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‘I shelter in fiction to escape life’
Born in 1974, popular fiction writer Audity Falguni started out studying law and is today involved in promoting ethnic groups’ individual cultures. The author talks to Shibu Kumer Shill about art and agony and her latest writings
New Age: What type of crisis do you try to present through your short stories?
Audity Falguni: I think every art derives from agony. I can separate myself from other people by using by sensitivity, outlook, and depth of thought. People who have these qualities can separate themselves from common people in a society. But they become rather isolated from society. They need music, poetry, prose and other mediums of art and literature. Like that I take shelter in writing fiction to escape from the agony of life, and to express my delight and pleasure as well.
NA: What is the motto of fiction? What do they produce by interacting life and fiction?
AF: Currently, I am reading Nigerian novelist Ben Okri’s novel The Famish Road. The novelist writes about how a river transformed into a road and how a road meets the thirst of a community. Virtually, he is a writer of African folk-style. He has described African life in dialectical situation. We get this sort of dialectical situation in expressing ecstasy. We also find this dialect in religion. This dialect begets stories. Fiction mainly perceives those dialectical situations. Quoting Jean-Paul Sartre, I can say that the surroundings compel us to be something. Fiction plays the role of a catalyst in becoming something.
NA: Elements of a political agenda dominate your fictions. How is this realist view of art important in fiction today? Do you think they decline the spontaneity of art?
AF: Jack Derrida once said that the writers as well as their works in the west are dead. They are now dipped in materialism and sexuality. We will get great literature in the Third World. We now see great writings in India and the countries of Latin America and Africa. This is the aftermath of the Second World War. We have become sceptical. I want this to reflect in my works.
NA: Political elements in your stories titled ‘Chinhita Barud Binimay’ and ‘Jakhan Jiban Jatra Swabhabik Hoye Ase’ are very dominating. Aren’t they rather imposed?
AF: The subjects of those stories are politics. The incident of series bomb blasts in the country has influenced me to write the story ‘Chinhita Barud Binimay’. I think that documentation of the incident is important than aesthetic description of them. A story can be a preparation of writing another story. I have tried to present how a general person can be motivated by political godfathers. But interestingly, godfathers remain untouched. I have tired to present this inhuman attitude of the evil political quarters in my fictions.
NA: What do think about classical and non-classical writing?
AF: I do not think that classics are good and non-classics are bad. We have to read classics but keeping the mind free from post-colonial mindset. We should also read the writings of little known authors.
NA: How do you consider popular literature?
AF: I think popular literature helps in creating reading habits. It is true that the amount of creative literature is fewer than the popular literature. Writing popular literature is very risky. It makes hindrance in creating creative literature.
NA: Would you tell us something about the books brought out in this book fair?
AF: Two books have been brought out in this book fair. They are Michelangelo and Adhibarsha Aparichayer. The last title is a poetry book. I have been writing poetry since the age of fourteen. This maiden poetry book is a compilation of them. As for the first book, I have always been very interested in the lives of artists. I read about Michelangelo when I was writing a story. Later I planned to write a book on him.
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