Interview matters
- Inspirations for An Island
- Tutorial analysis and writing
- The writing course of
- Enhancing and writing
- Writing and self-discipline
- Prose type selections
- Brief tales as groundwork
- Working with small publishers
- Illustration and authority
- The makes use of of fables
- Forthcoming work
Inspirations for An Island
Jordan Kantey:
Hello Karen, thanks for chatting to us about An Island, which was longlisted for the Booker and gained South Africa’s Ok. Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award in 2021.
Might you describe the novel’s premise, and what impressed you to write down it?
Karen Jennings:
Thanks for inviting me. The essential thought for An Island got here to me whereas I used to be having a nap.
I used to be at a writers’ residency in Denmark and had simply completed a draft of one other novel of mine – Upturned Earth – and I went to lie down for my traditional post-lunch nap. I’m an awesome believer in naps, and do my greatest to have one every single day. Even now that I’m primarily based on the College of Stellenbosch, I get below my desk with a pillow and a blanket and attempt to doze for a short time.
I discover writing and considering very exhausting, so I like to present my mind slightly break. On the day of this specific nap – I just lately found an outdated diary and might even provide the precise date: 15 August 2015 – I had a imaginative and prescient of an outdated African man on an island beside a lighthouse. He was frowning, offended. The sensation was that he was defending the island and didn’t need anybody to set foot on it.
That, in essence, is An Island – Samuel, the lighthouse keeper on an in any other case uninhabited island, resides a quiet life after which a refugee washes up and Samuel is unsettled by his arrival.
Tutorial analysis and writing
Jordan Kantey:
I really like the thought of napping below your desk between blocks of labor.
You will have a powerful tutorial background in historical past in addition to literature. How do you suppose this tutorial perspective informs your writing and vice versa?
Karen Jennings:
I suppose it signifies that one in all my favorite components of getting ready to write down a e book is doing the analysis for it.
I take care to grasp the historic context and what that may imply for the characters.
I’m notably interested by how people and communities are affected by the previous, by politics, by change, and so when I’m researching, both for artistic functions or tutorial, I’m at all times drawn to that, somewhat than to knowledge or jargon or the massive image.
Don’t get me incorrect, these are necessary, however they don’t seem to be my areas of curiosity. They help me in accessing what does curiosity me.
The writing course of
Jordan Kantey:
Thanks for sharing that perception into your analysis course of.
With reference to course of, at Now Novel we’ve a powerful perception in finishing your work irrespective of how imperfect it could really feel (giving your self license to write down what Anne Lamott calls ‘shitty first drafts’). Do you’ve gotten any processes that you just’ve developed to assist your individual work?
Karen Jennings:
I’d say that my course of is just about precisely like that. What you see lots of in submissions piles is perfectly-crafted first chapters, whereas the remainder of the manuscript is untidy and unfocused.
Worse nonetheless is individuals who have been writing and rewriting the primary pages for years and by no means getting additional. I made that mistake with my first novel (although that was for months, not years) and I now write many, many drafts.
I’ll write a primary draft and will probably be appalling. However I simply get it achieved – if I overlook a location or identify, it doesn’t matter, I don’t even look again for these, I maintain going ahead.
As soon as the primary draft is finished, I put it apart for per week, then I come again and undergo the identical course of once more, over and over and over, till I can’t do something extra. There could be any variety of drafts – 10, 20, extra.
Enhancing and writing
Jordan Kantey:
I’m glad you shared that, as a result of writers I chat to are typically upset to be on their third draft. It’s good to have that comparative consciousness of how a lot others rewrite.
In a tribute to you by your pal, editor Helen Moffet published on Brittle Paper, she describes the way you interned at Modjaji Books, Colleen Higgs’ independent press that has the great tagline ‘making rain for Southern African girls writers.’
As an editor who finds working with writers continually illuminating about craft and course of, I’m curious to know what being an editor and mentoring has contributed to your individual writing? What have been modifying’s Most worthy classes?
Karen Jennings:
Enhancing has been actually helpful as a result of it has saved me taking a look at my very own writing with a crucial eye. I’m in a position to get to the purpose with my writing the place I’m ruthless and might delete entire sections with out shedding a tear.
I suppose a few of the Most worthy classes I’ve learnt are actually associated to confidence.
I believe usually writers don’t place confidence in their message coming throughout and they also say an excessive amount of, repeat themselves, hammer residence the purpose. Most of the time what is required is a little bit of perception in oneself – and perception within the reader too. Consider that they’ll have the ability to discover and perceive what has been written, with out the necessity for large indicators flashing, “Right here, that is it!”
It’s also necessary to take time to find out what provides worth to your manuscript and what doesn’t. Why have you ever written this part? Does it contribute to your intention with the work as an entire or is it simply sitting there, trying fairly and serving no objective?
Be sure that every thing has a objective – that doesn’t need to be a life-changing one. However each phrase should pull its weight.
