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Books]
Following the international success of her debut novel The Rice Mother, Malaysian novelist Rani Manicka is back with her second book. But don’t expect it to be anything like the first one, she tells ALLAN KOAY.AFTER being told how novelist Rani Manicka would shut out the world, take the phone off the hook and hole herself up to finish her books, it was a surprise to hear Rani herself proclaim: “I am very lazy!”
Rani, who lives in Surrey in England, returns to Malaysia twice a year to celebrate her parents’ birthdays, and more often than not, woodsheds at a beach for her writing. She did so recently, to work on her third book, which she said is based on an old Persian story and features some real-life characters who lived in the 11th century.
In an interview last week in Petaling Jaya where her family lives, she confessed: “I was hiding somewhere, yes, but I didn’t get my work done! I’m so lazy! I have a deadline ? which was yesterday.”
Rani never intended to be a writer. Her story veers far off from the usual “I’ve always wanted to write” proclamations; instead, Rani decided to write only when she got bored with running her Italian restaurant in England (a business she has since given up).
“I thought I would do either interior decorating or writing,” she revealed. “So I thought I would give writing a try.”
Not bad for just a “try”. Her debut novel,
The Rice Mother, picked up by
Hodder & Stoughton and published in 2002, was successful enough to keep her publisher happy. Her second book,
Touching Earth, has just come out and has reportedly been getting much attention.
While The Rice Mother was a sweeping epic spanning several generations of a Ceylonese family in Malaysia, Touching Earth is a dark thriller that is almost a complete turnaround from the exotic ethnic saga of her first novel.
So different is it that Rani even writes in the opening Author’s Note: “Dear reader, if you have read
The Rice Mother and desire a similar story then I must, in fairness, advise you to leave this book unread, for this is a dreadfully sordid world you seek to enter.”
The book was even rejected by her American publisher, Penguin. “They looked at it and immediately rejected it,” said Rani. “As far as they are concerned, ‘Rani Manicka’ is a brand name, and they were not going to taint the brand name with
Touching Earth. But it’s okay. They know their market.”
Even her British publisher was initially worried about the marked difference possibly alienating her readers. Although Rani was unperturbed by what her readers may think, she still wrote that little warning so that no one would be disappointed.
Touching Earth begins with the story of a family in Bali, and for a moment, readers would think that the book is in the same vein as
The Rice Mother. But Rani said that move was more to please her publisher than anything, as her two-book contract stipulates that her stories must be set in “exotic lands”.
But as soon as we get past the Balinese chapters, the story moves to Britain “where it’s all seedy and horrible” and “all sex and drugs”, described the writer.
Rani also had a different storytelling method in mind for
Touching Earth, which was inspired by a story she heard about a man who lost everything in life.
“I told my agent I wanted to try this method where I don’t start my story until the middle of the book,” she explained. “I would introduce each player first. And he went ‘Hmm ? okay, so this is some kind of obscure Russian method?’ I said ‘No!’ (laughs) He asked me if I was sure I could pull it off, and I said I would give it a try.”
But one thing remains the same – both books contain a sense of fantasy and magic, and delve into a world beyond the apparent.
“I like that because I can’t imagine a world where what we see is what we get,” said Rani. “Even dogs can see and hear things that we can’t. So why can’t ghosts and spirits exist? I would hate it if there weren’t ghosts and spirits!”
I asked if she was aware that she might be accused of exoticising Asian culture.
“I really think Asians have a chip on their shoulders, I really do,” she said. “Because if you were to really think about it, anything foreign is exciting and exotic. When I was a child, I used to read all these
Hans Christian Andersen stories and their blond and blue-eyed children. And I wanted more. So why can’t they want more and more of our culture? We are quite saturated with their stories, TV programmes and books, but they don’t see enough of us. So they rush for it.”
Rani, a Business Administration graduate from Universiti Malaya, is the second eldest of four siblings, and daughter to a surveyor and a teacher. She had an “idyllic childhood” in Terengganu, before her family moved to Kuantan, Seremban and then Selangor. After graduation, she travelled around Europe, and found that she liked Britain, and has remained there till today.
She cited Margaret Atwood, Martin Amis, Mario Puzo, Anita Brookner and Sara Hall as among her favourite writers. When her publisher wanted to put together a bio of Rani Manicka, she told them that there was a time when she only read romance novels. “And they said, ‘Don’t tell anybody that!’ ’’ she laughed. “They wanted me to pretend that I was reading Kafka when I was 14. But I was like ‘No, that’s what I read! I’m not going to tell a lie.’ ’’
Rani remembered sending out letters to eight or nine publishers before one responded with interest in seeing her work. But technically,
The Rice Mother wasn’t her first novel. She had earlier written
The Devil in the Bread, a psychological thriller that remains unpublished today because of its level of violence. The story was inspired by an incident in her restaurant where a female patron was using her boyfriend’s mobile phone to exact revenge by sending SMS messages to all his other girlfriends.
“I have always planned to later get that first book published. In every interview I do, I would always talk about that book. So eventually they will have to publish it!” she laughed.
Source:
The Star
