The Art of Precious Scars” Illustration by Kehkashaan Khalid (above)
Tarun K. Saint with Kehkashan Khalid
Prelude
This session features Kehkashan Khalid, who is well-known to writers and readers from South Asia and abroad. She is a librarian by profession, and a writer of speculative fiction based in Jeddah.
**
Tarun K. Saint: Welcome to this session of South Asian SF Dialogues. As a librarian in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, you have access to a cornucopia of knowledge and literature, as you tread in the footsteps of writers who were librarians like Borges. What imprint has your professional life and your own interest in art and art history (also as a practitioner) left on your own writing?
Kehkashan Khalid: It is daunting to imagine myself treading in the footsteps of someone like Borges. I can only aspire to write such magnetic, enigmatic prose. I do think one of the ways to potentially get there is to read widely, which is the best part of being a librarian, the best part of being surrounded by books. In my downtime at work, I’m usually sitting by the window, stepping into a new world.
Art is a great jumping off point for my writing. I generally like to weave in South Asian or Middle-eastern elements into my stories, and viewing and researching art from different time periods helps add authenticity to the world building. My art and writing are quite intertwined, when I begin with any idea it can either start out as words or sketches. When I was writing ‘The Puppet master’ for the Salam Award entry–due to a lack of access to glassblowing studios–I was using resin to create orbs filled with objects. That is where the idea of people living inside snow globes originated.
TKS: What drew you to this SF and speculative fiction genre of writing?
KK: I was first drawn to speculative fiction as a reader. I was in love with libraries even then, and all the SFF books that I loved–or disliked–at that time were from my high school library. Books that particularly impacted me include Robin Hobb’s ‘Farseer Trilogy’, Phillip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s ‘Good Omens’, and Peter Beagle’s ‘The Last Unicorn’, among others. Cliched as it sounds, I was the nerdy kid who carried around the entire compilation of The Lord of the Rings in my already heavy backpack. And my father and I used to read the entire daastan of Amir Hamza, Umro Ayyar, and Hatim Tai, several times over. I also found books with a more covert speculative fiction element fascinating, like Jane Eyre.
I began to write SFF when I realized I wanted to bring in elements and characters from my culture, into the world of the fantastic, in English. When I couldn’t find people of colour, or worlds akin to South Asia, in popular fantasy I began to write the stories I wanted to read.
TKS: Were there specific influences, such as Golden Age writers like Asimov (with his conjoining of robotics and detective fiction in the Susan Calvin stories) or even New Wave, feminist and cyberpunk fiction? Did you find the sub-continental traditions of epics, fabulation and later magical realism exerting a pull on your nascent imagining?
KK: I had never actually heard of Asimov until I had already grown up and someone recommended I should read ‘The Last Question’. I always felt more drawn to fantasy worlds than science fiction–I often found science fiction rather dry and technical. I could never get through something like ‘Dune’, which I think is the general person’s stereotypical idea of science fiction. This is as wrong as consigning the whole of the fantasy genre to being identical to Robert Jordan’s ‘Wheel of Time’. But my perception only changed much later, when I read ‘The Broken Earth Trilogy’ by N.K. Jemisin and shorter science fiction stories that blew me away, such as ‘The Waiting Stars’ by Aliette De Bodard or ‘The Secret Life of Bots’ by Suzanne Palmer, and when I began to slush read for Clarkesworld magazine. That was when I realized there was room for me in science fiction, that there were further sub-genres like soft sci-fi, hard sci-fi and even science fantasy, which meant there were endless possibilities. I definitely think that subcontinental folklore, traditions, and the poetic prose from the region finds its way into my writing. I think of it as a little tribute to where I’m from.
TKS: Did you ever have to face the charge that such writing was for kids, maybe young adults at best? Has writing SFF become more ‘respectable’ in literary circles in your country?
KK: Absolutely. I remember having only one or two friends who shared my fascination with SFF as a child, and I definitely remember that no one amongst my social circle ever really understood why I needed to write in this particular genre. Realism is something that has been explored a lot by South Asian writers and it is generally what people in Pakistan associate with literary writing. SFF is sometimes seen as a niche. But I think that has been changing in the coming generation. When people like Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, Usman Malik, Sameem Siddiqui, Fatima Taqvi write beautiful prose, and bring in speculative fiction, they pave the way for others to understand that SFF too can be literary. Nur, Usman and Tehseen have also created a community for spec-fic writers through the Salam Award and basically provided a gateway for emerging writers who may not have otherwise found their place in the literary/writing world of Pakistan.
Illustration for Usman Malik’s ‘Midnight Doorways’
I sometimes think SFF was as misunderstood in literary circles as digital art was in the art world. Digital art wasn’t always recognized as a legitimate form of Fine Art, but now with the overwhelming number of people telling poignant stories through all types of digital media, it seems to be finding its place.
TKS: Winning the Salam award must have been a transformative experience for you, as for any young writer. How has this changed your approach to writing?
KK: I was always a writer, but the Salam Award was the bridge that connected me to publishing and to a community of writers which has been transformative to my career as a writer. I don’t think any kind of art can be created in isolation if it is to be put out into the world. Learning about manuscript format, finding out about SFWA qualifying markets, finding a circle of excellent writers to talk to, learning that a piece of writing goes through multiple revisions via beta-readers, and then editors, are just a few of the things the Salam Award opened my eyes to. After winning the Salam Award, I began to write with more purpose. I realized that having a career as a writer means sitting down in front of an empty page and putting down words even on days when creativity may seem difficult. I realized that you cannot be an author until you refine your work and submit it, and learn not to take rejection personally.
