1:02

ASTRID: This is the second

1:04

of two special episodes of The Garret featuring the

1:06

shortlist of 2019 Miles Franklin Literary

1:08

Award. The shortlist was announced on Tuesday

1:11

2 July, this interview with Mohammed

1:13

Ahmad, Rodney Hall and Gregory Day

1:15

was recorded on Wednesday 3 July 2019.

1:18

Enjoy.

1:20

Rodney Hall, welcome to The Garret. RODNEY: Thank

1:23

you. Lovely to be here. ASTRID: Congratulations

1:25

on being shortlisted for A Stolen Season.

1:28

RODNEY: Well, that's a pleasure. It's

1:30

such a risk taking book

1:33

that it’s fate was always

1:36

up in the air.

1:37

ASTRID: Well, it is a beautiful book. Before we start

1:39

talking about that I have to say for our listeners

1:41

you are well practiced at the Miles Franklin.

1:43

You have received the award twice before,

1:47

for Just Relations in 1982

1:49

and The Grizzly Wife in 1994.

1:51

I have to ask, how

1:53

has the prize changed? RODNEY: The prize has

1:56

changed enormously. When

1:59

you look at it it's astonishing how

2:02

little Miles Franklin had saved -

2:05

little in terms of funding

2:09

a prize. It's been brilliantly

2:11

managed I have to say since the beginning

2:13

in order that it's survived and

2:16

grown. And certainly since

2:18

I was last... I've been on the shortlist since

2:20

that second win.

2:23

It just changes every year. I mean

2:25

this has been much more public

2:27

and high powered and organised

2:30

and much more pizzazz going

2:32

on with it. I mean last night was like... it

2:35

was more full on than the

2:38

previous ones have been with the actual

2:40

award. The shortlist,

2:42

you know, it's it's been ramped up tremendously.

2:45

And it's much appreciated because

2:48

when you're working in the literary field as I do,

2:50

your very separate

2:53

from that commercial world and then

2:55

very disconnected from it and very

2:57

much at sea with it. I mean, I'm

3:01

absolutely hopeless at selling what

3:03

I do. And so

3:06

to have other people doing it for me is really

3:08

great. ASTRID: I could only imagine. Now

3:11

with your experience with the Miles Franklin

3:14

and other prizes, what

3:16

if any impact has that had on your

3:18

creativity? You know, when you sit down to write.

3:21

RODNEY: I mean, money is money. I

3:24

don't have a day job, so

3:26

its earnings is what it is.

3:29

You know, when they don't come while it's just belt

3:31

tightening time which is the usual state

3:33

of affairs. So, when

3:36

money does come in this way it

3:38

just means paying off the credit

3:41

cards, getting my teeth fixed and funding

3:43

the next book. That's basically what it is.

3:47

ASTRID: The way writers make money in Australia,

3:50

has that changed, gotten easier or harder over the years?

3:52

RODNEY: It all changes. But I mean I've never, or

3:56

until recently, I've never made

3:58

my main income in this

4:01

country at all. I mean, the

4:03

book of mine that sold best, Captivity Captive,

4:07

in Germany was my biggest

4:09

market. I sold more English language

4:12

copies of that book in Germany than

4:14

I sold in Australia. ASTRID: My goodness.

4:16

RODNEY: So, I put things together

4:18

by having six or seven little

4:21

little amounts of money from different parts of the world

4:23

that just kind of add up. And you can

4:26

kind of dodge

4:28

the bullet and get on with the next

4:30

book. I’m well into the next one now

4:32

and I know it's going to

4:34

happen. I mean, because I don't plan my books

4:36

I never know where they're going. They

4:39

have to find their own way, and that's

4:42

a dodgy way of working because more

4:45

often than not they're going nowhere.

4:48

Sometimes I can get up to... once

4:50

I had a full book, like 70,000

4:52

words, before I realised this is

4:55

never going to gel.

4:57

ASTRID: So tell me how that worked with A Stolen Season?

4:59

RODNEY: Oh well, that was a it was a medium

5:02

type book. I've had books... four

5:04

times in my life I’ve had gift books that I

5:06

handwrite, that I've just written down

5:09

in three weeks. ASTRID: My goodness. RODNEY: One

5:11

one took 19 days, it was the quickest book

5:14

I had. And they need nothing done

5:16

to them. But when they come like that you don't...

5:18

they don't need editing. You don't have

5:20

anything to do to them. And on

5:23

other hand, the longest took six

5:25

years full time. That's doing nothing

5:27

else. And it was Kisses

5:29

of the Enemy, and it was an enormous

5:32

struggle to get through. This

5:34

one was a medium book, it took three years.

5:39

It presented me with a challenge,

5:41

which I present to the reader. I kind of

5:44

pass the buck to the reader to deal with the challenge,

5:46

that as I was writing

5:48

I got a grip on what

5:50

I thought it was about - this

5:53

soldier, desperately wounded, sent

5:56

home to his estranged wife

5:59

from the Iraq war and discovering

6:02

that the reasons for going to

6:04

the war were a lie, and they were always known

6:06

to be a lie. And so he has

6:08

to look at how his life is ruined and

6:10

his wife's life is ruined. And

6:13

what does that mean? How does the

6:15

government come to lie to its own people and

6:18

go and bomb other people for the

6:20

same lie?

