Reproduced from James Arnett's blog: jarnettphd.weebly.com/fulbright-2017-2018/
In
the latest instalment of “Six Awkward Questions”, Bulawayo author Bryony Rheam offers thoughtful responses to the admittedly awkward
questions. Rheam is the author of the elegant and acclaimed This September Sun, published by amaBooks; a number of her short stories
have appeared in anthologies, including amaBooks’ latest, Moving On; her story of the strain of exile and the tensions
it inscribes in families gives us the anthology its title. She describes
herself below as the “number one fan” of Agatha Christie, and she is
appropriately at work on a crime thriller, which is in the editing process and
edging towards print – keep your eyes open!
describe your favourite
novel or writer using synaesthetic terms
It
has to be Virginia Woolf. I love her because I relate to her so
well. She was deeply unhappy and, of course, famously committed
suicide. Yet she has this amazing ability to see the beauty of the world
and capture it so well. This trembling, transient beauty comes
with the knowledge that nothing lasts; everything dies - but that is part
of the beauty as well. The strength of her writing is that she illuminates
those tiny, fleeting moments that most of us take for granted, but which make
up daily life.
what are some
metaphors for your relationship to African writing?
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But, on a more positive note, another metaphor would be a wide open space because I think there is a lot of opportunity, a chance to do something different because African literature is coming to a stage of opening up.
assuming a utopian
arc, what is the best thing about Africa in the future?
I
think it's expanding, developing and going forward in a way in which literature
from the West is not. As long as African writers push ahead and challenge
Western ideas of Africa - poverty, famine, disease - by writing what they want,
then I think we will see great things. Many British and American writers
have become very cynical about the world and this is reflected in the type of
books coming out. I think, to paraphrase Scott Fitzgerald, we have a
great capacity for optimism, for seeing a brighter future and not getting stuck
in all this angst that the others are.
what habits aid
writing most and least?
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how do you do it?
I
start off with my trusty notepad and pen and just sit and write. I have
another notebook for good lines that come to me, but I have no idea where they
are going or what they are about. I can't say I have a set routine as
some days I go and teach and some days I have something I have to do in
town. I do have to write in the mornings though; I just can't think in the
afternoon, especially if it is very hot. Also, the afternoons see me
running around after my children and making supper.
what is the most
exciting book you've read in the past six months?
Unfortunately,
I don't read as much as I want to. At the moment I am reading an Agatha Christie
- you know I'm her number one fan, don't you? - called The Secret of Chimneys. It actually
begins in Bulawayo with two friends meeting after a while apart. One of
them is running desultory tours to Matopos and is bored out of his mind and the
other is a hunter/prospector of the Indiana Jones ilk. The latter pays the
former to take some documents to England for him and pretend he is him (hope
that makes sense!). It turns out the documents are diaries of a Count
from some weird Eastern European country with a fictional name. I am
enjoying it because it is an early spy thriller, a bit like The Thirty Nine Steps.
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