Highlighting the importance of reading, writer and International Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq said in a world fractured by polarities and anxiety, books inculcate a habit of listening deeply, and added that a society that listens deeply is capable of bringing about a change.
Speaking at the 14th edition of the Exide Kolkata Literary Meet at the Alipore Museum, Mushtaq said, “We are being asked to rediscover reading. It is the best way to discover new words, and Kolkata understands this truth better than most cities. This is a city where words are never ornamental, but instrumental. Words questioned empires, shaped moments, reimagined society, and offered shelter to the wounded imagination. When we read, we do not enter a new world; we expand our own.”
“In a world increasingly governed by speed and spectacle, reading teaches us slowness. In an age of instant opinion, reading teaches us patience. Reading resists simplification; it does not allow the comfort of easy answers. A reader learns the complexity of the world, which is why literature remains indispensable in times marked by polarities and anxiety. A reader is someone who listens deeply, and a society that listens deeply is capable of change. It is where silence has meaning, and the voice in all its fragility and courage is preserved,” Mushtaq said.
Speaking on “Heart Lamp”, the collection of short stories on the lives of Muslim women, which won her the International Booker Prize, she said, “Male writers writing about women set the standards for them, how to drape herself, how submissive she should be, and a woman is expected to conform to those standards. But women have certain rights too. Don’t expect absolute obedience from women. I don’t hate men, neither does my women hate men. They are our own blood relations. I have seen men of several types during movements. I have seen abusive men and men who have also been good. What I want to say is that there is a patriarchy that must be fought. My characters pose questions to society and seek answers.”
Mushtaq said that due to her writings, she has been humiliated, attacked, and trolled, but still, she is not bitter.
“After the publication of my book, I was humiliated, attacked, trolled, abused, and thrown out of my community. I am a Muslim woman writer, and that tag haunts me. But I am also a human being. I was mentally shattered when that happened.”
Asked about the BJP championing a law banning triple talaq, thereby looking to empower women, Mushtaq said, “It’s an acquired practice by the Muslim community which should have been prohibited by the Muslim scholars long back. By not doing so, they left the space open for the BJP to take the opportunity. I don’t blame the BJP; they, too, made some political gains.”
Meanwhile, Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist Barbara Kingsolver said, “The times when we come together are remarkable as they make the process real. I grew up in a little town in the US, and we had a library, and books acted as my window to transgress into others’ lives. These are difficult times we are living in, but times have always been hard, the struggle for freedom, loss of life… In my country, it feels like we have slipped backward; I cannot even comprehend. I believe the antidote to meanness and division is empathy.”
British-American author Jhumpa Lahiri spoke on how she shifted from writing in English to Italian.
“I was already exploring how to write in a new language. During “The Lowland”, I had been trying to write through all of the other books. There are some who think that thought may be independent of language. I don’t believe in language. Thought seems to take shape in some sort of emotion and intuition. I love the fact that we have made so many languages and each is unique. Wherever we are, we are all outsiders. Alienation is probably the thriving theme of literature.”