6:21

So that's what I thought it was

6:24

about. Well, it still is about that, but it's not only about

6:26

that because as I was trundling

6:29

along and feeling quite complacent

6:31

and thinking, ‘Yeah I've got a book here. This is happening.

6:33

I've got the right characters I like’. I

6:36

mean, so many books you think the writers don't

6:38

actually like their own characters. I really like

6:40

my characters, I like them all. So I was

6:44

feeling pretty happy about that. I get

6:46

to my standup desk - I stand up to work - and

6:49

as I say I handwrite size, so there

6:52

with my notebook. I only write on the on

6:55

the right hand page and the left pages

6:57

just kept free for random thoughts.

7:00

So I'm standing there pencil

7:02

in hand, notebook

7:04

at the ready, thinking I'm pursuing the story

7:07

I'd begun about Adam and

7:10

Bridget, and

7:12

what comes to me is a completely

7:15

new character who I have not met before who

7:17

is sitting on

7:19

a garden bench looking

7:21

at a garden and behind her is

7:24

a hotel and she's in Central America.

7:26

ASTRID: Marianna. RODNEY: Mariana's in Central America.

7:29

And she's got

7:33

a secret and

7:35

she's on the run. And we don't

7:37

know why, I don't know why. The

7:40

beauty of not planning a book is that I

7:42

as I'm writing it I'm in the same position

7:45

as the reader. I don't

7:47

know what's going on. I don't have any plan. I don't

7:49

know what's going to happen.

7:51

ASTRID: So, this book has essentially three separate

7:53

stories. There’s Bridget and Adam, who've you mentioned, there’s

7:55

Marianna and in the middle of all there is John

7:57

Philip. RODNEY: Yes. ASTRID: You spend the most

7:59

time with Bridget and Adam, and Adam

8:01

is the returned soldier from the Iraq war.

8:04

When I reflect back on A Stolen

8:06

Season, it is Adam that my

8:09

mind goes to you. Even

8:12

though you kind of you just described not necessarily

8:14

planning this, was there any research

8:17

in involved

8:19

in telling Adam story? I mean, he's using the

8:21

exoskeleton from the military... RODNEY: Look... A great

8:27

thing I did when I left school at 16

8:29

in Brisbane and had to go out to work. I got

8:31

sacked from various jobs and did low

8:34

grade the office boy type deliveries

8:37

and things, and

8:40

I saved up and saved up to take myself

8:42

away, to get away from Brisbane and never

8:44

come back. I was 22 and I finally

8:46

got that amount of money and set

8:49

off, with what was 112 pounds sterling -

8:51

because we dealt in sterling and those days - in

8:53

my pocket. I landed

8:55

in Genoa and started walking around Europe and

8:58

spent three years walking 9,000 kilometres,

9:01

talking to myself basically and trying

9:03

to convince myself that I was a writer. On

9:06

that journey I called on Robert Graves,

9:09

who is of course a major figure, especially

9:11

then more so then and now. But I,

9:13

Claudius is very famous...

9:16

ASTRID: Classicist will always remember. RODNEY: And he is a wonderful

9:18

man, and his fabulous book

9:20

The White Goddess is just the great book about

9:22

poetry. Anyway, I was

9:24

being a cheeky Australian. I called on him

9:26

and he very kindly gave me a two hour

9:29

discussion. And he gave me so much

9:31

advice that I've had all through my life. So

9:34

this preamble - which should warn you about

9:36

the way my books go, they amble around

9:38

and do their own thing - was it he

9:40

said to me, ‘If you if you ever write a

9:42

historic novel’ - of course, I have now done

9:44

quite a few - he said, ‘There's this

9:47

golden rule. Write

9:49

first research afterwards,

9:52

because if you don't write first you don't know what

9:54

you need to know, and if you don't

9:56

get the facts right nobody will believe

9:58

you’. So

10:00

it's just the greatest rule of thumb. So,

10:02

I didn't ask

10:05

myself if I knew about the Iraq war. I

10:07

didn't do any research whatsoever.

10:09

I made the entire thing I made up, I

10:11

invented Iraq, I invented

10:13

the war, I invented the injuries, I invented

10:15

the armaments - I just

10:17

put numbers down, you know the

10:21

F37 or something appeared,

10:23

whatever that was. God only knows. I thought

10:26

when I get to the research stage

10:28

when I've written the book I'll find

10:30

out the real armaments they had. And

10:32

so of course I did do that. ASTRID: And

10:36

all the fact comes after. RODNEY: It is quite

10:38

quick. So you go with a finite

10:40

number of things to look up. In

13:10

this case I had several

13:12

areas of research, because Mariana, the second

13:16

of the the featured characters,

13:19

is in Belize and she's going to climb

13:22

one of the ancient Mayan temples.

