500 Words From Ann Bennett

500 Words From...is a series of guest posts from authors, in which they talk about their newly-published books.  Here Ann Bennett explains the background behind Bamboo Heart, published in paperback today by Monsoon Books.

Ann Bennett is a UK-based novelist and lawyer. 

Set in South East Asia both in the present and before and during the Second World War, Bamboo Heart captures the suffering and courage of prisoners of war of the Japanese. It tells the story of Tom Ellis, a prisoner enslaved on the infamous Death Railway in Thailand, and charts the journey of his daughter, Laura, who turns her back on her comfortable lifestyle in eighties London to investigate her father's wartime experience.

So: 500 Words From Ann Bennett

At the end of the Second World War allied intelligence services surveyed newly-released prisoners of war with so-called liberation questionnaires. My novel, Bamboo Heart, started life when I discovered my father’s liberation questionnaire in Britain's National Archives. It was an amazing moment when I first saw it; written in his perfect copper-plate hand, it answered so many questions I would like to have asked. From that moment I knew I had to write about his experiences as a prisoner-of-war on the Death Railway in Thailand.

This discovery was the culmination of a lifetime’s quest to find out what had happened to my father during the war. He died when I was only seven, and growing up I became increasingly interested in his past. He hardly spoke about the war, having started a new life with my mother on his return to England in 1945. I was interested enough to travel to Kanchanaburi to see the railway in 1988. On that trip I fell in love with South East Asia, but found out very little about what had happened to my father there.

I took the tragic events Dad described in his questionnaire as the basis of Tom’s story in Bamboo Heart. I wanted to write about those events from the perspective of one man, within the framework of a fast-moving narrative. My aim was to bring those events alive without it feeling like a history lesson.

The events I was describing were harrowing. So to lighten the mood, I broke it up with flashbacks to Tom’s pre-war life in colonial Penang, where he fell in love. I also introduced a parallel modern plot, the story of Tom’s own daughter’s search for the truth about the war. For Laura’s story I drew upon my own life as a disaffected young lawyer in the eighties, and upon my memories of those times. The novel touches on the Wapping Riots, famous in the UK, which I remember well. Co-incidentally the first day of serious rioting was 15^th February 1986, the anniversary of the Fall of Singapore.

I tried to tell a story of hope and survival, to examine the reasons why some survived the worst of ordeals and others sadly did not. I also wanted to show what an important role history plays in all our lives; how powerfully our family’s past affects our own choices and values.

My research for Bamboo Heart taught me so much more about the war in the Far East than I had expected. I had not previously known how civilians suffered; about starvation and massacres, about bravery and sacrifice. It inspired me to explore those events from other angles and through other peoples’ stories. 

Bamboo Heart is the first novel in a planned trilogy. I have just finished writing Bamboo Island, about Juliet, a plantation owner’s wife, who has lived a reclusive life since the war robbed her of everyone she loved. The sudden appearance of a stranger disrupts her lonely existence and stirs up unsettling memories.

I’m also working on a third novel: Bamboo Road, about of the daughter of a member of the Thai resistance which tells how the influx of prisoners-of-war into that remote jungle region affects her life.

Click here for Ann’s website.

Published Today: Singapore Noir edited by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

Akashic Books in New York publishes a series of City Noir books, each a multi-author anthology of crime short stories. Today, the Singapore-based company, Monsoon Books, is publishing for the local market the latest title in the series, Singapore Noir.

Beneath Singapore’s sparkling veneer is a country dark with shadows rarely revealed in literature.  Singapore Noir explores the city-state’s forgotten back alleys, red-light districts, gambling dens, and kelongs  - floating, off shore fishing platforms with a shady reputation.  The anthologised authors include: US-based director, writer and illustrator Colin Goh; UK-based author of novels depicting the experiences of gay men, Johann S. Lee; Bangkok-based author Lawrence Osborne; Hong Kong-based author of the Feng Shui Detective series, Nury Vittachi.  Of the Singaporean authors, three are past winners of the Singapore Literature Prize: Simon Tay; Colin Cheong; Suchen Christine Lim. Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, the editor, is a US-based Singaporean.

The anthology is divided into four sections: Sirens; Love (Or Something Like It); Gods & Demons; The Haves & The Have-Nots.  Each story is set in a particular location in Singapore, so, for example, Colin Goh’s Last Time is set in Raffles Place, and Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan’s Reel is set at Changi

Singapore Noir is published in paperback. It is available from all leading bookstores in Singapore, and the South East Asia region.  Priced in local currencies. 

The Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival

The Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival has just opened in London, and runs until May 21.  This is the only festival in the UK dedicated to writing about Asia and Asians. The theme this year is changing values across Asia.  

For the past 8 years Adrienne Loftus Parkins has been the Director of the Festival.

After a successful career in marketing, Adrienne left her native Canada and started living, working, and reading in Bombay, Bangalore, Singapore, and Shanghai.  She then moved to London, where, in 2002 she established a literature programme at Asia House. In 2006 she founded the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature, now sponsored by the Bagri Foundation. Adrienne also co-founded Anamika, a women’s educational group in India, and works closely with the Pan Asian Women’s Association to promote Asian women writers.  

After 8 years in the role, Adrienne has decided to step down as Director of the Asia House Bagri Foundation Literature Festival, although she will stay involved as an advisor and looks forward to seeing the Festival grow.

Adrienne gave me an interview via e-mail, from London.

How and why did you come up with the theme changing values across Asia? How do you think the theme is reflected in the programme?

I moved to India in 1992, when the economy of that country was just starting to open up to foreign investment.  While there we often heard colleagues and associates tell us that globalisation wouldn't work in Asia because their lives and businesses were conducted according to Asian values. These, they said, were never going to be compatible with the Western values that made multinational companies work.  Asians in general built their societies around working for the benefit of the family, holding true to tradition, and repressing the desires of the individual. 

Now, 22 years later, those companies that we saw open throughout Asia in the ‘90’s are still there and they have been joined by many more.  The globalisation of business, manufacturing, retail and communications has reached unprecedented levels.  Financial growth gave birth to the term Asian Tigers and many of those Asian friends who were so sceptical have thrived amidst the new realities that these businesses have brought with them.

With this growth has come a sea change in societal values.  To the outside observer there appears to be more emphasis on making money, on owning Western status symbols like cars, designer clothes, glamorous vacations and the latest electronics. Across the world, political upheavals have overthrown despotic regimes, giving a new confidence to citizens that want to overthrow governments and dictators that are holding them back.

Over the years that Asia House has been producing the Literature Festival, the number of books addressing the conflict between traditional values and modern ideas has grown. We decided to explore what has happened to values through focusing on writing that looks at these changes and how Asian values have reconciled with Western ones, and vice versa. 

Some events such as the Yiyun Li / Tash Aw conversation, Changing Sexual Mores, Burma: a work in progress, and Brave New Worlds: digital freedom in East Asia address changing values as expressed in writing in a straightforward way, while others like North Korea: threat or bluster, Cracking Up: the evolution of British Asian humour, The Shroud and New Pan-Asian Fiction, touch on the theme more indirectly. Changing Sexual Mores is one I'm particularly looking forward to as it will directly address a topic that until now has not generally been discussed in literature.

Do you try and present writing from all of Asia, or do you focus on specific countries, or regions, within the continent?

The Festival has always focused on a broad expanse of Asia. The 2013 Festival had events highlighting writing from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China, South Korea, Nepal, Burma, Malaysia, Palestine and the Middle East as well as South Asian and British Asian writing. In 2104 we've added to that list:  Vietnam, Thailand, Kazakhstan and North Korea. Each year we endeavour to discover writing about a broad spectrum of Asian countries. We are still the only festival in the UK dedicated to writing about Asia in the broadest context, from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Pacific.

Asia House participated in the British Council Korean Cultural Focus. (Click here for the relevant blog post.) Could you comment?

The event featuring Man Asian Prize winner Kyung-sook Shin and Krys Lee from Korea, along with Qaisra Shahraz from Pakistan, was very well received - we had a sell-out audience and audience and speakers alike seemed deeply interested in the topic.  The discussion took a more personal than political direction with each of the writers either experiencing a personal separation from their home culture because they have moved to a different culture or, in Kyung-sook's case, a separation from the other speakers because she has not left her home country.  Kyung-sook, who was speaking with the help of a translator, felt that language and the translation of spoken and written words creates its own kind of separation.  (The Asia House website has an article about the event, including some audio and video, click here to watch and listen.)

The Korean influence continues when John Everard, former British Ambassador in North Korea and author of Only Beautiful, Please:  A British Diplomat in North Korea,  joins Paul French, author of North Korea: State of Paranoia,  to analyse the threat posed by that country. What are you hoping for from that session? 

This should be a highly topical discussion of the threat that North Korea may pose to its neighbours and the rest of the world.  The speakers have both spent extensive time in North Korea and have studied and analysed the political situation there.  They will be looking at the current state of affairs in the country and, based on their knowledge of the situation, expressing their thoughts on the motives behind what Kim Jong-un has done and said in recent months.

