I hope that as the years go by I will write many more posts about my time at the Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival, but for now, all I could fit in this weekend was one session on Sunday morning with Shankari Chandran, winner of this year’s Miles Franklin Award, with interviewer Ashley Hay.
Sue @Whispering Gums was on my mind as I waited for the discussion to begin. One because Shankari is a Canberran-based writer, and two, Sue’s impressive note-taking and summaries that she provides for us her readers at the end of every literary event she attends. On the spur of the moment I decided to see if I could emulate her fine work with nothing but a stiff wrist (De Quervain tenosynovitis) and the Notes app on my phone!
I also thought this might be a good chance to experiment with the ‘reblog’ option on WP to embed my earlier response to Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens into this post. And ta-da – see below!
To begin, the program information promised that this session would feature,
This year’s winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Shankari Chandran, [in] talks with Ashley Hay about her novel Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens. What is the role of storytellers in claiming and retelling historical events?
Join us for this examination of how Shankari’s intergenerational epic confronts Australia’s uneasy relationship with multiculturalism and postcolonial trauma.
The session was held in the large Grand Dining Room of the lovely old Carrington Hotel in Katoomba (Mr Books was in a more modern adjoining building listening to a discussion by Craig Foster and David Marr that lacked the character of my room, but had a stunning view over the town, and down towards the valley).
Hay began the discussion by asking Chandran to talk to the idea of how stories are transplanted from one country to another; from one culture to another. This led Chandran straight to the burning of Jaffna Library in 1981 by the Sinhalese police, clearly an act that she feels very passionate about to this day. Many of the older characters is her book are refugees from the civil war in Sri Lanka from this time. The trauma they experienced is both personal and cultural. The burning of the library was seen as a ‘symbolic act of erasure of Tamil existence‘ as it contained an extraordinary number of ‘culturally significant‘ manuscripts and books which documented Tamil culture in Sri Lanka. Books and documents that proved the Tamil people ‘have a right to be there, and to continue to be there.‘
The characters who reside in the Cinnamon Gardens Aged Care Home tell their stories to each other, to hold onto memories of their loved ones and homeland and to build a new community around them in their new country. They not only bring their love and affection for their homeland with them, but their cultural baggage as well.
She then talked about her chequered publication history in Australia and the number of times she was told that her books were not ‘Australian enough‘. Clearly, her character, Maya’s publishing career was informed by personal experience. After receiving yet another rejection letter for not writing books that Australians want to read, Chandran decided to write a ‘100 000 word conversation with herself to understand identity and racism in Australia.’
Rage and examples of injustice dominated the early drafts as she worked through what it means to be Australian and whose stories get to be told. However, she knew she had to move to a more compassionate, loving position, not only for herself, but for any possible future readers. She became conscious of not only observing and writing what we see, but ‘showing what we see in a way that you might listen!’
She reminded us that unless we were a First Nations person, we were all migrants here. I felt that she was trying to say that part of our responsibility was to own our discomfort when others point out the ongoing effects of colonialism and racism. To go forward we all need compassion, courage and reciprocity.
Chandran was a social justice lawyer before turning to writing and she naturally included huge chunks of legislation in her story. Thankfully, she explains, her book group, who were her first readers, encouraged her to take them out again.
The importance of listening to each others stories was a constant theme throughout the conversation and felt particularly poignant to everyone in the room in light of the failed Referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament the week before. She also suggested that while ‘reading to know and understand‘ was a worthwhile thing to do, that ‘reading to care and to love‘ might be better for living together in a multicultural society.
It is the storytelling we do every day that keeps us going. It’s something we all do naturally. It’s a way to safely explore our flaws and failures as well as our achievements and aspirations. And all we have to do is listen, really listen.
The Miles Franklin Award is presented “each year to a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases.” The judges for the 2023 award said,
The novel reminds us that the personal is often political, and that unaddressed trauma of the past haunts us in the present. It treads carefully on contested historical claims, reminding us that horrors forgotten are horrors bound to be repeated, and that the reclamation and retelling of history cannot be undertaken without listening to the story-tellers amongst us.