13:27

Anyway all she does is she

13:29

appears twice in the book. All she does is

13:31

to arrive in Belize and figure

13:34

out where she is and what's going on around her

13:37

and get directions to get to the temple. And the

13:39

second thing, all she does is climb it. I

13:44

did know beforehand

13:46

that from various reading that

13:48

those Mayan buildings are built on

13:50

a rather strange system of mathematics,

13:52

but an extraordinary system, I

13:56

didn't know what it was, but I filleted

13:59

stuff in, my usual way working. hat

14:01

I was interested in was Mariana.

14:03

I mean, Robert Graves was right, novels are about

14:05

engaging the reader in recreating

14:08

a world where the reader has never been before.

14:11

But of course, the reader is creating

14:13

it with the reader's own

14:15

material. So, a

14:17

novel is different, in everybody's mind

14:19

it's different. And the better the novel the more the

14:21

difference. ASTRID: Indeed. RODNEY: Because the novel

14:24

has triggered real things for

14:26

the reader. I mean it is an interesting

14:28

thing, Astrid, because you

14:31

know if you say the the

14:33

grist of non-fiction is fact,

14:37

the grist of fiction is truth.

14:40

Because what we're doing in the novel is we're speaking

14:42

to the truth the reader knows, and

14:45

if we're not then we're having to explain ourselves,

14:48

and if we explain ourselves the novel is not a good

14:50

novel.

14:51

ASTRID: When you look back at all of your novels,

14:54

what do you think preoccupies you as a writer?

14:57

RODNEY: There a few things that keep... as

15:00

with any writer. I think the theme

15:02

that most commonly emerges

15:05

is self captivity, how

15:08

we trap ourselves into

15:10

all sorts of things we really don't want and we can't

15:12

ever find a way out of it.

15:14

And this book has that as well, but

15:17

the theme of this book as

15:19

it emerges - and I didn't know until I got to the third

15:21

of the strands, which is a comic strand

15:25

- as Adam's life, and Adam and

15:27

Bridget's life had been ruined by war

15:30

and governmental lies, Mariana's

15:33

life has been ruined by a husband,

15:37

John Philips life has been ruined by too much money.

15:40

The family's always had too much money, it's had too much money

15:42

for 500 years and so

15:44

they have no idea who they are, they have no idea

15:46

if anyone likes them. He has no idea

15:49

of anything real in his life, he

15:51

can always buy his way out of trouble, and

15:54

he's profoundly dissatisfied.

15:57

And it was at that stage that I realised what

15:59

the theme of this book was - that

16:01

this book was to say that

16:05

power is a parasite

16:07

on the people, whatever the culture

16:09

power is a parasite. The parasite

16:13

so huge in every culture, it's so

16:16

huge that the people in the culture

16:18

can't see it. It's everywhere.

16:21

So as the slaves who built

16:23

the Central American temple

16:26

probably thought building Central

16:28

American temples is what life is.

16:31

That's what you do.

16:33

And we are equally enslaved,

16:35

but our pyramid is invisible.

16:38

It's a pyramid of finance, international

16:41

finance totally out of our hands, and we can

16:44

do absolutely nothing about it.

16:46

Global Financial Crisis comes along

16:48

whack, a third of the world's income

16:51

is wrecked. Do they ever get charged

16:53

with was fraud No,

16:55

they get off scot free because it's invisible.

16:58

So, once I knew that

17:00

I knew that then I suddenly felt

17:03

at home, I thought, 'OK, these three strands,

17:05

I can see exactly how they

17:07

are gonna echo each other'. And my job

17:10

is to not connect them for the reader

17:12

but to leave them fly free,

17:15

so that the reader gradually

17:18

gets... so they've each got an independent presence,

17:22

and it's left to the reader to say, 'I see

17:24

how...' Think

17:26

of them as a drawing on clear

17:31

on tracing paper that you can lay

17:34

one on top of another, you could actually think

17:36

of the three layers on top of each other and they

17:39

in different ways illustrate the same thing.

17:42

ASTRID: They do indeed. It's going to take me a long time

17:44

to forget Adam and

17:46

his story. Rodney,

17:49

have you read the rest of the shortlist?

17:52

RODNEY: No. In fact the

17:54

only person I know in

17:56

the shortlist is Gail. She's a very

17:58

good writer, so I'm sure it's a very good book.

18:01

I am now going to go - because I didn't know who

18:03

the shortlist were going to be -

18:07

I am now going to have a read

18:09

and take my own guess of what the

18:11

judges might think. It hardly matters, but

18:14

it seems absolutely clear is what

18:17

the judges have done is to pick a

18:19

book of each of six kinds.

18:24

This is not one... previous times

18:26

that I've been on the shortlist, it's

18:28

been that we're all working in

18:30

roughly the same sort of direction.

18:32

I think this is a very different kind of list

18:35

and that's quite exciting way

18:37

for them to go.

18:38

ASTRID: I would agree. Rodney, thank you so much for your time.

18:41

RODNEY: It's a pleasure.

18:45

ASTRID: Mohammed welcome to The Garret. MOHAMMED: Thank you for having

18:47

me. And also, Salaam Aleikum, which means

18:49

peace be upon you in the language of my ancestors.

18:52

ASTRID: Congratulations on your short listing for the

18:54

Miles Franklin Award last night. MOHAMMED: Thank you.