Get knowledgeable edit
An editor’s constructive, crucial eye will assist you to flip tough drafts into polished prose.
Writing and self-discipline
Jordan Kantey:
There may be a lot good recommendation in that, thanks. You will have stated that you’re disciplined together with your writing. Are you able to inform us the way you construction your writing routine? (in case you have one).
Karen Jennings:
I need to emphasize that I pressure myself to be disciplined. It doesn’t come naturally and I’m very simply distracted and at all times on the purpose of giving up and throwing down my pen.
I don’t need anybody to learn that I’m disciplined and for them to really feel that they’re failing ultimately as a result of they don’t seem to be. There are other ways to be disciplined. I’m disciplined solely within the sense that I’m strict with myself – however that may take varied kinds.
When I’m writing, I stand up and begin working at 4am. I’m a morning individual, fortunately, so that is pleasurable for me to do. It’s good to have two hours of quiet, uninterrupted time. After that the day can go in any route, relying on my commitments.
If I’ve no different commitments, I’ll return to my desk at round 9am and attempt to work once more till lunch. That is after I have to be strict. If I really feel like I’d somewhat be doing one thing else, I inform myself to sit down there till I’ve written 250 phrases, or I set an alarm for twenty minutes, then I can stand up and cuddle the canine or eat a biscuit or something I like. Then I come again and do it once more. I’m actually not glued to my desk from 9 to five.
Prose type selections
Jordan Kantey:
Right here’s to cuddling the canine and biscuits, I help a writing course of together with these.
You stated that you just work exhausting to make your writing ‘seem easy’. Are you able to assist us perceive the method that you just undergo to try this?
Karen Jennings:
I believe very rigorously about each single phrase. The phrases mustn’t ever really feel self-conscious, as if they don’t belong there. I take advantage of easy phrases. I don’t attempt to impress anyone with my vocabulary. These are primary phrases, phrases that really feel pure to most individuals.
If I all of a sudden threw in a phrase like “quixotic”, for instance, that might make the reader pause, the move could be interrupted, as a result of consideration could have been drawn to the artifice of the writing earlier than. I would love the reader to really feel unaware that they’re studying – if that is smart?
Brief tales as groundwork
Jordan Kantey:
It makes full sense, a lot of my favorite authors have that scalpel-like precision of their prose – many have been additionally editors, which is fascinating (I’m considering of Toni Morrison, for instance).
I used to be intrigued to study by way of a be aware in your novel’s acknowledgements that An Island started life as a brief story titled ‘Preserving’ in Short Story Day South Africa’s 2017 anthology, Migrations.
What are the advantages and challenges of making an extended work from a brief story?
Karen Jennings:
What occurred was that I had began engaged on the novel and I used to be feeling slightly bit disillusioned. I noticed the decision for submissions for SSDA and so I did what I wouldn’t essentially advocate to others – I made a decision to take the primary a part of the novel and submit it as a brief story to the competitors.
I don’t suppose it made a great quick story – how might it? However what it did was assist me to refocus my consideration on what I needed the novel to be as a result of I took the time to interrogate why the quick story was so unsatisfactory.
Working with small publishers
Jordan Kantey:
I like that. So usually a manner ahead comes out of taking time ‘to interrogate why’, as you set it.
In a thought-provoking interview with Jennifer Malec for the Johannesburg Review of Books, you converse in regards to the gratification of having the ability to draw consideration to impartial presses Holland House and Karavan Press.
Within the interview you say, ‘small publishers take the danger the place the massive publishers merely gained’t. Small publishers deserve recognition. With out them, the business would stagnate.’
What would your recommendation be to an aspiring creator deciding between indie publishing, querying small publishers, or aiming for publication by one of many larger publishers?
Karen Jennings:
It actually relies on what the creator is searching for.
Getting printed with a much bigger writer is at all times going to be harder – you want an agent normally, and you’re additionally more likely to be required to mould your writing to go well with their specific publishing and advertising wants.
A smaller writer is extra more likely to settle for the work as it’s, with out the industrial aspect on the forefront of their minds. They’re additionally more likely to have extra time to work intently with you.
Because of this, I’ve chosen to stick with my publishers for my subsequent novel.
Illustration and authority
Jordan Kantey:
I really like that, I’m positive many writers would instantly leap on the ‘clout’ or bragging rights however working intently collectively sounds high-value.
In an fascinating review of An Island, Eckard Smuts compares your protagonist Samuel and Daniel Defoe’s titular Robinson Crusoe in that these are each island tales that discover survival within the margins of empire/energy.
An fascinating comparability so as to add to that’s J.M. Coetzee’s retelling of Robinson Crusoe, Foe, which reimagines Defoe’s story from a extra postcolonial vantage level.
