The warm night was crackling with intellectual energy at the Literary Soiree, coming from the both the international audience and the panel of four local authors Sal Imam, Shazia Omar, Saad Z Hossainand Zeeshan Khan. The event was hosted by the Nordic Club in the garden at their premises in Gulshan, Dhaka, on Saturday.
The discussion topic of Art & Identity was both examined and deconstructed. As Saad Hossain, author of recently released fantasy novel The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, pointed out: “People often believe that their identity is beyond question, but it’s a very fragile thing. We really hang our entire tent on a few pegs: gender, race, wealth, religion, degree, profession, etc. When you start pulling at those pegs, the entire thing can fall apart.”
The audience was invited to share their own “pegs,” which led to an energetic exchange that spilled over into the informal mingling session that followed.
"I loved the lively discussion.The interaction between author and audience was frank and spirited, contesting the whole notion of identity in a beautiful, expansive way," said Shahirah Majumdar from the audience.
“The range of talent was also really impressive! Different genres, different points of entry into universal themes. I was inspired by Shazia’s ambition, for example, in recreating the Mughal period for her most recent novel.”
Shazia Omar discussed the process of writing for characters with identities, who are so different from her own.
"My writing is grounded in a lot of research,” she said.“For Like a Diamond in the Sky, I conducted 25 interviews of slum-dwelling women to develop the voice of Falani, a drug-dealing single mother. Formy historical fantasy, Dark Diamond, four years of research took me as far as rare books and PhD theses in the British Library. This knowledge informs my characters and action, but inevitably a writer must in the end rely on her own experiences and thinking patterns to tell a story.”
"Identities are fluid, and flow into each other,”said panelist Zeeshan Khan. His travelogue ‘Right to Passage’ charts his journey to places that influenced Bangladeshi culture – namely India, Pakistan and Iran – as “an attempt to dispel the idea that cultures and identities are static, or confined to a certain space.”
“By travelling along what is essentially the Indo-European belt,” he said, “it became easy to see how that change from one end to another happens so gradually that it is almost undetectable.”
Audience member Kishore Kumar Singh found the topic to be a timely one. "This discussion on multiplicity of identity is very relevant and important in this post-truth era, where governments around the world are appropriating the issue and using it to spread hate against certain identities for their politics," he said.
Growing up, Saad said at the opening of the discussion, “parents and teachers tell you about your tribal group or your clan or your extended family. These are all stories. Essentially there's no facts and figures.”
Panelist Salahdin Imam, author of Diana Juxtaposed and Other Unrealities, agreed. “Ultimately your identity is the one that you choose for yourself, even if it is with misgivings,” he said.
“I personally feel like a bit of a misfit in Bangladesh, but also feel like a misfit in the West. Could it be said that I don't fit anywhere? On the contrary, I like to say that I fit into the world as a whole; at least they can't kick me out of that!”
"It was a great evening that managed to be fun and thought provoking at the same time,”said Kerry Breen. “The interesting panelists and people in the audience were willing to share their perspectives on identity in a personal and often humourous way. I went away with my mind buzzing. More please!"
The next author discussion in the Literary Soiree series, slated for November 2 at the American Club, will examine Heroes &Myths.