18:56

ASTRID: Now this was for The Lebs. You've already received

18:58

the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award for

19:00

the same work. They are two

19:02

high honours. How do you feel

19:05

about your work, only

19:08

your second novel, hitting

19:11

these heights. MOHAMMED: This is how I feel.

19:14

When I was told that I'd

19:16

won the Premier's Literary Award

19:18

the first thing that went through my mind is, 'this must

19:20

be a mistake'. And

19:23

then when I was contacted and told

19:25

that I'd been long listed for the Miles Franklin

19:28

I said to myself, 'this must be a mistake'.

19:31

And then again when

19:33

I was contacted and told that I'd been shortlisted

19:36

for the Miles Franklin, I put my hands

19:38

in my face and I cried and I said, 'this must be a mistake'.

19:41

And I've spent a lot of time since then asking

19:43

myself why a second generation Arab

19:46

Australian Muslim constantly

19:48

feels like a mistake. And

19:50

I have to say that the answer to that question

19:53

is probably because our immigration minister

19:55

Peter Dutton, three years ago said

19:57

that me and people like me

19:59

are the mistakes of the Fraser government. And

20:01

so I'm feeling both

20:03

great pride in these achievements

20:06

and also a great sense

20:08

of inadequacy. ASTRID: Why

20:11

inadequacy? MOHAMMED: Because my

20:13

identity has been heavily delegitimised

20:15

and I'm putting a lot of energy into trying to reclaim

20:18

my sense of Australianness.

20:21

ASTRID: I apologise that we don't have that much time to

20:23

fully explore this topic and I would like to come

20:25

back and talk to you both about

20:27

Tribe, your first work, and The Lebs,

20:30

which we are now briefly talking about.

20:33

I suspect that we are about the same age.

20:36

I might be a bit older than you actually.

20:37

MOHAMMED: Can I ask how old you are? I'm 38. MOHAMMED: Yes,

20:40

I'm 33. ASTRID: Oh my goodness. Okay.

20:43

I'm very much older than you.

20:44

MOHAMMED: We're actually trying to find out if I'm the youngest ever

20:46

shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. That's possible.

20:49

ASTRID: That's extraordinary. MOHAMMED: Yeah. And I'm

20:51

also pretty sure I'm the first Muslim Australian

20:54

to be shortlisted. ASTRID: And about time. MOHAMMED: Yeah

20:56

it's overdue.

20:58

ASTRID: I went to school in Sydney. The

21:00

Lebs blew me away. What

21:02

responses are you getting from your readers?

21:05

MOHAMMED: The idea that you were

21:07

blown away is very flattering to me. Thank you.

21:10

It doesn't go past my head that, you

21:13

know, the kind of stereotype of the Arab Muslim

21:15

is like blowing things up.

21:16

ASTRID: Oh, that's not what I meant. MOHAMMED: I

21:18

find that really funny actually. As I as a writer I'm always

21:21

looking for those kind of like connections,

21:23

you know. But what I would say is that the usual...

21:25

that's actually kind of a kinder way

21:27

of how most people engage with the book. What they usually

21:29

say is things like, 'I was very come confronted'

21:33

and 'I was very challenged'. And the

21:35

usual response that I give back when

21:37

somebody says I was confronted or challenged by

21:41

your work, my usual reaction is to say,

21:43

'if you think it's confronting to sit in your bed, or

21:46

under a tree and read a book about being a Leb,

21:48

try being a Leb, try growing

21:51

up in a post 9/11 context where the entire

21:53

country had transformed us into

21:56

terrorist suspects'. Similar

21:58

rhetoric that we're hearing at the moment in the media, and

22:01

you know, sexual predators following the Skaf gang rapes.

22:04

Try going to a school where it

22:06

was surrounded by barbed wires and cameras and where you

22:08

regularly saw friends of yours get stabbed,

22:11

get shot. Where you regularly had

22:13

to engage, had to witness and

22:16

engage or push up against

22:18

racist, homophobic, misogynist

22:21

behaviour that's just ongoing. That was my

22:23

reality and my experience. So I can't

22:25

really apologise for the

22:29

confrontational experience that people have

22:31

with my work because that is the experience of being an

22:33

Arab Australian Muslim in the year 2019.

22:35

ASTRID: I don't want to apologise nor should

22:37

you apologise.

22:40

I was blown away because you are a fantastic

22:42

writer. And at different

22:44

stages in the book in

22:46

my reading I was reminded of

22:49

- you write in the first person - and I was reminded

22:51

of Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby

22:53

and also Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In The Rye.

22:56

Both extremely

22:58

famous and influential characters

23:01

in English literature.

23:03

How do you feel about that comparison?

23:05

MOHAMMED: I'm flattered by the comparison. I'm a fan of both

23:07

texts. I think the

23:10

difference is that my character,

23:12

whilst he has that powerful

23:15

first person voice and that energy

23:17

from that voice, is that, you know, the

23:19

boy that I talk about really

23:22

comes from the cultural margins. You

23:24

know, that he is a Leb and

23:26

the book is called The Lebs. And so

23:28

he identifies as a minority within this

23:30

space. I mean, a lot

23:32

of writers write about that

23:35

troubled soul who feels like an outsider.

