Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Birmingham Literature Festival Podcast - Welcome to the very first Birmingham Literature Festival podcast, bringing writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.
Casey Bailey 0:07
Hello wonderful people. Welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival Presents podcast. I am Casey Bailey, former Birmingham Poet Laureate, and I was delighted to be one of the Guest Curators for the 2022 Birmingham Literature Festival. For the next few weeks, we're going to bring you some highlights from last year's festival for you to enjoy whenever you'd like. You can subscribe to this podcast feed and get the new episodes as soon as they're available. This week, we're joined by Lucy Hannah from Untold stories and Afghan poet Parwana Fayyaz, who talked to festival team member Olivia Chapman, Lucy and Parwana worked on My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, a new collection of short stories written by Afghan women before and after the brutal resurgence of the Taliban in August 2021.
Olivia Chapman 1:01
Hello, I'm Liv I'm part of the festival team. When we started programming this festival, one of the first books to really jump out at us when we started having conversations with publishers was this one My Pen is the Wing of a Bird. And I will let Lucy and Parwana are explained much more about how this book came together. But as someone who has worked in book festivals for about 15 years, it's very unusual to find a book which is so compelling and which tells such moving stories with such grace and simplicity. So we were very enthusiastic to be able to do this event. So I'm genuinely delighted to be able to speak to Parwana Fayyaz as who is closest to me and Lucy Hannah. Parwana, I will come to you in just a minute. But Lucy maybe if you could introduce yourself and explain how this book was created.
Lucy Hannah 1:47
Yes, hello, thank you for coming. I am the founder and director of Untold narratives whose launch project was a project called Write Afghanistan. This came about and this is one of the outputs if you like from from the project. Back in 2017, I was working in Kabul with a team of script writers on the long running soap opera, there called New Home New Life, some of you may be familiar with it, if you've listened to Afghan service I think - and during conversations with the team I was talking about with them about what happens to their prose fiction. So clearly, these were writers who liked writing scripts and stories, long running storylines. And the women in particular said that it was impossible to get their prose fiction published on the whole, some cases, it was possible, mostly it was very challenging. Because locally, they would have to pay a publisher, or people just didn't take them seriously. And to have their work published in translation was a pipe dream. And so myself and Parand, who's a pen name in this book, and Sharifa Persoon, two of the writers, we decided, well, let's try and raise some money. And see if we can set up a way that women writers across the country could have editorial support, and develop their craft as writers which wasn't available to them and also to be published more easily locally, and in translation internationally. And in 2019, we did raise some money to start it off, and we put out an open call and the funder at the time said to me, well, you'll probably get about 20 submissions, because you know, we don't think there's much in it. And we got 120 from women, mostly in metropolitan areas. In 2021, we put out our second open call and we got more than 300 submissions. And it really the rest is literally history.
Olivia Chapman 3:54
And so you've got 18 writers who are part of this, is that correct?
Lucy Hannah 3:57
18 of those are featured in the anthology.
Olivia Chapman 4:01
And we will hear directly from a couple of them via video in just a few minutes. But for one, I wonder if maybe by way of introduction, you could explain how you came to be involved in this book and your connection to the stories in this book.
Parwana Fayyaz 4:13
So hello, everyone. I am Parwana Fayyaz. I am a medieval Persian literature scholar at Cambridge University. But I'm also a poet and one of the translators of this great collection of stories. Originally from Kabul, Afghanistan. I lived in Kabul until August 2018, I used to visit home every summer. But sadly starting you know lately in 2017 or so the situation of Afghanistan was becoming worse and I was advised not to visit home and to just stay abroad and pursue scholarship and write my poetry and everything so I couldn't go home. And I received an email from Lucy saying if I was interested in this project and that reading stories in Persian and helping with translating them into English. And all of a sudden, I felt like I was visiting home through the stories. And for me that become a project that I got involved with, with my soul. And also, obviously, because each story is such a vivid image of Kabul, it just captured my imagination, and I had to go over them and working through the stories. It, it just, you know, felt like I was visiting home. So yeah, that's how I came to be involved knowing that this was piece of my home country. And I felt like these writers were amazing women and talented writers that they needed their stories needed to be known to the world. So I was involved right away. And at the same time, I was writing my poetry book 40 Names and putting all your creative skills in the basket to do something for your country out in Afghanistan. So yeah, that's how I became involved with this project.