Clearly they do not believe that Chandran’s story is not Australian enough.
| This post was written on the traditional land of the Wangal clan, one of the 29 clans of the Eora Nation within the Sydney basin. This Reading Life recognises the continuous custodianship & connection to Country of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for the lands, seas & skies on which we live. They are this nations first storytellers. |
This Reading Life 
Such an interesting discussion. Thank you for sharing. I hope your wrist didn’t suffer too much!
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Thank you, I found it very stimulating.
As long as I don’t do much work with my thumb, it’s okay, but it does mean I’m back to using my pointer finger to type on my phone 😀
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You took great notes. I feel like I was right there with you.
“The importance of listening to each others stories…” Yes.
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I thought about including a couple of pics, but the post was long enough already! There was also a discussion about the choice of cover and title that was fascinating.
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It’s hard to keep these posts short Brona, but you’ve done a great job. (Thanks for the link and mention!) I use the Notes app too, but often on my iPad rather than iPhone because I like having the larger real estate.
Sounds like a great discussion, and reminds me yet again, that I’d like to read this.
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Thanks Sue. I felt very stimulated at the end of the talk and wished I’d had time for more sessions!
Next year!
I’ve now subscribed to their newsletter, so I can be ‘amongst the first’ to find out about next year’s festival 🙂
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I subscribe to so many event newsletters that I often end up not reading them but one near where I lived I would!
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What an interesting discussion – thank you for sharing it with us with your great notes!
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I hadn’t thought about my phone being a good note-taking device, preferring nice notebooks and pens. It’s good to know that I have a Plan B for future literary events.
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I gave up notebooks and pens a many years ago. I am secretary of an association, and I have been doing minutes on the Notes app on my iPad for years now, as well as recording discussions for the blog posts for my various reading groups. I feel sad about all my pretty notebooks – many of which I gave to Vinnies in our downsize – but the Notes App is just so darn convenient.
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I also enjoyed how the app automatically fixed some of my bad spelling too 🙂
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Some of it yes … but on the other hand sometimes it can be completely mystified about what I meant!!
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This sounds an interesting and thought provoking discussion, and another reminder that I need to read more of the Sri Lankan civil war, a period I know of only superficially.
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That’s how I felt too Mallika. I knew some of the main events but hadn’t gone into what they signified. I probably should read more of the Michael Ondaatje books on my TBR shelf.
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I have an academic volume which came into my parents library from somewhere or other on the conflict–but which has prevented me picking it up so far is its size at 700 + pages
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That does sound daunting!
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Loved every word of this post!
Many, many thanks for bringing this writer and her book to my attention…
and I will read your review about Shankari Chandran MFA winner.
Also…appreciated you mentioned she is ACT based writer.
I need to gather writers throught the year for Aus Bingo Card
…and have such difficulty finding ACT/NT/WA/SA writers.
I feel like all the Aus writers live in VIC – QLD – NSW..and some in TAS!
PS What did Mr Book learn from David Marr’s presentation?
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There are lots and lots of WA writers, Nancy. WA is my adopted state and I’m so impressed by the literary activity that goes on here given our isolation and small population. I have a whole page on my blog dedicated to WA book reviews.
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Thanks so much Kim for the ‘heads-up”. I’ll have a look at your blog today!
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What Kim said!
WA has an exciting writing output at the moment, so I hope you can hunt down some of them as well.
The talk between Foster and Marr was mostly around social justice issues and Foster’s refugee advocacy, the work he did to free Bahraini footballer Hakeem al-Araibi from a Thai prison and the stance that FIFA has taken re Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The main takeaway that Mr Books got was that injustice exists everywhere and that we can all do our bit, no matter how small, even if it’s just a letter writing campaign with local representatives for green space in schools.
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Oh we have a lot of ACT writers Nancy, in fact … Marion Halligan (has a fine body of work, in fact, for you to delve into), Melinda Bobis, Robyn Cadwallader (lives just in NSW but is regarded as Canberran), Irma Gold, Chris Hammer, John Clanchy, Karen Viggers, Alison Booth – to name a few.
WA is rich in writers as kimbofo has said, and there are some good SA ones too, like Stephen Orr, Peter Goldsworthy, Ali Cobby Eckermann, the late Barbara Hanrahan (though not prolific).
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Thanks for the feedback, Brona.
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