23:38

But I think what's so different

23:40

about the experience of being Arab Australian Muslim

23:42

living in a settler colony as opposed to being a member

23:45

of the dominant culture is that

23:47

direct experience of

23:49

racism, engaging with

23:51

the dynamics of race, class,

23:53

gender and sexuality that are constantly intersecting.

23:56

What I really appreciate about your

23:58

analysis of my work is how

24:01

it can be read for its literary merits

24:03

as opposed to just the fascinating story.

24:06

Throughout the entire book the narrator, Bani Adam,

24:09

he is a first person narrator, but there's two

24:11

narrators actually who operate simultaneously. There's

24:13

the older narrator, and his

24:16

text and his voice is

24:18

in the present tense. And that is a way

24:20

in which I frame the text to remind you that it is a boy

24:22

speaking. And then when you're with the younger narrator

24:26

it's written in the past tense, and you're in really the

24:28

head of a 14 year old, 16 year old and

24:30

a 19 year old boy. And there

24:33

is never any prompts for when the voice moves.

24:35

That's that's a technical ability

24:38

that I had to develop through ten years of university

24:40

education, and I think it reminds us that, you know

24:42

creative writing, is a skill. It's

24:45

not just... I'm an interesting person,

24:47

I have an interesting story to tell, but that

24:49

actually what we're doing as storytellers and

24:51

as artists is the craft

24:53

of creative writing. And

24:55

I think really at the Miles Franklin at the shortlisted

24:58

level, we really need to take

25:00

that into consideration and appreciate

25:03

the art form.

25:04

ASTRID: I could not agree more. I've been speaking

25:07

to all of the shortlisted authors,

25:09

and quite a few have pointed out the level

25:11

of craft and the diversity

25:13

in approach, in literary approach,

25:16

in the shortlisted works. What is your opinion of that?

25:19

MOHAMMED: You know, because in addition to

25:21

being a creative writer I run a literacy movement

25:23

in Western Sydney called Sweatshop. And

25:26

it's about

25:29

empowering culturally and linguistically

25:31

diverse young people through reading, writing and critical

25:33

thinking. And so often when

25:35

marginalised writers are

25:38

pushing up against the dominant culture

25:40

they tend to construct themselves as

25:42

the severe victims of racism. Every

25:45

reason, every time they

25:48

are rejected or their work is

25:50

dismissed you can usually say it's

25:52

because of racism, it's you don't appreciate my unique

25:54

and authentic voice. There is actually some basis

25:56

for that. There's a lot of research that backs up that kind

25:58

of discriminatory discourse

26:00

in our field. But in order for you to really pull

26:03

off that claim, you have to really know

26:05

what you're talking about in terms of literature, in terms of

26:07

high art. And so Sweatshop puts

26:09

a lot of pressure on our writers, particularly

26:11

under the director, I put pressure on the writers,

26:14

to really understand the skill

26:16

of creative writing. That it's an art form.

26:19

And from my own background having completed

26:21

three degrees, one of them being a PhD

26:23

in creative arts, I have

26:26

a very passionate

26:29

sentiment towards what it means to

26:31

actually learn to write, and

26:33

the skill that goes into writing,

26:36

separate from whatever interesting fascinating

26:38

life experiences you have.

26:40

ASTRID: I've previously asked Maxine

26:43

Beneba Clarke and Alice Pung about this.

26:45

MOHAMMED: My sisters. ASTRID: The

26:47

idea... Alice Pung is on record

26:49

on The Garret as saying obviously migrant stories,

26:51

obviously stories from all

26:53

different backgrounds are viable and valid and fascinating,

26:56

but they don't always fly

26:59

or they don't always sell, and then that

27:01

might never get published again if

27:03

they're not crafted, if the actual

27:05

story is not built using

27:08

all the techniques available.

27:10

MOHAMMED: I feel really compelled to point something out, because

27:13

in our industry you almost sound conservative

27:16

for talking about the idea

27:18

that there's some skill in craft. Because you know, that fantasy

27:22

of the beautiful mind, you know, 'it comes

27:24

from the heart and it's all natural and

27:26

that's God given talent'. And so there's

27:28

a misconception about how we critique good

27:30

writing and bad writing, and

27:32

I think people... the reason why we sound conservative

27:35

is because it sounds like we have a checklist for what's good. But we

27:37

don't. We have a checklist for what's bad.

27:39

When I'm editing or I'm mentoring a student,

27:41

or when Alice Pung or Maxine are talking

27:44

about good writing, it's not like we're looking

27:46

for a particular series

27:49

of things that make it good. What we're looking for

27:51

are the things that make it bad, and we

27:53

know the things that make a work bad - if it's cliched,

27:56

if it's generic, if it's so universal

27:58

that it lacks specificity and particular detail,

28:01

if it lacks a particular kind of voice

28:03

that makes it pop out and that distinguishes it,

28:05

then we would be able to classify it as bad because it's

28:07

so cliched that anybody

28:10

can access it at any period in time and

28:12

it doesn't say anything new it doesn't make an original contribution

28:14

to knowledge. So, the checklist is looking

28:17

for those things that we've never actually

28:19

seen before and that's how we assess good writing.