Several authors are launching books at the Festival. Could you give details of new titles beyond what's on the website?  

We're delighted to be able to host 3 authors who will be debuting their novels in the UK. They will provide mini-interviews, in sessions called Extra Words, as a bonus to longer events scheduled with more high profile authors.  

The first Extra Words, on 8 May, will be with Omar Shahid Hamid, whose debut novel The Prisoner was a runaway hit at the recent Karachi Literature Festival.  As a former Karachi policeman, Omar has a unique view of what happens behind the scenes when the force is called upon to solve crimes.  The Prisoner is a gripping read, one that left me wanting to know if he was planning a sequel.  

Nepalese Indian author, Prajwal Parajuly, was part of the 2013 Festival when he spoke about his first book of short stories, The Ghurkha’s Daughter.  This year he comes back with his debut novel, Land Where I Flee, about a family gathering in Gangtok, Sikkum from across the globe to celebrate their grandmother's landmark birthday.  Prajwal was hailed at the Jaipur Literature Festival as one of the brightest young talents coming from South Asia.  His book is thoughtful and entertaining, and he himself has great insight into the clash between traditional family values and the modern world.

Finally, we are happy to have Tew Bunnag as our last Extra Words author. Tew has published several previous books, but Curtain of Rain is the first to be published in the UK, so he is new to our audiences.  His books deal with the contradictions between traditional values and consumerism in modern Thailand.

Censorship is a bigger issue in Asia than in the UK.  What do you think will be the main talking points at the digital freedom event? How do you think events held in the UK, but highlighting free speech in Asia, can help authors in Asia?  

One of the Festival's objectives is to promote understanding of Asia cultures and societies both here in UK communities and in Asia. This discussion of censorship of the Internet in some Asian countries raises awareness and helps Western audiences to understand some of the challenges to free expression that may be present in other societies. I expect the discussion to address how the Internet has opened up communication in some ways, but made it more difficult in other ways, and how writers are working within the parameters set for them, to express their opinions in as free a way as possible without fear of recourse.

To Participate From Asia

If you wish to participate in the Festival from Asia, click around on the following links:

www.asiahouse.org  
https://twitter.com/asiahouseuk

https://twitter.com/festofasianlit

https://www.facebook.com/asiahouse

https://www.facebook.com/asiahousefestivalofasianliterature

https://www.youtube.com/user/asiahouseuk

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110696022315652400040/posts

http://audioboo.fm/channel/asia-house

https://www.flickr.com/photos/asiahouse/

https://www.pinterest.com/asiahouse/

http://www.linkedin.com/company/asia-house

English PEN showcases world literature on new site championing translation

English PEN celebrates the best writing in contemporary international literature with the launch of a new website. English PEN's World Bookshelf is an on-line gateway to some of the most exciting contemporary work in translation – essential reading for everyone who cares about world literature.

The World Bookshelf features more than 100 award-winning books supported by PEN. The site includes profiles of authors and translators, and offers readers the latest news about literary translation and exclusive blogs from veteran and up-and-coming translators from around the world.

Jo Glanville, director of English PEN said:"English PEN has been supporting literature in translation for almost a decade. The new site celebrates the remarkable range of writing that we’ve been proud to champion and is a great introduction for anyone seeking to navigate the thriving scene for international writing."

Author Elif Shafak said:"In a world divided by politics, religion and nationalism, there are goals that only world literature, only the ancient and universal art of storytelling, can achieve. Shortening the distance between Us and Them, and encouraging understanding and empathy are surely among these goals. English PEN has launched an exemplary project to endorse, extend and celebrate fiction in translation. The World Bookshelf brings us outstanding literature from all over the world and promotes, against all odds, a free flow of ideas and stories."

Questions & Answers with Daniel Seton

Daniel Seton is an editor with the UK-based Pushkin Press, which publishes novels, essays, memoirs, timeless classics, tomorrow’s classics…its lists are filled with exciting high-quality, writing from around the world.

Last November, Daniel was part of a delegation of UK-based editors who visited South Korea for a scoping and study trip jointly organised by The British Council, and The Literature Translation Institute of Korea.

Daniel gave me an interview via e-mail, from London.

Why does Pushkin Press publish so many titles in translation?

We want to publish the world’s best stories in English, which in practice means that we publish books that have already been successfully published elsewhere. They might be contemporary works or modern classics, and the great majority of the time they are translations, although not always - for example we had great success with the multi-prize-winning American Edith Pearlman’s Binocular Vision, which we published in the UK for the first time in 2013.

