Meet the author: Ananda Devi interviewed by translator Jeffrey Zuckerman
What better person to interview an author than his or her translator? Than the person who spent hours reading, analysing, dissecting, projecting and finally formulating the author's words in another language? Our friends from the French Embassy in the U.S. had the wonderful idea to have French author Ananda Devi (Eve out of her Ruins, Les Fugitives, 2016) interviewed by her translator Jeffrey Zuckerman (@J_Zuckerman) . The result is a precious moment of complicity, introspection and reflection about Ananda Devi's influences and what being a writer means to her.
Did you know? Ananda Devi is going to be at the Institut français du Royaume-Uni on May 13th for the Beyond Words Festival, to talk about her novel Eve out of her Ruins! Go on Beyond Word's website here to find out more about the event!
In the meantime, here's the interview by Jeffrey Zuckerman, to give you a little taste of Ananda Devi's beautiful work:
Devi was interviewed by her novel’s translator, Jeffrey Zuckerman, on the formative power of place names in fiction, the extraordinary gift of “rediscovering” one’s own work in another language and the enduring lives of Devi’s best-loved works.
Jeffrey Zuckerman: Every time I email you, it seems like you're in a different part of the world! How does a place—whether Mauritius or Congo-Brazzaville or your house on the border between France and Switzerland—eventually become a home for you?
Ananda Devi: This is both a strange and a challenging question! Which place do I really consider “home”? I was born and lived in Mauritius until I was 18, after which I spent six years in London, studying social anthropology. Immediately afterwards, I went to Congo-Brazzaville, where my husband was working for the World Health Organization. I spent more or less seven years there, with frequent stays in Mauritius, especially when my second son was born.
We moved to the French-Swiss border in 1989 and have been there since. So Ferney-Voltaire, the small town in which I have lived since 1989, is home as in the place where I can put my suitcases down and take in the familiar and unique scents that are the imprint of one’s deep-seated presence.
It’s the place where I feel as if I am writing under the tutelary eyes of Voltaire, whose château is about 100 meters away from my place, and of Rousseau, who was born in the nearby city of Geneva. It’s the place where I instantly gravitate towards my beautiful, old-style wood desk with its leather inlay and softly-veined finish to sit in front of my computer and write while keeping an eye on the birds in the cherry trees and the occasional squirrel on the balcony.
"A writer friend once said that home, to him, is the place where he feels he will be buried. In my case, I guess it is the place where no one needs to ask ‘why are you here’?"
— Ananda Devi
Yet, when I go to Mauritius, my very first instinct, upon coming out of the airport, is to breathe in. With that first breath, I have the feeling that I am “here,” that “elsewhere” is abolished, that this is my place, the one where I belong and to which I belong. I may rant and rave against the way social mores are changing, against the race for materialistic things, against the nefarious influence of politics and politicians, but the place itself is mine, something that I can never feel as forcefully as with that first whiff of verdure and earth and sugar cane and wild flowers and rocks.
I cannot explain it, but this is a place where I do not have to negotiate my presence and to explain why I am here. A writer friend once said that home, to him, is the place where he feels he will be buried. In my case, I guess it is the place where no one needs to ask “why are you here”?
Continue reading the interview on Frenchculture.org here!
Don't forget to book your tickets for the Beyond Words Festival (11-16 May)! For more literary news, follow the Book Office on Twitter @Frenchbooksuk and the French Institute in London @ifru_london