The place Defoe imagines Crusoe instructing Friday (a captive of cannibals whom Crusoe frees) English and changing him to Christianity within the unique story (a so-called ‘civilizing’, paternalistic angle typical of colonialism), in Coetzee’s model it’s revealed Friday’s tongue has been minimize out, making him mute and resisting any related assimilation.
It raises fascinating questions on ethics and illustration (who can converse, for whom).
In making your individual refugee character much less verbal, was this deliberate, so as to not presume to talk ‘for’ or somewhat ‘as’ the refugee? Or was it extra motivated by the story’s wants, i.e. displaying how Samuel initiatives his personal narrative or ‘studying’ onto the brand new arrival (which provides the story’s central stress)?
Karen Jennings:
There have been a few interlinked causes.
Narratives about refugees and their expertise are necessary. They’ve been instructed and will proceed to be instructed. However An Island was not the place for that. I used to be trying on the different aspect of the story – the one who will not be sympathetic to the refugee, the one who needs them gone.
The refugee has his story, however let another person inform it, maybe somebody who has extra of a proper to inform it.
When it comes to the necessity of the plot, sure, that was one other consideration. I wanted to construct up stress over the few days of the narrative, and that stress comes from the 2 of them not having the ability to talk. Had they been in a position to converse the identical language, or had they tried to speak and succeeded, the story would have been a special one.
The makes use of of fables
Jordan Kantey:
These are nice insights, thanks.
One of many issues that’s fascinating (but additionally unhappy) about An Island is how well timed/present it’s proper now because of, for instance, the conflict in Ukraine and plenty of different lingering or imminent conflicts.
In that manner the story of a person grappling with how to reply to the arrival of a refugee might really feel fable-like, because of its sense of timelessness.
You say in your interview with Joanne Hichens for Litnet, ‘I didn’t got down to write a fable – or, somewhat, I didn’t give it some thought explicitly in these phrases – but I imagine that the outline is an apt one, to a sure extent.’
There’s a sense of warning on this, maybe an consciousness of how ‘slick’ narrative could be in (prematurely) tying up free ends and main historical past to be forgotten, or in being twisted to serve doubtful agendas.
This wariness comes by means of clearly within the story. When the official from the mainland visiting the island after Samuel stories our bodies washing up, says:
As soon as we’ve discovered the our bodies, that’s the time when the therapeutic will start, for the nation, for us all.
What are your ideas on fables, and the official’s assertion about ‘discovering the our bodies’? It appears implied that an ethics of confession/forgiveness is inadequate for true therapeutic.
Karen Jennings:
I spoke earlier about how I had the thought for An Island on 15 August 2015.
On the time, as I discussed, I had been engaged on Upturned Earth – a novel that examines the exploitative, corrupt historical past of business mining in South Africa, and which, in a way, is a touch upon the Marikana Bloodbath which occurred on 16 August 2012.
What does therapeutic seem like to those that have been killed through the bloodbath, what does therapeutic seem like to their family members a decade on? What does therapeutic seem like for the miners nonetheless working right this moment? What reforms have we seen within the mining business?
There’s a sense that after one thing like Marikana, or maybe extra broadly, after one thing like the tip of apartheid and the promise of the New South Africa in 1994, that confession would clear up all the issues and every thing could be good afterwards.
That’s not the case. There is no such thing as a blissful ending. In contrast to fairy tales, fables have an ethical or need to educate ultimately. I believe confessions have that function too, in a single sense. They’re telling us a narrative of what has gone incorrect, and we have to discover methods to weave these confessions into our lives in order that we will transfer ahead and take a look at to not make those self same errors.
However that comes with work, with consciousness, with paying consideration, with every individual analyzing themselves.
Forthcoming work
Jordan Kantey:
Completely, there’s a lot to consider in that (that justice requires ongoing work and paying cautious consideration).
Thanks once more for chatting with us, it’s been an illuminating dialog. To finish off, I learn that you’ve got a accomplished manuscript and one other half completed. Are you at liberty to share additional particulars about upcoming initiatives with us?
Karen Jennings:
I’ve a novel, Crooked Seeds, popping out subsequent yr. It’s set within the southern suburbs of Cape City and takes place a couple of years sooner or later – 2028.
I’ve one other manuscript (the half you talked about) however I’ve put that apart for now as I don’t imagine I’m fairly prepared for it.
This yr I’m working with the Biography of an Uncharted People Project at Stellenbosch College, taking a look at slave emancipation within the 1830s and getting ready to embark on a artistic undertaking associated to that.
In regards to the creator
Karen Jennings is a South African author. She has printed 5 works of fiction (Discovering Soutbek, Away from the Useless, Travels with my Father, Upturned Earth and An Island – which was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize) in addition to a group of poetry, House Inhabited by Echoes. In 2022 she commenced a postdoctoral fellowship affiliated with the Biography of an Uncharted Individuals Undertaking below the aegis of LEAP at Stellenbosch College in South Africa
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