Interview with author David Chariandy

CL: Where do you find your characters?

DC: I guess I find them in everyday life, but I’m honestly not sure. Certainly, the main characters in Soucouyant are close to me in terms of their personal experiences. Nevertheless, I like approaching character as a problem or question, rather than as something based on a clear answer or identity (if that makes any sense). I guess I like discovering my characters as I write. Also, I really like it when a character does something completely "out of character," leaving me with the task of trying to explain why or how he or she ever managed to do such a thing.

CL: What, if anything, do you think makes Soucouyant Canadian?
 
DC: That’s a really interesting question. I guess that all depends on what we mean by "Canadian," or "a Canadian novel." I was born and raised entirely in Canada. Also, most of my novel is set in Canada. The narrator and the other main character of his age, Meera, were both born and raised in Canada; and even a good half of the mother’s stories have to do with her experiences in Canada as a new immigrant in the early sixties. At the same time, I’ll admit that the novel does have a title that not every Canadian is going to recognize. I suppose that I could have tried to title the novel something "neutral" such as The Well of Forgetting, but, happily, I didn’t do this – partly, I must confess, because my extremely wise publisher, Brian Lam, urged me to stick to my original vision for the title. I’m not an authority on Caribbean culture per se, but the "Caribbean-ness" of my novel was deeply important to me, and I needed to mark this in some clear way. Maybe my novel is fully Canadian and Caribbean, but in ways that all of us haven’t quite yet been able to recognize.

CL: If you were organizing a book club meeting about Soucouyant, what would you ask people to discuss?

DC: That’s a really tough question. I teach literature, and I’m normally used to formulating questions about books, but I find this difficult to do with respect to my own writing. I’ve always wondered if authors are truly in the best position to interpret or guide discussions on their own work. Nevertheless, I’m genuinely intrigued about the question of whether or not Soucouyant is a Canadian novel, and what any answer to this question might imply about our individual understandings of Canada and its culture(s). I guess another discussions could take shape around the various issues that I’ve tried to represent: history and memory; the psychological toll of dementia on families and caregivers; the relationships between immigrant parents and their sons or daughters; the legacies and ongoing realities of colonialism and of bigotry; the ways we interpret or misinterpret monsters and monstrous acts. Also, I’m one of those writers who are very invested not only in what a story represents, but precisely how it represents something -- and so I’m usually quite eager to talk about the specific formal or stylistic choices that a particular writer makes.

I guess I’d like to end by stating how deeply honoured but also surprised I am that my first book is being read at all. And that it’s being read by people with very different backgrounds and interests is perhaps the biggest surprise of all. After all, Soucouyant arose out of concerns that I assumed were highly personal and obscure. It’s so nice to find a little bit of unexpected company.

• Learn more about the Canadian Living Book Club
• Buy this book online
• Read an excerpt from Soucouyant

Page 3 of 3