Encircled by Turbulence:
Sarah Lachmansingh interviews
Yasmin Rodrigues

Yasmin Rodrigues

Fiction Editorial Board member Sarah Lachmansingh talks with Yasmin Rodrigues, whose story “Kangalang” appears in our winter issue #229. They discuss Guyana in the 50s, personal stories set in turbulent times, and a novel in the works.

Yasmin Rodrigues is an author and a songwriter of West Indian origin. She is working on her first novel which is set in British Guiana in the 1950's.


What inspired you to write this story?

Thank you to The Malahat Review for printing this story. It is part of a longer work that is set in British Guiana in the early 1950s. It's a story about what happens to young people, in this case a young girl, as she emerges into adulthood while the world she lives in turns upside down and she gets into all kinds of trouble. It’s a coming-of-age story in a context where the world outside her flat is churning in chaos.

You did a wonderful job capturing Miss Baby’s internal struggles and desires by building an engaging, believable voice. How do you usually craft voice in your writing, in this project and/or in others?

I wish I could tell you. Someone once said to me that you have to know where in the room you are standing and see things through the eyes of the character standing there. Dialogue tends to run through my head, like a lot of writers I suppose. Like Penelope in Bridgerton. But then somehow you have to see things through your character’s eyes. That's the tricky part, because you are bound by the conventions of writing, but the character wants a life of their own.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, this story is set in 1952, prior to Guyanese independence. Can you expand on your choice to set “Kangalang” in this time period?

The entire novel [that this story is a part of] is set around the turbulent events in Guyana, 1952-1955 and what happens to the key characters as the country’s disturbing new politics unfold. It's an historical novel, but I was struck by how much the events in 1952-1955 still determine Guyana’s sorry politics, even today.

The descriptions in “Kangalang” are amazing! Do you have a favourite line you’d like to share?

Oooh, that's a tough one, I mean the descriptions are very integrated into the action. Perhaps this one? “So many people smiled at the Chinee Boy and the Coolie Gyirl racing bikes from the bandstand on the seawall all the way to Kitty, the Coolie Gyirl hair flying in the breeze like it mad, the Chinee Boy short hair spiking upright on he head like pineapple plant, as he laughed and won every time.”

I see you are working on a novel. Can you share more about it?

Well, one reader told me that it was a big sexy sprawling historical novel that can be quite funny in parts and quite serious in others. I think there is a bit of my soul in it, because it talks about how my country got destroyed. There hasn't been much writing about what really happened in Guyana and why so many people emigrated to find a peaceful future elsewhere. I'm hoping to contribute a bit to that.

What are you currently reading?

I read a lot of international literature from countries that are historically underrepresented in English literature. I love Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, especially her novel Purple Hibiscus, and I loved Ondjaki’s Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret. I like writers who can really tell of the Shakespearean dramas of the Majority World. There are millions of personal stories that are encircled by turbulent times. They deserve to be told.

 

Sarah Lachmansingh

Sarah Lachmansingh