Olivia Chapman 5:59
Thank you. So before we hear from one of the writers, just so that we know how this came about these stories are fiction. Some of them are quite kind of daily life. But some of them are much more fantasy, aren't they?
Lucy Hannah 6:14
Yes, I mean, this was a traditional as it were a writer development program without any themes put upon writers involved. And the submissions that we received were, I mean, we couldn't work with hundreds of writers. So a team of Afghan readers selected the group of about a core group of about 25 to 30, who we worked with continuously. The themes that came in were very, like, similar to these those in the book actually, often inspired, clearly inspired, often by real life. But fiction, and the writers were determined that this is fiction are one of the writers Masouma Kuzari, who submitted a story called The Cow, which was a very simple parable really, now has two pieces in here that are much more ambitious. So in a way, it was interesting how writers found their stride and developed through the process, as you would expect, but that was really encouraging to us that people were using it to really find their voice in a genuine way. Yeah, and I mean, a lot of it is, it is they are all set in Afghanistan. And we were talking earlier about whether in the next volume if we were lucky enough to to have one, how many of the writers will actually start setting pieces elsewhere and really spreading their wings literally.
Olivia Chapman 7:41
And they were writing in their mother tongues, which for the most part was Pashto and Dari.
Lucy Hannah 7:45
Yes, the two most dominant languages, local languages in Afghanistan on a team of four translators worked with us, Parwana being one of them. And we worked very closely: writer - editor - translator worked in a truly collaborative way through the process, which is actually quite unusual.
Olivia Chapman 8:03
So I wonder if we can hear from Batool who is one of the writers she will be speaking in Dari with subtitles
Batool (speaking in Dari) 8:21
[speaking in Dari, subtitles on screen, Dari speech is audible]
Olivia Chapman 12:21
Quite heartbreaking to hear her say that herself, isn't it the not being able to write stories of hope.
Lucy Hannah 12:27
So that was last August 2021. And that video was made in February this year.
Olivia Chapman 12:33
And we should also say that Batool is no longer in Afghanistan - she I think she would call it that from Italy. Is that correct?
Lucy Hannah 12:38
She's in Italy.
Olivia Chapman 12:39
Yeah. So she's one of the contributors and her story is in the book and Parwana if you're happy to I'd love for you to read some of that.
Parwana Fayyaz 12:49
So the story I'm about to read is by the tool of Heidi, and the title is I do not have the flying wings. It's really a story about a young boy comes of age and secretly hopes that he can be seen and desired and loved like a woman.
"I placed the meter against the case and focus it on the roundness of my face. I pulled the little stick from the coal box and run it over my eyelids, turning them dark. Inside the box there is also lipstick with no lid. Turquoise and color around the edges as if it will withering. I apply a little to my thin lips and then with the tip of my finger is spread the color around. I see my mother's wine colored braid with its soft blue beading. I put it on. Then I put on her white shawl with its golden edges which she has so neatly folded away. It spreads softly around my shoulders, the tickling feeling which had waned a little returns to my body. I look in the mirror and I'm a beautiful young woman. I clap my hands together and then I start on my foot leaping and circling. I dance, my hands resting on my waist. I stop. I dance on the tip of my toes with grace and delicacy. Just like any other girl. I feel as if all boys around kneeling in a circle around me clapping for me as I make the other girls jealous. Whenever I stomp my feet on the ground, the dust rises up in the faces of the smiling boys and I feel shy. As I dance. I look upwards I see the sky and I see the clouds and blue and white. The hem of the shawl touches my face and the sweat feels warmer around my body. I sense the sound of them burr in my ears the sound for which young fingers would give their lives. I dance as if I have been liberated from my body. Despite the hit of my skin, my liberty keeps me cool. I admire my own beauty. I opened my thin lips I'm ready to sing out the poem that has always rested in my throat. It is at this precise moment that I feel someone watching me, I turn around and my father shouts my name. I pulled a shawl from my head and toss it away. I feel heavy, the colors have gone, the smell so different. His eyes have turned red, bright red and smoky. He seemed suddenly to have aged: he's pale, furious.
