Sharbari Zohra Ahmed

When I was at NYU, getting my MA in creative writing I handed in a story set in present day Bangladesh about a young woman who was trying hard to please her mother-in-law and, in the process, accidentally burns down the ancestral manse. The story was well-received. However, the feedback suggested that I further exploit my rich Bangladeshi heritage, but do so for pedestrian details and turmeric-tinged Indo-exotica that made it enticing to the Western sensibility. Essentially they wanted less character study and more arranged marriages, saris fluttering in the wind or elaborate cooking scenes involving cumin. I am still baffled by the enthusiasm of my fellow classmates for this story and not the others, most of which eventually saw print. My instincts were that they could not reconcile my “brown-ness” with the non- brown characters I sometimes wanted to explore. In the end I did not add more “cultural” touches and the story still got published. When I was starting out, agents and editors were disappointed and unwilling to accept the fact that I was not exotic in my style or interested in the “displaced immigrant ” theme. One actually said to me, “Can you write more about being Bangladeshi and American at the same time?” The problem was that I was not culturally conflicted enough. My Bangladeshi and American identities were not constantly at odds. That feeling of being an “other” happened more powerfully after 9/11, when being Muslim and American were deemed mutually exclusive. But I was not conflicted by it. I knew who I was; it was George W. Bush and Homeland Security who were not so sure. Growing up, I did not wax nostalgic about my home back in Dhaka because I had no home back there. I will say that my name, Sharbari, is as Bengali as it gets and was hard to pronounce for most Americans. My mother’s insistence on wearing only saris everywhere was sometimes embarrassing for the child that I was. Everyone would stare at us in McDonald’s. It did not help matters when she once asked for a Whopper instead of a Big Mac. I wanted to sink into the floor. But these were tiny artifacts in my writer’s vault that I usually passed over. I did not hold them in my hands, mull them over and then weave them into my fiction. That will probably change but that is not where I am as a storyteller. I want to write about people who are confused, or heart-broken, or trying to navigate their lives with some measure of control and finding it challenging. I want to explore situations that reveal something about the human condition in our time. I could be the daughter of a Norwegian herring fisherman and write about the same things because they are the most universal of human desires, the need for love, acceptance and recognition. There is nothing particularly Bangladeshi about that. There’s nothing specifically Norwegian about it either. My latest story to be accepted for publication has an African American male protagonist in it. That being said, a novel like The Great Gatsby is very much about the need for love and acceptance, but F. Scott Fitzgerald’s exploration of these themes is extraordinary because it is a perfect storm of an undeniably American voice set in a period of history that was definitive in its mood, ambitions and reactions to the terrible war it had just experienced. It is seminal because of its voice, which perfectly embodies a generation of a newly-minted 20th century and still resonates today. In that context, I don’t think my voice qualifies as a Bangladeshi one. Western agents and publishers want to place all us “coloreds” into neatly labeled boxes that make their marketing and publicity departments happy, so that my voice, whatever it is, is not an easy fit for most of them. Despite this, western publishers and agents are slowly starting to notice writers of the Bangladeshi diaspora, and I am personally benefiting from that. I just do not feel any of us writing from a place of diaspora can be described as having Bangladeshi voices, especially if some of us merely exploit being Bangladeshi to be exotic and inviting to the Western palate, and do not write with honesty and understanding. In Bangladesh itself, it is a unique time for fiction being written in English, because it is only being written by those who enjoy a degree of privilege. Besides some being genuinely talented, most are getting published in western markets because they are the only ones writing in passable English. Plus, it is a novelty. But if they are living in Bangladesh and experiencing it every day, even from an ivory tower, I am inclined to view them as more authentic Bangladeshi voices than those who have either been born abroad or spent the lion’s share of their adult life abroad. However, I do not think they can be described as the modern writers who are capturing the heart and soul of Bangladesh in a way that will be read and taught generations from now. I feel that in order to do that, one has to be writing mostly in Bangla. Bangladesh is not investing in properly translating works written in Bangla and sharing what must be gems with the world. As a result, our Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Orhan Pamuk is hidden from global view. Marquez’s voice defines Latin American storytelling for us because his work has been widely translated. At this moment there is a void in the Western literary firmament, in the shape of a wise, compassionate and unflinching voice who can illuminate for all of us the maddening, beautiful and sometimes horrifying complexities of Bangladesh. They exist right now, and the world needs them to reveal themselves. I know I do. But I, like so many others, need them in perfectly translated English because I can’t read Bangla. Sharbari Ahmed is an award- winning writer of fiction, plays and screenplays.  Her debut short story collection The Ocean of Mrs. Nagai: Stories, was published by Daily Star Books in November of 2013. Her fiction has appeared in various publications, including The Gettysburg Review, Caravan Magazine, Wasafiri, The Asian Pacific American Journal, Catamaran, and in the anthologies, A New Anthem (Tranquebar 2009) and Lifelines(Zubaan, 2012) and the political journal Inroads (Canada).  She is currently working on her first novel Dust Under Our Feet set in 1940’s India and writes for TV.   

21 June 2015 | Kitaab.org