CWP is conscious of the non-English literary traditions: Hasluck

Nicholas Hasluck straddles two worlds with equal ease. In one, he is a judge with the Supreme Court of Western Australia. In the other, he dons the gown of an acclaimed author who has ten published fictions, including the award-winning The Bellarmine Jug and The Country Without Music.  Hasluck, who studied law at the University of Western Australia and Oxford University, has been the chairperson of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (CWP) judging panel since 2006. A member of the the Order of Australia (AM), this multi-faceted personality, Hasluck spoke with Deccan Herald’s Utpal Borpujari after finishing the judging process that selected Rana Dasgupta’s Solo for the top prize in Delhi:

As the chief judge of the CWP, do you think the Subcontinent has become the strongest hub of writing in English?

I think there is a very strong presence of the Subcontinent in Commonwealth writing, but I also think that we are getting a range of fascinating works from countries like Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand too. If you look into the winning books of the last four years, you have winners from New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Pakistan. So I think you can see every part of the Commonwealth is coming into its own.

You get such diverse writing of high quality from all over the Commonwealth. What are the criteria you use in judging them?

I underline the point that the criteria is literary merit. What is literary merit is a broad term, but some of the conventional elements of fiction are to be considered in that, namely, style, grace of the writing, the mood and tone of the whole book, character plots, how engaging the author is with the theme, from which one develops a sense of what the author is trying to achieve, and whether it is experimental or conventional. I think the judges are looking for a sense of whether the work is harmonious between character and plot styles. We are also interested in signs of innovation, as can been seen in the last few decades, for example in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, which was a book of great exuberance but developed a completely new idiom, almost a formless narrative.

How does the shortlisting for the prize happen?

The great strength of the CWP, and particularly in recent years it has been steadily gaining a lot of prestige for that, is the diversity of the judging and the screening process. Each of the four regions – Africa, Canada-Caribbean, South Asia & Europe, and South-East Asia & Asia-Pacific – entries are received from publishers, are shortlisted by regional judging panels and ultimately the regional winner is found. It is quite obvious that you are drawing out a wide variety of published works from the Commonwealth countries through this. If you run a literary competition from London, it is quite obvious that the publishers will be focusing on books that have been well reviewed in the London press, but the reality will be that they will be ignoring this enormous wealth of talent of the Commonwealth. So I think our prize has drawn out so many wonderful books that otherwise might have escaped attention. And of course some of recent winners have gone on to succeed in the London based prizes, including the Booker Prize. I think CWP is gaining in standing and prestige because of this.

There is a huge number of languages in these countries which have their own excellent literary traditions. Is there some thought on how to bring that under some kind of umbrella like the CWP?

You have a raised a matter that is being kept very much under discussion. We are conscious of that. One would be wanting to tap into all the Commonwealth literature, but there are certain logistical problems in finding a wider range of judges other than the English language judges. That is to be solved, but there is an immense amount of literature that needs to be included if that can be done. But I cannot point you to any immediate solution to that.

(Published in Deccan Herald, www.deccanherald.com, www.deccanheraldepaper.com, 18-04-2010)

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/64482/cwp-conscious-non-english-literary.html

Digging Out Lost Voices

By Utpal Borpujari

Sandhir Flora had a question in his mind, a question that exercises the minds of probably countless Indians. The question was – why is nobody interested in the common man’s viewpoint when it comes to important issues such as religion and the society, and why the same people take on the role of self-appointed spokespersons of various communities on every available platform? He tried to seek out an answer, and since he is a filmmaker, an aspiring one if one may call him, his search resulted in a film. Self-searchingly titled Kya Main Qaafir Hoon? (Am I a Non-believer?), the one-hour film has been able to strike a chord with the discerning viewer, even getting selected for the Non-Feature section of the Indian Panorama at the last International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa as well as the Persistence Resistance Film Festival in Delhi in February.

Flora, a Sikh from Jabbalpur, refuses to call his venture a short film, stressing that it has the structure of a long feature though minus the length. But more than that aspect, it is the subject that he feels is more important in the context of the present times. The young director chose to delve into the debate within the Muslim community about religion and its impact on them in the backdrop of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, and though a little too verbose, his film has been able to raise pertinent questions. For Flora, it has been a worthwhile venture, even though he would have loved to make it into a full-length feature film but for lack of finances. As he puts it, “I am trying to analyse the irony of the fact that in following principles of a religion with the same purpose, two persons can find themselves on opposite sides. My film tries to showcase that everything stems from a certain value system, education and most importantly certain experiences in life that mould people into completely unique individuals.”

Flora, who took the help of several of his Muslim friends to interact with various viewpoints in the community, fleshed out realistic characters in the story. “Such a story cannot stand on its own if its characters are not real with real flesh and blood and do not have a strong opinion.  Initially, people doubted my intentions but with some effort I managed to break that barrier and found some authentic voices.  I decided to take a backseat and let those voices talk and interact independently in my film, as I did not want to pass a judgement or offer a clear-cut solution either as there is none,” he says.

Flora has been clear that he would highlight the fact that the common man’s views on religion are never heard or taken into consideration. He puts it in a matter of fact tone, “I wanted to make this point heard loud and clear.  Whenever any such issue of national interest talked about in TV or print, the Muslims are generally represented by same faces again & again.  Not that there is anything wrong in their views but sadly, the voice of a common Muslim is lost in this whole commotion.  I decided I must include this very firmly when I tell my story.”

In the film, Abraham, an NRI Muslim who escapes death in the Taj Hotel firing incident, goes to his native place in Central India, where he sets out to achieve his long-time dream to set up a madrassa to provide education to poor Muslim children.  Through the city’s SP Suleiman Shaikh, he gets in touch with TV journalist Maria, who also has a similar wish. But when Maria and Abraham meet, it is found out that they have very different ideologies, which is what develops the drama.

Flora is aware that the market for the short film genre is almost zilch in India, but he is hopeful that if not a regular theatrical release, it will at least be picked up by a general entertainment channel for screening. The film has already found a distributor of its DVDs, in the form of Delhi-based Magic Lantern Foundation that distributes a lot of independent documentaries as also short and full-length films.

The filmmaker is aware that a lot of films are being made on socio-religious themes, even though most of them are getting restricted only to the festival circuit. While he says that there is no direct visible impact of cinema on society, he believes that it can be one of the many tools that can be used effectively for social change.  “It is a powerful medium. Therefore I am very much against its abuse. As a filmmaker I wish for the sake of society that private satellite channels should pick up such relevant content to broadcast on TV, rather than that same mindless shows merely for the sake of TRPs,” says Flora, an MA in economics and an MBA in tourism who has assisted in films like Manoj Punj’s Zindagi Khoobsoorat Hai and Parvati Balagopalan’s Rules: Pyaar Ka Superhit Formula.

(Published in Deccan Herald, www.deccanherald.com, www.deccanheraldepaper.com, 18-04-2010)

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/64398/digging-lost-voices.html