TKS: Is there a sense of a culture emerging as a result of such initiatives in which imaginative writing in various forms (and languages) can achieve recognition?
KK: Yes, absolutely. I feel that such initiatives recognize the need for inclusion and create pathways to it. Accepting translated works, creating special issues for certain minorities, having an award for writing from underrepresented regions, all add to the richness of SFF and definitely create space for writers from these regions to come together.
TKS: How important to you is ‘realistic’ or plausible world building as you construct your narratives?
KK: I try my best to have plausible world building because I want to suspend the reader’s disbelief, and grounding fantasy in fact is a great way to do that. Having said that, I think each story is different, and each publishing venue is different as well. If a story doesn’t define how things work in too much detail, then they often have room to do things without explanation. Like, in The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf’s power is never completely explained so the reader can accept without question that he fights magically with a Balrog, yet doesn’t use magic when faced with the Nazgul. Brandon Sanderson, on the other hand, is much more detailed in his world building and magic systems so then the reader catches on and expects everything to happen within reason. Similarly, at Clarkesworld magazine, I don’t think you can get away with fudging science just because you’re writing SFF. Your science does need to have a degree of plausibility, because it is a very literary magazine.
I, personally, am open to all the above possibilities, based on what I’m trying to write and where I’m hoping to submit that work. But it is very common for me to dive down research rabbit holes simply because the world needs to make sense to me, in order for me to convince the reader.
Poster for aurat march 2020
TKS: Your forthcoming story ‘Nearly Human’ (in The Gollancz Book of South Asian SF, vol. 2) addresses the ethical dilemmas that arise with robots/droids in the future Karachi being assigned a level of intelligence and cognitive ability close to human consciousness. The context of such robots being enlisted to solve crimes is given a fresh treatment here with the notion of synthesizing emotions in droids (eventually outlawed), and the persistence of human memories in droid consciousness. Indicate the line of thinking that led you to this storyline.
KK: As with any story, it started off with just one element of an idea. I always wanted to write a story about a darkly misunderstood droid detective dealing with a traumatic past and I knew this story had to take place in a steampunk style world. It was only when I started writing that the story began to pose questions that I knew the reader would ask, so I began to answer them. If my detective were to have a traumatic past, then she ought to be able to feel trauma, and if she can feel trauma, then how do you reconcile her being deliberately put into positions where she is exposed to it? There was also a fine line to tread with her personality if I wanted the reader to be able to relate to her despite her barbaric actions.
TKS: Will science fiction remain your preferred form of expression, in the spectrum from ‘pure’ fantasy to hard SF?
KK: I have some exciting projects on the horizon. I love the entire spectrum of speculative fiction so you will find me edging into horror, historical fantasy, adventure fantasy and, of course, science fiction. But my favorite genre to write in will always be science fantasy, like ‘The Puppetmaster’ which won the Salam Award.
I have a couple of horror stories coming out soon, one will be published in Jennifer Brozeck’s upcoming anthology ‘99 Tiny Terrors’ and the other will be in Michael Bailey’s award winning anthology series ‘Chiral Mad 5’. I also have a historical fantasy piece coming up in Fantasy Magazine soon. And in early 2021 I had an adventure fantasy piece published in Translunar Travelers Lounge. Right now, I’m working on several short story ideas, but most importantly, I’m working on the second draft of my novel that has been in the works for several years. I think writing short stories has helped sharpen my writing and I’m feeling ready to tackle the novel.
TKS: To what extent can SFF/speculative fiction in its decentred, often estranged engagement with power structures in the ‘real’ world play a critical role vis-a-vis society, especially in third world spaces where both formal and informal censorship attempts to control the writer’s imagination?
KK:There are always socio-political nuances in speculative fiction, and I definitely use my stories as a way to comment on or revolt against things that are not openly spoken about. For example, a lot of my stories deal with the role of women in society, and how they can subvert expectations. I think all forms of media have the power to impact the human mind and, over time, change cultures and mindsets. And if we can’t do that, we can at least use speculative fiction to reflect upon society and raise important questions.
***
Link to Salam award winning story The Puppetmaster’ (2019)
http://thesalamaward.com/the-puppetmaster#
*******
Note Illustrations by author
Kehkashan Khalid is a writer and illustrator of speculative fiction in South Asian settings. In 2019 she graduated with distinction from the MA Fine Art Digital program at the University of the Arts London and won an award for her thesis project now on permanent display at the UAL collection. In 2019 she also won the Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction and now has stories published or forthcoming in Fantasy Magazine, Translunar Travelers Lounge and Chiral Mad 5, among others. She can currently be found in Jeddah lending books to everyone within reach, slush-reading at Clarkesworld Magazine, and spending time with her three young children. Learn more about her at www.kehkashankhalid.com
Also read in The Beacon: Dialogues with South Asian SF Writers-1: Bina Shah Dialogues with South Asian SF Writers-2: Anil Menon Dialogues with South Asian SF Writers-3: M.G.Vassanji
Leave a Reply