Sorayya Khan’s new book, ‘Five Queen’s Road’ is published by Penguin Books India, and is available locally at Buffalo Street Books. Photo by Shaianne Osterreich
By Shaianne T. Osterreich
Sorayya Khan’s stories take place at home—in the homes of families that comprise men, women, and children. It is families, she says, that witness war, love, disaster, separation, and sometimes, reconciliation.
I have sat at Sorayya’s dinner table, in the Lansing house where she lives with her husband, Naeem, and their two sons, Shahid and Kamal. Her family is a force to be reckoned with: tight, strong, warm, and smart as a whip. They were all at Buffalo Street Books in downtown Ithaca last Sunday, when she read from her new novel to a packed out house.
Khan’s latest book, Five Queen’s Road, follows a tight network of wives, husbands, parents, brothers, sisters, and neighbors living in Lahore, Pakistan as they struggle through the days and years surrounding the Partition. This was a time of grand upheaval as the British left their colony and created a border to separate a land of Hindus from a new land of Muslims, forcing the relocation of millions of individuals from one side of this new border to the other. As Khan tells it, each and every one of these relocations or acts of resistance or losses continues to take its toll on those to which we are bound, by history and family.
Noor, Khan’s first book, told the story of a family’s struggle to come to terms with the trauma of the Bangladeshi fight for independence from Pakistan and the great floods of 1971. Through the mind and heart of a very special daughter, Noor, the family learns what it is to remember, confront, and forgive deeds and events that no one should ever experience.
Over the years, I have talked with Sorayya about her writing, and what follows represents pieces of this conversation.
Sorayya said that she uses the family and the home as the window through which to tell her stories. Knowing how close her family is, I asked her to explore this.
Khan: “I am fascinated with the unit of family both because it is so manageable as a lens through which to look at the world, but also because it contains within it, at a micro level, the structures and forces of the larger world. In terms of war, a drama fought on a larger world stage, the trauma is immediately felt at an individual level that has repercussions for the families and homes of soldiers and victims alike. Often, this reality is ignored by society at large. Further, families comprise such interesting arenas; each dysfunctional in a particular way as circumstances, structures, and personalities live together.
I grew up in Pakistan where my father was part of a large extended family of seven siblings, along with parents who also had several siblings each. As children, we were fascinated by the endless network of aunts, uncles, cousins, and distant cousins that this reality provided for us. I learned about Pakistan’s history through the stories of my relatives. Now I have two children of my own, and although both Naeem and I come from much smaller families than our parents, we try to travel with our children to Pakistan as much as we can so that they, too, can benefit from a similar sense of family and, hopefully, history.”
Some months ago, I asked Sorayya about her view on a recent book that also covered the Bangladeshi war for Independence, A Golden Age. A good action novel with a strong female protagonist, the book it has a clear and unforgiving anti-Pakistani conclusion. In her standard, honest and self-deprecating way, Sorayya answered the following:
Khan: “A Golden Age is a novel I should have read, but I haven’t read it. Hard to say why. I picked it up and meant to read it, but then set it aside and did not. Given how much research I did for Noor, I have found it difficult to engage novels about ‘71 that don’t have the same focus that I had, books that take sides as opposed to exploring possibilities for reconciliation. Close-minded, I know. Also, I read so much about ‘71 and as much literature as I could find about that time period … I have tried to distance myself a bit to find the space to write new novels.”
Sorayya’s stories illuminate the multi-generational effects of trauma and conflict and the lifelong struggles people endure while processing what they have experienced. I asked her what she thought this means about the reconciliation process, and whether she though coordinated attempts at ‘truth and reconciliation’ were possible.
Khan: “I think that the effects of trauma and conflict, and the struggle to process what people have experienced are ongoing; they do not end when the actual trauma and conflict cease. The reconciliation process is a personal endeavor—it happens at home and in the confines of close relationships. But reconciliation can’t take place in a vacuum, either. If societies are not willing to reflect on their role in war, how can individuals be expected to do so? If a nation doesn’t admit to war crimes, how can an individual be expected to bear the burden? If a society does not provide the room (and safety) for reflection, if it does not validate it, then individual efforts are confounded.
In Pakistan, for instance, the 1971 war, out of which Bangladesh was born, is still an off-limits topic. One soldier whom I interviewed in my research for Noor said to me, “I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to ask me that question,” and it wasn’t even the question that was important, it was the fact that someone was interested in his war. The pervading silence at a political and societal level has made it difficult to reflect on what happened and virtually impossible to apologize for inflicted traumas. I think attempts at truth and reconciliation are possible, but they have to be honest and occur with an understanding of the power of reflection, specifically, that without it, society cannot move forward in a productive and just way.”
I have pressed Sorayya a few times on a theme I think is present in her stories: how women in families and men in families remember and process traumatic experiences differently. The mothers and sisters in her novels, to me, seem to be more aware while the men, in their efforts to protect and control under downright inhumane conditions don’t see some of what the women can see plainly.
Khan: “I think the only honest thing to say is that as a novelist, I don’t always consider how gender or class or various other elements might come across in my writing. The story is what it is, which is different from saying that I’m not communicating something about gender in the writing. Of course, there are only certain sorts of stories that I’m interested in, and that says something about what my beliefs regarding gender, or class, might be. I think, sometimes, it’s up to the people reading the text to figure out what the text offers in terms of analysis. The writer isn’t always aware of exactly how the make-believe universe comes across to the reader–each reader is bringing something different to the text and, therefore, bringing it to life in a slightly different way, I think.”
Sorayya is currently working on her new book, which includes two characters from Five Queen’s Road, Irene and Javid. I asked her what is it like for a writer to consider another story about the same characters.
Khan: “I am writing a novel, tentatively titled Land of the Pure, that takes place about fifteen or sixteen years after Five Queen’s Road ends. It covers a comparatively short time span of a year or two, a time of political turmoil in Pakistan between 1977 and 1979 which includes a military coup d’état, the hanging of a Prime Minister, and the attack on the US embassy in Islamabad in which one American and a few Pakistanis were killed. It is a portrait of Irene and Javid’s family when they return from Europe to live in Islamabad, and in particular it is a coming-of-age story that explores their daughter Aliya’s conflicting identities and loyalties.
I am finding it surprisingly difficult to write a novel with the same characters. While one would think it would be easier because some characters (such as Javid, Irene, and Amir Shah) have already been created, it is turning out to be complicated for a few reasons. First, the characters need to be re-created because readers will not necessarily have read the previous book. They need to be re-created in line with their prior characters, meaning the characters need to be consistent with the substance of the same characters in the earlier book. Second, it’s difficult to keep straight what parts of their characters are revealed in each book. Every so often, I confuse what a character has said, done or felt in the current narrative instead of in my last novel. Continuing to write another novel about the same characters is strangely joyful as well, however. It allows me to stay in touch with characters that I wasn’t quite ready to part with when my last novel ended.”
Shaianne Osterreich is a progressive-feminist economist. She is an Associate Professor at Ithaca College and specializes in globalization and poverty alleviation.