I’m a lazy writer but very passionate about writing

Award-winning poet, novelist, critic, David Dabydeen

By Venessa Deosaran

Renowned Guyanese poet, novelist and critic David Dabydeen has been nominated for the Guyana Prize for Literature Award for his book “Molly and the Muslim Stick”, published in 2008. His prolific and invaluable contributions to the literary arts have been notable, and although he resides in England, the writer never forgets his roots are in Guyana.

In an exclusive interview with Guyana Times Sunday Magazine on the eve of the Guyana Prize for Literature Award ceremonies, Dabydeen said “I write out of a desire to write and a sense of a challenge to use words creatively. You can write beautifully on something that is horrible. The writer must use beautiful language.

“I’m addicted to the opium of words. I have compunction to write because if I don’t write I won’t feel happy. I’m a lazy writer but I love writing.

“I took three years to write and publish “Molly and the Muslim Stick” in 2008. I only wrote about seven books, but I have enjoyed every bit of being a writer.”

Molly and the Muslim Stick

“Molly and the Muslim Stick” is set in England and Guyana, and deals with an Englishwoman who was abused by her father and his friends. She matures into a broken and wounded woman, half soothsayer and half madwoman – a creation to rival the fabulous beings of Guyanese myth. The basic story is about personal hurt, historical hurt and it suggests, although set in the 1950s, the ongoing crises now between Muslims and Jews. Dabydeen brought all these “hurts” to Guyana where in the rainforest they find possibility of redemption and healing.

As Molly’s life story unfolds, we enter a gothic narrative peopled with talking animals, demented prophets, shape- shifting ghosts, stereotyped Amerindians and a Muslim walking stick.

The real world is present, too, in Raleigh’s discovery of Guiana, the Suez crisis, anti- Semitism, Islamophobia and the clash of civilisations.

Guyana becomes a space for healing and redemption.

Why he made the stick Muslim? Dabydeen stated that in England, where the first half of the novel is set, there is a sense that the landscape there is ‘pure’. However, there is nothing like purity, he added, because in the Crusades, which were great battles between the Christians and the Muslims in the Middle Ages, many soldiers brought back from the East seeds and potted plants, and planted them in England so that the English landscape is English/Christian but also Muslim. There are centuries of experience of the Muslim world, and to show the infiltration of that community into England, he made the stick Muslim.

Additionally, he also wanted to communicate, through the characterisation of the stick, the crises of the Middle East between the Jews and Arabs, which is a horrific and tragic situation.

He wanted to relay that without being overtly political, and inject humour instead of straight journalistic reportage. Then, he said, he just wanted to have fun without offending anybody.

Dabydeen’s novel is said to shift between realism and absurdism. The eponymous English heroine is raised in the grim Lancashire of the 1930s. She finds solace in the talking Muslim walking stick and in “Om,” an illegal alien Amerindian from British Guiana, whom she follows back to the Demerara jungle, where she learns to reject her victimhood and look to the future.

Dabydeen noted that the subject of the novel is initially about child abuse, which happens worldwide, and is horrific because the people most vulnerable in society are children. He added when a novel has to deal with such traumatic circumstances, novelists have a bit of responsibility not to be sensational but realistic, and to tread a very careful line between vivid descriptions and a certain restraint of language. That was his challenge – to restrain his language and not sound too angry in his writing, he revealed.

While writing, other dimensions came in after a while in the novel. It shifts from child abuse to historical abuse against the background of the fight for the Suez Canal, the Suez Crisis, the Second World War and other “background noises” such as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, both historical and contemporary wounds and hurts. He located the individual act of abuse, the story of an individual being abused, into something much wider, such as abuse resulting from warfare; although it may appear to be a historical novel it is really about a story of abuse.

The distinguished writer revealed what motivated him to pen the novel stemmed from a personal experience. “I went to India with my then girlfriend, and we took along an aged English woman who said she couldn’t travel by herself and asked if she could come to India with us. She was a friend of a friend and we agreed. Throughout the trip she was a pain. She didn’t like the smell and living conditions, and she complained about everything.

She spoiled my holiday with my girlfriend, so I made notes and decided to get revenge.

I sat down when I came back to England and started writing. I wanted to write about this old woman with a stick and her annoying demeanour; but then I recalled that, two years ago, I met a woman who told me the most horrific story about being raped by her father and his friends. She had attended one of my writing classes; so then I thought – I got this horrible English woman and the horrific story and I can place both into a narrative.” What he did was to vent his anger on the first page, and then lace it with compassion.

Other pursuits

His British wife, is, he said, his inspiration. For him family is a wonderful thing because it provides a consolation for loss. He sincerely said he would give up his writing for his family – something they would not allow because they know it is what he loves and it makes him happy. He has two children, a 5- year-old and an 18- month-old.

He is now Guyana’s ambassador to China fulltime, and a professor at Warwick University, currently on leave. He has been an ambassador to UNESCO since 1993, and continues to hold that post. His advice to other writers is to persist, because all writing will end up in some kind of failure.

He encouraged writers to focus on continuous creative writing because something spectacular and life changing may happen on the page. He said to think of it as an internal romance and develop a longing for it.

Guyana Prize for Literature Award

Dabydeen believes the Guyana Prize for Literature Award is the most significant development for the last 30 years in the intellectual and cultural life of this country. The awards: Guyana Prize for Literature and the Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award, a new development in the Guyana Prize, would be presented for the first time this year in the categories of Best Book of Fiction, Best Book of Poetry, and Best Drama.

The creation of the Caribbean Award helps the Guyana Prize to further fulfill one of its objectives which is “to provide encouragement for the development of good creative writing among Guyanese in particular and Caribbean writers in general.” In the 1950s, Dabydeen stated, the late President Jagan had set up a Gold Medal as an award to writers in order to promote literature. In 1987, late President Desmond Hoyte set up the largest prize in the Caribbean, when the country did not have much money, as a way of making the country culturally rich and to foster intellectual development.

Now, the present leader, President Jagdeo, has increased it to now giving a prize to Caribbean writers.

“It tells me that we were very successful at Carifesta which Bahamas, although richer financially, could not accomplish. Under this president, we made it the most successful Carifesta ever. We’re setting a foundation for other countries to award their writers.” The front cover of “Molly and the Muslim Stick” features a specially created painting by the Nobel prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, a close friend of Dabydeen. Dabydeen himself is a lover of art, and collects artwork.

Dabydeen, born in Berbice, grew up in London and has won the Guyana Prize for Fiction three times already.

Dabydeen is shortlisted for the Guyana Prize for Literature Award under the category “Best Book of Fiction”, and said it would be an honour if he wins it again. This could be his fourth win, and an astonishing record accomplishment.

The 2010 winners of the Guyana Prize for Literature and the Guyana Prize for Literature Caribbean Award would be presented at a prestigious ceremony September 1 at the Pegasus Hotel. (Taken from Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)