Faiqa has an MFA with a high distinction from Kingston University London and received their Best MFA Thesis Award. Faiqa lives in Lahore and works at the ICPWE Kinnaird College Lahore.
Q. What inspired you to write ‘This House of Clay and Water’?
Ans, I have been captivated by storytellers and stories for as long as I can remember. There is androgyny and a natural flux in the art of storytelling which opposes the rigidity imposed by cultural and social mores on women. My earliest memory of stories is linked with gender fluidity and is related to a statuesque woman who used to visit my grandmother twice a year. She had the loudest voice, raspy and hoarse. She smoked the hookah while spinning stories and mending or embroidering things for my grandmother. I watched her sitting in the winter sun, or in summer evenings, and listened to her stories. The gold hoops that glittered all the way from her earlobes to her helix seemed so flamboyant after the demure single ones of my aunts and mother. She had red, henna-dyed hair. Famah was nothing like any woman I had ever seen.
As a child, I wanted to be like her. A wild woman, who could cross any boundaries and had innumerable stories to tell. Years later I realized she was an intersex person. For me, she has remained a fascinating and brilliant storyteller.
When I was writing my novel, This House of Clay and Water, I wove the memory of Famah into my narrative. She emerged as Bhanggi, the hermaphrodite protagonist. Writing a tale with a transgender person at its heart provided closure, and I am happy I paid that tribute to my childhood icon. This is the first time that I have shared this memory though.
Q. Would you like to share your writing process?
Ans. My writing process begins with a character—their voice to be precise. I hear them first. It might be in response to a situation or something I have read, and I know that a story is beginning to unfold and so I pay more attention to that inner landscape where stories are born. I write because I want to make a difference. I want to contribute to existing knowledge. I want that when someone reads my novel, they feel the residue of that novel in their bones. I am not interested in telling stories that are forgettable. My next novel is deeply embedded in the mythic storytelling narrative forms of oral female traditions and Sufi storytelling patterns. My process begins by wanting to write stories that make one think, make the reader uncomfortable, make them question existing patterns of thought and socio-cultural norms. Once I have a story, I sit with my laptop every day, morning or noon or night, whatever time is just mine. I cannot abide by interruptions when I am in the throes of writing. Not that it makes any difference to anyone in my house. But I do try to write the first draft down as soon as possible. Joan Didion said that novels are like watercolor paintings. Even if you change something, the original composition shows, and that’s very true. When I start writing a story, I have to choose a path to the story, and there are several before me and it is hard to know which one is the ‘right’ one. It is all very intuitive. So, I choose and if I have not chosen correctly, I dump the novel. I have done it once so far.
Q. How has writing evolved you as a person?
Ans. Women, especially feminist writers, have been targeted historically by culture and hegemonic religion. My own identity is pluralistic, and as a writer, and an academic, I want to enhance the concept of multiplicity in individual identity through scholarship as well as art. I am drawn to meaningful, mythopoeic stories. I have always been fascinated by the connections of world storytelling techniques, and how stories connect us and transcend borders of all kinds. The idea that stories can, and do connect us, even beyond time, is a stunning truth about the power of stories. I am deeply interested in how narratives disinherit women of their agency. Being a woman is the foremost reality of my life and the more educated I become about issues surrounding women, the greater my desire to contribute in more meaningful ways. I wish to have a deeper understanding of women’s history and shifting roles.
Writing and reading are processes of evolution. Writing is distilled thought, so yes, every story is a sort of evolution. I feel the need to write at a cellular level. Once a story is out on paper, of course it changes the writer. Evolution implies growth, and we think positivity, and so far for me it has been positive, but I do question that assumption.
Q. Do you face writer’s block? If yes, how do you manage to overcome that?
Ans. I don’t think so. I think when I don’t know where to go from a certain point in a story, I get stuck. Or if a character does something that is organically not gelling into the story, then I cannot move forward. At such times, I read. I have a long list of comfort reads, fantasy and children’s literature, mythology that help me find my ‘happy place’ at such times. A mental space where I am no longer worrying about my work in progress but just enjoying a favourite old tale. Everyone knows that when the brain is relaxed it can come up with solutions to problems one isn’t even thinking about, and so often, I find that when I return to my work I know what to do. I also read a great deal of non-fiction at such times. But I don’t read new fiction. I won’t start reading something new when I am writing. I go to old favorites.
Q. Do you think location plays a role in the writing process- in terms of setting of a story or choosing characters, etc.?
Ans. Depends on the story. In my first novel location mattered a great deal. The only other place This House of Clay and Water could happen is India. But my second novel is not bound to a place. It could happen anywhere in the world. So the place is important to the writer for setting the story. Some stories need a very specific place and others don’t. However, even when the place isn’t important, setting the scene and place is crucial to the atmosphere and so even then anchoring the reader is important even if it is a few brushstrokes, it has to feel real, and concrete to the reader.
Q. Would you like to share with the readers about your forthcoming project, ‘The Storyteller’?
Ans. The Storyteller a novel that I have based on Sufi storytelling techniques, tropes and archetypes, and it is divided into three parts. Part One reveals the story of Layla, a university professor, looking for her mother who gave her up when Layla was just a child. The novel is also a murder mystery, and three women are murdered and their bodies are found dressed as fairytale characters. Part Two is the meta-narrative of Mira, the character who is the mother of Layla, telling her story as a homodiegetic narrator. Part Three brings the reader back to the frame story and leads to the resolution of the story. I am very excited about this novel.