How are translated books received in the UK? How enthusiastic are English speakers to read translated work?

At the heart of our publishing policy is the belief that a great book is a great book. If published correctly, readers simply don’t care whether it was translated or not. That’s not to underplay the importance of translators to what we do, but the mere fact that a book is translated shouldn’t be a positive or a negative for readers. It may sound trite, but it’s all about the writing.

Having said that, the market for translated fiction in the UK is clearly underdeveloped - only about 4% of fiction sales are of translated works. But we think this is a result of attitudes within the publishing and bookselling industries, rather than any aversion to translated fiction on the part of UK readers. The huge success in recent years of books such as the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, which kicked off with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, illustrates this - who thinks of those books as translated fiction? They’re just addictive stories that readers devour, and the fact they were originally written in Swedish is irrelevant.

All this means we see the underdeveloped market for foreign fiction in the UK as a huge opportunity. There are so many amazing stories, from all over the world, that UK readers are currently missing out on. We want to put that right.

Do you have any Asian authors on your lists?  If so, who?  And where do they come from?   

Currently, all our Asian authors are Japanese.

We publish four titles by the sexagenarian enfant-terrible of Japanese literature Ryu Murakami, including the first English translation of From the Fatherland with Love, which imagines a North-Korean invasion of Japan.

We’ve also recently published Bullfight and The Hunting Gun by Yasushi Inoue, whose writing we love. We’re following these titles up in August with a collection of stories, Life of a Counterfeiter.

There are also two children’s books that we’re publishing next year: Tomiko Inui’s The Secret of the Blue Glass - a kind of Japanese Borrowers - and The Whale that Fell in Love with a Submarine by Akiyuki Nosaka, a collection of beautiful and moving stories for children about war.

What drew you to visiting Korea as part of the British Council's delegation?

Pure curiosity! I was aware that there was a rich tradition of Korean literature, with which I was only vaguely familiar, through the works of authors such as Yi Mun-Yol. I also thought of Korea as having a very young, dynamic culture, all of which made me very grateful indeed for the opportunity to visit.

When you got there, what most surprised you about contemporary Korean books, literature and publishing?  

As I mentioned above, I had only a passing acquaintance with Korean literature before my visit, and, I’m afraid to say, next to no knowledge of the Korean publishing industry. I think one of the things a lot of British people hear about Korea is how long the hours are in school, as well as in the workplace, but I was very pleasantly surprised on my arrival by how relaxed and friendly everyone seemed. It must be all the soju!

I was also surprised to learn that, despite the ubiquity of Wifi and smartphones in South Korea, eBook sales are relatively smaller than they are in the UK. Perhaps, when wireless technology is everywhere, as it seemed to be in Seoul, physical books can be something of a refuge?

Have you bought any Korean titles as a result of the trip?

I’d love to say yes, but unfortunately we’ve yet to acquire our first Korean author. I have certainly grown much more familiar with Korean literature since my visit, and there are a number of titles we’re considering, so if you keep an eye on us we might have some better news soon…

Did you meet any exiled North Korean writers?  What, if anything, do you think Western publishers can do to help North Korean writers, whether in exile, or still trapped in the North? 

I didn’t meet any North Korean authors, unfortunately, but I think the world is becoming increasingly familiar with the story of what life is really like inside North Korea, and publishers can help by making sure that story is told.

Song for an Approaching Storm

In March, Pushkin Press published Song for an Approaching Storm, by Peter Fröberg Idling, translated from the Swedish by Peter Graves.

Peter Fröberg Idling spent two years in Cambodia, where he was formally employed by Forum Syd, a Swedish NGO, but where he spent most of his time as a legal advisor to Star Kampuchea, a local NGO.

Song for an Approaching Storm draws on his local knowledge.  It is a political thriller set in Cambodia in 1955. The country is on the brink of change, with the first democratic elections just around the corner.

Sar, a quiet, likeable man in his early thirties, is campaigning for the opposition, but secretly working for an armed Communist takeover. In the years to come, the world will know him as Pol Pot.

Somaly is Sar’s beautiful, wilful, fiancée, with an agenda of her own. 

Sam Sary, the deputy prime minister, is Sar’s political rival.  He too becomes interested in Somaly.

Over the course of thirty days, and against the backdrop of political power games, the love triangle of Sar, Somaly and Sam Sary unfolds in the sweltering summer heat, in an atmosphere tense with ambition.