28:21

And it's ironic because while

28:24

we put a lot of pressure on migrant voices

28:27

to step up to develop

28:29

these original contributions to knowledge... Very

28:32

few can compete with the migrant voice and

28:34

the Indigenous voice because it's so heavily underrepresented,

28:36

and there's such fascinating stories there

28:39

that have been untapped at

28:41

this point in time, that there's so much potential

28:43

for minority writers in Australia

28:45

to make the most original contributions

28:47

to knowledge imaginable.

28:49

ASTRID: With your short listing of the Miles Franklin I

28:51

like to think that you now know that you're being

28:53

recognised for the craft of your words,

28:55

and the incredible power that you can

28:58

marshal to tell the stories that you choose to tell.

29:01

Now The Lebs is, if

29:03

I understand correctly, the second in

29:05

what will be a loosely linked trilogy.

29:08

Do you know when the third book will come out?

29:10

MOHAMMED: The trilogy that I'm writing fits

29:12

within the genre of autobiographical fiction.

29:14

I know you brought up J.D.

29:16

Salinger, for example. I

29:19

would say that it's one of the huge influences for

29:21

me in my undergraduate studies. And

29:24

who stayed in the back of my mind while I

29:26

was developing my work was actually James

29:28

Joyce, though Salinger

29:30

and The Catcher in the Rye was a huge influence for me as a teenager,

29:33

and you know, the form that he was

29:35

really playing with I think was the autobiographical

29:37

fictional form, you know, which

29:40

combines my lived experiences

29:42

and my realities with fictionalised

29:45

elements. So there's a... I

29:47

think it's a celebration of who I am,

29:49

but also a celebration of the fact that this is art and we're

29:51

creating art, and that you shouldn't mix me up

29:53

with my characters. And so the autobiographical

29:56

fictional trilogy that I'm writing

29:59

starts with The Tribe, where Bani Adam, who's

30:01

based on my autobiographical self,

30:04

is 7, 9

30:06

and 11. And The Lebs is

30:09

the continuation of that story, Bani Adam is a teenager

30:12

in a post 9/11 context. He's 14,

30:15

16 and 19. And there

30:17

will be a final book.

30:19

Right now the working title is

30:21

To Marry a White Girl, and

30:24

it's Bani at ages 21,

30:27

24, 27 and it will look

30:29

at a love story in

30:31

which Bani goes through two marriages, actually an

30:33

arranged marriage with the girl from his tribe

30:36

and then a marriage outside

30:38

of his tribe, which breaks a number of rules

30:41

and I think transcends some of the

30:44

barriers that so many communities in Australia

30:46

are currently struggling with.

30:48

ASTRID: I look forward to reading that one. Tell me about Sweatshop.

30:50

MOHAMMED: So Sweatshop is a literacy movement based

30:53

in Western Sydney. It's built on the

30:55

on the philosophies of an important cultural theorist

30:57

named Bell Hooks, who campaigns

30:59

rigorously in the United States for literacy as

31:01

one of the primary ways to empower minority groups.

31:04

And she argues that all

31:06

steps towards freedom and justice in any culture

31:09

are built on mass

31:11

based literacy movements, because degrees of

31:13

literacy determine how we see what we see. And

31:16

there was one particular term that she introduced me to

31:18

as a boy that really stuck with me, it was the term

31:20

'coming to voice', which is the act of moving

31:22

from silence to speech as a revolutionary

31:24

gesture. And so we built the idea

31:27

of the Sweatshop movement in Western Sydney

31:29

on this concept of coming

31:31

to voice. We wanted to empower

31:34

the culturally and linguistically diverse young people

31:36

in our region, who live

31:39

in the region and who have experienced that

31:41

region and have experienced, face a sense

31:43

of marginalisation their entire lives both

31:46

through class and through

31:48

race, and of course the other intersection

31:50

sexuality and gender. And

31:53

what we wanted to do was enable

31:55

that community to come to voice to develop

31:58

the skills to speak

32:00

their own stories. And what's so

32:02

exciting is that now after

32:04

ten years of having run this movement, we're

32:07

seeing an incredible generation

32:09

of culturally diverse writers who are

32:11

about to publish, and have already been publishing,

32:15

these books that are just I believe going

32:17

to change the Australian landscape.

32:19

Writers like Sara Saleh, the

32:21

Palestinian Australian writer. Winne

32:23

Dunn is a Tongan Australian writer. Shirley

32:26

Le and Stephen Pham, who are Vietnamese Australian

32:28

writers. And I think anyone who's

32:30

listening to this podcast,

32:32

you know, keep an eye on The Lebs, but also these

32:35

writers I just named and many others

32:37

like Maryam Azam and so many others that come

32:39

to mind, but keep an eye out for them because

32:41

they're going to be the future Miles Franklin winners.

32:44

ASTRID: I can't wait to read all of their work.

32:46

Thank you so much Mohammed. MOHAMMED: Thank you so much.

32:48

And also, Salaam Aleikum. ASTRID: Gregory

32:54

Day, welcome to The Garret.

