into the sunset happily…

I wanted to dismantle this through the prism of Indian-Black relations, Black SA-Black Zimbabwean, SA relations to foreigners in general, Rich-poor, City-Rural…and “Prof” is one of the voices of conscience in the book. I love him dearly. Maybe someday I’ll write about him as a lead character.

We go from South Africa to Zimbabwe to Lampedusa…any reason for picking that particular trajectory?

Lampedusa, hanging there in-between Africa and Europe, a place of transit, a place most migrants never get to as they drown to their deaths, a place of refuge, a fortress defending Europe (or even the idea of Europe from the rest of the third world) was far too interesting to ignore.

Migration and displacement. It perfectly encapsulates the inner and the outer displacements that are crisscrossing each other throughout the novel. I also included it for its strong narrative links to Libya during the revolution.

You are well known for your journalism—working for Al Jazeera. Any trouble with readers thinking the novel is actually autobiography? What parts of your experiences as a journalist helped you create this character, add depth to the issues that Carrim learns about as he searches for Sam’s whereabouts?

“Well known journalist”? Thanks! Not totally true though. AIAC has far more readers.

Yusuf is not me. Perhaps he has parts of me. Undoubtedly there are strong demographic and bits of biographical similarities. But I would like to think of Yusuf as an amalgamation and a composite of other little bits chipped off the psychologies of many different men that I know, have known and have come across. The book was in part inspired by an irritation. Noticing how many young journalists were, like Yusuf, faking it to a certain extent. Capitalize on your brownness to be an expert on the Middle-East and speak with a sort of authority and gravitas that is not entirely deserved. Boost your twitter following too! As Yusuf journeys (internally and externally) I absolutely relied on many of my own experiences. Both as a young, flawed man who sometimes takes himself too seriously – and as a journalist trying to make sense of the world.

Plans for a next novel?

I have an idea for something that isn’t as close to home, I guess I’m deliberately unhoming too. Unfortunately I have a day job! Therefore, so far these have just been some preliminary scribbles in my notebook, a few tabbed pages, and a couple trips to the library. At least a third of it will be based here in San Francisco where I live. But it won’t be a contemporary setting. Will let you know once I’ve figured it out.