My Life as a Writer
Angélica Gorodischer explains the details of her personal life that relate to her career as a writer. As a young child, she learned to read before she learned to talk. She describes her 30-year marriage and notes that she has published 11 books. She also reflects that she rarely writes about female characters, and when she does, she says that she depicts them negatively.
Shelomoh Nitsan has mixed feelings about the profession of writing; for him writing is too personal and difficult to be pleasurable.
Niyi Osundare has a message written on the chalkboard at the school where he teaches that states “writing is serious business.” Osundare sees teaching and writing on a continuum, a writer is part of the community. He views writing as therapeutic, personal and social writing as an important outlet for him and his writings have been therapy for other people in his country. He wants people to know that it is possible to live a decent human life in Africa. He thinks he started writing before he was born because as a child in his mother’s womb he heard the oral traditions being told and the songs and music his father took part in.
Irāma Kaṇṇapirāṉ discusses how he began his literary career in high school in Singapore at the age of 15. His grandmother would narrate the traditional Indian stories to him and his brother would read popular magazines to him, which exposed him to diverse worlds. He believes that is was the early exposure to these stories that inspired him to become the writer he is today. In 1965 he married and became a school teacher, he later published his first work Twenty-five Years and Other Stories. Kaṇṇapirāṉ has divided his life into three spheres: devoting part of his time to his family, another part to his community by teaching, and a third part as a creative writer, “transcribing life into human perspective.”
The authors answer a few questions from the audience; the audience members questions are inaudible.
In: International Writing Program Archive | Fiction
Authors: Angélica Gorodischer , Shelomoh Nitsan, Niyi Osundare, Irama Kannapiran
Date Recorded: September 18, 1998
Works Read: Twenty-five Years and Other Stories, by Irāma Kaṇṇapirāṉ
Program: Shambaugh House Readings
Format: discussion