32:55

GREGORY: Thank you Astrid. It's lovely to be here. ASTRID: Now

32:58

A Sand Archive was originally published in April 2018.

33:01

It is now more than a year later in June 2019.

33:04

Tell me about the book's reception in that time?

33:08

GREGORY: The book's reception? Well,

33:11

critically speaking in terms of reviews

33:15

it's been very

33:17

well received.

33:20

I think there was one episode

33:23

of a show on Radio National which absolutely

33:25

trashed it. But that

33:28

was the only anomaly

33:30

in that. So that that's been really

33:33

good. And I've

33:35

had a number of letters from readers

33:38

and so forth. It's had a pretty strong

33:40

response although it hasn't sold much. So...

33:45

ASTRID: A shortlisting for the Miles Franklin should change that.

33:47

GREGORY: That should help. Yes, that

33:49

should definitely help. ASTRID: So, do you read all of

33:51

your reviews?

33:53

GREGORY: Probably. See,

33:55

I work I work as a literary critic as well,

33:58

so I'm interested in all that as

34:00

well. Plus, I've got

34:02

an ego. [Laughter] And

34:07

yeah I can't resist. I'd like

34:09

to be pure and say I'm not interested, you know.

34:11

ASTRID: Does it affect your work, either your

34:14

approach as a critic or your

34:16

approach as a writer?

34:17

GREGORY: No... Oh, my work as a critic I

34:19

think definitely informs my work. I mean,

34:21

I'm kind of caught

34:23

in an ecosystem of texts

34:25

and books that... I love

34:27

that ecosystem. I love

34:30

that habitat as well as the natural habitat

34:32

where I live. So, my my

34:34

stuff really is about bringing those two habitats

34:36

together, I reckon.

34:38

ASTRID: I like that outlook. Now

34:40

I'm interested in what you did on page 29

34:42

of trade paperback of A Sand Archive,

34:44

and I'm going to read that to you if I can. You write: "I

34:48

know this myself as a writer.

34:50

If you give up all the information too quickly,

34:53

the reader becomes bored and has no reason

34:55

to keep turning the pages." I

34:57

kept coming back to that. And is

34:59

that your... That's the voice of your character,

35:01

okay this is in the work. GREGORY: It's not me it's the narrator

35:03

the book. ASTRID: But as

35:06

a writer yourself and as someone who works with words, is

35:08

that your philosophy?

35:11

GREGORY: Yeah, well in terms of craft narrative

35:13

craft

35:15

I think I'm

35:18

a little... what

35:20

can I say. I'm a fan of

35:23

close reading, I'm a fan

35:25

of subtlety.

35:27

I'm not a fan of what

35:30

I say... issues based literature,

35:34

but I think all the the

35:36

issues within the narrative which,

35:39

if you're authentic, will

35:42

speak to the world, the crazy world we're

35:45

living in now. I think they'll

35:47

come through and fold themselves into it,

35:49

but I'm not into shouty

35:52

stuff if you know what I mean. And

35:55

I think as a reader, it's

35:57

a base... it's almost a biological

36:00

need we have within story to

36:03

have it unfold in a kind

36:05

of procedural way that

36:08

gives us momentum and a future in the story.

36:12

ASTRID: So, you know, we're here

36:14

now talking about your shortlisting for the Miles Franklin.

36:16

But you've previously received many other

36:18

awards, including the ALS Gold Medal for

36:20

The Patron Saint of Eels. Do

36:23

short listings or prizes

36:26

change anything for you

36:29

in the process of creating

36:31

a work?

36:33

GREGORY: No I don't think that... just for me,

36:35

I think we live in a post literary world.

36:39

And I'm

36:41

a poet as well, and there's a thing where in

36:43

the poetry world it

36:45

can feel like an arcane activity these

36:47

days because so few people read poetry,

36:50

and in the last five or ten years at

36:53

times there's a whiff of that about literary fiction

36:55

as well. As I say, it's

36:57

a post literary world. So, winning

37:01

awards and being shortlisted it's not that it

37:03

affects the process, but

37:05

it definitely just gives

37:08

you the encouragement, and

37:10

the context, and the idea

37:13

that you're actually publishing into a context

37:15

of readers who don't

37:18

need to be shouted at, who don't need

37:20

you to say look at this, don't need

37:22

you to do it in that kind of simplistic way. You

37:24

can continue to evolve your craft

37:26

and it will be understood as that.

37:29

ASTRID: Now this is not the first work that you've produced

37:31

that involves the Great Ocean Road. GREGORY: No.

37:34

ASTRID: So you know, there is a Flash Road: Scenes from the Building

37:36

of the Great Ocean Road. GREGORY: That's a record, that's music.

37:38

ASTRID: But it's creation, from you. GREGORY: Oh

37:40

yeah, sure.

37:42

ASTRID What draws you to that

37:44

part of the world? I know you live there but to

37:47

put your creativity into it, to to bring

37:49

it to a broader audience.

37:52

GREGORY: Well look, it's where I live, it's where I've grown up,

37:54

it's where my family have been since 1841.

37:56

So this is my world,

37:59

my patch, my psycho geography,

38:01

it's my family, and

38:04

for me it's like... I

38:07

think I've said this before it's like there's a proscenium

38:09

arch over that landscape and the whole

38:11

place is a theatrical space for me.

