(Extract of an interview with Sharon Maas, Georgetown, Guyana, November 2017. Maas is the author of more than seven novels; her first “Of Marriageable Age” was published in 1999)
PP: Sharon, it seems as if you’re back home, in more than one ways.
SM: Well, I’ve been coming back home every year over the past six or seven years.
PP: In the physical sense, that is one way but I’m particularly making reference to your writing – you are beginning to focus more on Guyana.
The last time we spoke, you mentioned you were working on a few titles on Guyana. So far, you have produced four books on Guyana.
SM: Set in Guyana.
PP: Yes, set in Guyana.
In that conversation, some five years ago, you mentioned also that it was not viable to sell/market Guyana in the UK; has that situation changed?
SM: No, it has not changed. The only reason that I got these books published is because I went to a digital publisher – a digital publisher does not have a large investment in the book.
PP: Print on demand?
SM: Print on demand, but mainly digital. In the past, publishers would invest heavily and print hundreds and even thousands of copies and if they do not sell, the publishers lose. On the other hand, digital publishing does not demand a huge investment, so I was able to get back into publishing. Other than that I would still be writing books without getting them published.
PP: There seems to be another reason for the advent of what I would call your ‘Guyana books’. That reason is the internationally famous one cent black on magenta Guyana stamp which was the focal point in “The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q” – the first book in this series of four.
SM: I wrote that book several years and I thought that it would have a bit of interest in the northern world because it was sold again recently for a few millions [pounds sterling]. But it wasn’t really a breakthrough; it was published by this Bookouture publisher, so I went back and wrote three other books leading up to that book you mentioned. This “The Girl from the Sugar Plantation” is the fourth in the series.
PP: Give a background to this series of books.
SM: The main character of these books is a white woman who married a black man; she was of a high status while he was of a lower status. Actually my grandmother did this and it was quite a scandal in those days – the early twentieth century – they had eight sons, no daughters. I was able to follow these sons and their families through the ages.
PP: One of your themes is miscegenation.
SM: Yes, yes, always.
PP: And you seem to be having fun with it.
SM: I’m having lots of fun with it.
PP: Lead us on, describe this fun process.
SM: Well, like I said, it must have run against every rule of the British Empire – a white man with a black woman or an Indian woman was no surprise… but the other way round is seen as a woman marrying up, bettering her status… so it combines these two themes of race and class. The same with the classics – Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte – all about status.
PP: We’ve talked a bit about your themes – race and class. There seems to be a few motifs you dwell on – music and nature.
SM: Music is very strong in this book… where the main character is a pianist and through music she finds herself… music is a universal language… music can go deep into a person’s psyche, a person’s soul and lift them up. I really like music as a theme.
PP: Nature – I am thinking Mittelholzer… How nature works for you?
SM: Nature for me is more the feeling – sitting on a beach and listening to the waves, the music of the waves and the birds and the feeling it all give me… even touching a tree, putting your hands in the earth… so I always come back to nature, nature has a healing property.
I like to write about people who find healing through music, through nature…
PP: All of this seems to be autobiographical…
SM: Well, my whole life is about healing myself really; I had a turbulent youth and was lost for a while and I found a way to heal myself.
I like to read books in which people come out of whatever turbulence and find healing and find themselves – finding who you really are. 
PP: Finding who you really are – many of your memorable female characters are going against the grain.
SM: Yes, because the grain is not right, the grain is very rough and they find it rough going and need to get out, to find themselves and their purpose.
PP: We write for various reasons: not only to send messages and pass on solutions… your writing is character-driven and your characters, in whatever setting and in whatever time period, seem to be dealing with issues that are relevant today like how badly we treat women – sexual discrimination, violence against women.
SM: Yes, this is true. In this last book, there is an attempted rape. This is the issue right now – sexual molestation.
I went through it; in fact, my first job at the Graphic, I think three of us (two boys and myself) on three-month probation, and before the three months ran out, I was called to the editor’s office, Mr (unnamed) and he said come and sit on my lap, but I didn’t and I was fired.
I left and went straight to the Chronicle and was employed right away. At Chronicle, I was allowed to flourish, even got my own page. I was determined to show this Mr that he may shut me out but can’t shut me up…
PP: Recently, I am running into articles dealing with sexual discrimination and molestation in the literary world. You’ve just mentioned one instance in your early life, have you encountered this in your literary life?
SM: No, the publishing world is mostly women, first of all, mostly women editors – I had women editors only.
This publisher handling my books was founded by a man who is very kosher – a good man. He left the publisher he was working with and started his own publishing business, Bookouture, and he began it with women literature only about romance and historical fiction and it did very well and later he turned to other genres including male authors. So far, he is the only man in the whole editorial setup.
PP: Talking about publishing houses brings to mind Jock Campbell who is featured in your new book, “The Girl from the Sugar Plantation” and the ‘Authors Division’ he started to protect the royalties of Ian Fleming and other authors…
Jock Campbell is one of your main characters here; show us how you dealt with a real life person in this fictional work.
SM: Well, I’ve kept the things he did like he was the Booker reformist – that part is true to life, but I did change the name of one of the people he worked with who did some bad things… But the things he [Jock Campbell] did like showing concern for the conditions on the plantations and how he set about reforming them – all of that is true. What is not true is that he met this fictional character, I created, and their relationship is fictional. But it is based on facts; I didn’t know this until I’ve written the book that he [Jock] had fallen in love with the sister of a prominent businessman/politician… and wanted to marry her but his parents did not approve because she was Portuguese… the upshot was he returned to England to marry a woman the family choose for him – a perfectly suitable woman, to his situation; it was sort of a trade-off – marry her and inherit the Bookers’ kingdom or else… and that is the situation in my book as well.
PP: There is another real life character in this book.
SM: Cheddi Jagan.
PP: Let’s look at the four ‘Guyana books’ mainly because sugar made Guyana and now sugar is breaking many hearts and homes.
SM: Yes. The plan, if I’m to write on Guyana, is to do an epic – a family saga.
Sugar used to be the mainstay of Guyana; it is what built us up, making us a noted colony; sugar was like the blood of Guyana, so if you’re to write a historic novel of Guyana, it has to be about sugar.
The story of sugar [in Guyana] is intriguing. And the book on jock Campbell [“Sweetening Bitter Sugar” by Clem Seecharan] was what really got me started.
PP: There are a few other novelists writing on the sugar plantation like Jan Shinebourne.
SM: I know her well; she is a friend of mine.
PP: She wrote “The Last English Plantation”.
SM: I actually got some of my information from her.
PP: Now, is there another Guyana book in the making?
SM: Yes, I have two which I would like to rework and see published.
Responses to this author please telephone 226-0065 of email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
What’s happening:
Over GYD$1,000,000 in prize money up for grabs in the 2018 issue of The Guyana Annual. New closing date for entries to the various competitions is January 15, 2018. For further information go to The Guyana Annual on Facebook or email: theguyanaannual@gmail.com