38:15

It's incredibly dramatic landscape,

38:17

but it's also a landscape that's undergone

38:20

great disruption through to colonisation.

38:23

It's also a landscape where, you know, millions

38:25

of people come and visit it every year. So I can

38:27

sit there in my little shack and

38:30

the whole world comes through there. So

38:32

although it's a small regional

38:34

part of Australia, it

38:37

is in a very literal

38:39

way it's really connected globally

38:41

as well.

38:42

ASTRID: And that's what you explore, one of the many things

38:44

that you explore in the novel. I mean, you have the Great Ocean Road

38:47

contrasted with Paris and France. GREGORY: Yeah,

38:49

absolutely. ASTRID: What drove that part of the novel?

38:52

GREGORY: Well, that comes from this

38:54

idea of looking at the Australian

38:58

personality or culture

39:01

outside the urban Australian situation,

39:05

and watching how

39:07

that personality, that culture has interacted

39:10

with big moments in Europe.

39:12

So my previous book Archipelago of Souls

39:14

was a person from my

39:17

landscape who goes to Crete in

39:19

the Second World War and hits

39:21

against this incredible mythological

39:24

culture. And A Sand Archive

39:27

was based on a guy I knew

39:30

who was an engineer and stabilised

39:32

sand dunes and actually did go to

39:34

look at these revolutionary ways of stabilising

39:37

sand dunes. So, I love the juxtaposition

39:39

of the little tiny world, vernacular

39:42

world, and then this philosophical crisis

39:44

in 1968 and in Paris. ASTRID: Played

39:47

out on the streets. GREGORY: Played out on the streets. ASTRID: When

39:50

you consider your previous

39:53

work, and I mean your published work not your literary

39:55

criticism, what do you think preoccupies

39:57

you as a writer? GREGORY: It's place.

40:00

It's nature and culture

40:02

and the way they intersect. And we

40:04

really do have to get our shit together and get that

40:06

balance right. We all know that

40:09

in this era that is the big challenge.

40:13

It's not even... it's beyond a moral

40:15

challenge like Kevin Rudd said.

40:17

It's a survival challenge. And

40:20

it's about balance of nature and culture.

40:22

And that's what the novel is about, A Sand Archive

40:24

it really is about about

40:26

that. And like I'm

40:29

staying here here in Sydney at the moment.

40:31

I'm on the slope up from Circular

40:34

Quay. And when I... You

40:36

know, staying there the last few days thinking about

40:39

when those first ships arrived, and

40:42

when the Eora peoples saw the first

40:44

net that's being thrown out down there at

40:46

Circular Quay and too much fish being

40:49

taken for the first time. So

40:51

the scale shifts, and now

40:53

200 years or so later

40:55

there we are on that slope and there's no sunlight

40:58

on that slope, the whole thing is

41:00

huge concrete towers on

41:02

that beautiful wooded slope on this

41:06

sacred place. And that's

41:08

what we've done as a culture, and we

41:10

really that's a great

41:12

example for me of how nature and culture are

41:14

not in balance.

41:16

ASTRID: Have you walked around to Barangaroo?

41:19

Barangaroo spent most

41:22

of the last century as a very

41:24

large rectangular block, as a working... it was

41:26

the Hungry Mile in the 1930s, and then a working container

41:28

terminal. It was one of the

41:31

areas mapped by Captain Cook's crew

41:33

as they originally sailed around. In

41:35

the last couple of years it's been...

41:37

the concrete has been ripped away and it has been relandscaped

41:40

and revegetated according to what

41:43

the maps look like. But the price

41:45

of doing so was a casino next

41:47

to it. GREGORY: Yeah, ok. There you go. ASTRID: It's extremely

41:50

beautiful what has been done, but you stand there in the shadow of a

41:52

casino. So what bargains do we make? GREGORY: That's

41:54

right. So there's philanthropy

41:56

and then there's philanthropy, isn't there. ASTRID: There

41:58

is. Now going

42:00

from that very off topic,

42:03

this is the power of fiction. It take us

42:05

takes us to these places.

42:07

What do you think of the shortlist this year? GREGORY: To

42:10

be honest with these things,

42:13

I mean it's a bit counterintuitive... and

42:16

I'm always thinking about the books that didn't make

42:18

it, only because I've missed

42:20

out a few times, you know, so I

42:22

know what that's like. So it's very difficult

42:25

for the judges, so

42:27

I'm always thinking of that. But

42:30

given that, I think the

42:32

shortlist is really really interesting.

42:34

I think it's... I'm very happy about the

42:36

shortlist, not just because I'm on it, but because

42:39

of the ground it covers. And

42:42

I really like the fact that there's an experimentalism

42:45

running through that shortlist, which I think

42:47

for younger writers in Australia we

42:49

have to concentrate

42:52

on process and experiment with

42:54

writing, not just selling books.

42:57

So good on them for doing that. ASTRID: I could not

42:59

agree more. GREGORY: Good. ASTRID: Thank you so much.

43:01

GREGORY: Pleasure Astrid.