Olivia Chapman 15:35
So we'll come to a video of another contributor in just a couple of minutes. But Parwana, I wonder if maybe you can talk a little bit about that scene that you've just read, and the universality of it that could have been set, obviously, anywhere. But the power of this book for me, was that those scenes that are universal are set in your home country.
Parwana Fayyaz 15:56
Yeah, definitely. Well, this another thing, this story begins, but this young boy finding himself in this very old house, and then there is an underground and then there is a room in there, and he walks and there, the stairs are weathering, and he finds himself in the presence of, you know, things that have remained from historical moments, because Soviet Union case asserting that he opens them up, in the sense of, you know, I was brought up in a home where there were Russian objects all around, right, the sense of like, we are being conquered before we have had things coming in the country. And they represent some sort of a different historical moment. And this story is set in a in a space that's familiar for me, you know, the staircases that were built by hand and the father figure or the men in the in the family would, every winter, they try to piece together in order for them to stand for the rest of the winter. So that sense of home, coming into universality that makes me feel more connected, because as a writer from Afghanistan, being educated in America, and then coming to the UK, I feel part of both worlds, I come from a place called Kabul, within Kabul, a very small area. And with a lot of things that comes from the past that is very not vivid for me, but for my parents, we have gone through so many different historical moments, different sorts of war and everything, and it has impacted my family in the same and those spaces really, you know, contain those memories. For me to visit, to be able to visit that and come back in a place like Cambridge say, to put them in context and juxtaposition that gives me a sense of belonging to both worlds. And this poem really does that for me and this this type of stories obviously. I don't know this this as you say, this can be set anywhere: in America, in a small town. But it's that Afghan figure in it I think that Afghan side of the story, the mother folding neatly the shawls that she inherited from the mother figure or the mother has been giving her as the first token of their marriage life - those little things are very familiar for me. I was brought up in a household where everything had to be folded and and bundled together and put in the very you know, safe case where you could carry with you anywhere you go. We became refugees when I was very young. And in my parents,iron the first thing they took but then will three very old iron cases. It went to Pakistan with us in 2005. And we back came back to Kabul brought it back with us and obviously after last August what happened in Afghanistan after country fall back to to the Taliban they left everything behind. They couldn't carry those things. It was just like this story for me is a revisiting of those moments that for a bit without we will free you know - it was a pause for a moment for us to make sense of spaces, make sense of objects and connection to our stories and sense of being. But it's you know, it's felt like we're losing it but you know, stories are such really doesn't only represent the place but the emotions and the things that all the - everything that already feels so nostalgic for me. So yeah, I'm seeing both worlds and stories like this.
Olivia Chapman 19:28
And it's the it's the detail. It's absolutely the details. It gives you that insight into your daily life. Yes, like the folding of the shawls that you've just said.
Parwana Fayyaz 19:35
And it's also one of the other stories about return on the condition. It's a young man traveling but in Kabul city taking the bus and if you're from Afghanistan, or even if you're a visitor if you've ever been to Kabul, if you read that that story, you can imagine the city that chaos but at the same time that hope that existed that is just yeah the details in the emotions even, you know how what kind of emotion certain things in the city really, you know gave you - that triggered some sort of a memory fear or emotions. It's just a mixture of things that made it possible for anyone like me to feel that this or like even though this infection, there's so much truth in them. There's so much of the reality that captured in the story since just for me this is to be remembered forever.
Olivia Chapman 20:27
It makes it very them very powerful. I wonder if we could hear from Marie, please.
Marie (speaking on video) 20:31
Hello, everyone, I am Marie talking with you from Deutschland. So apparently, the launching of the book is the happiest news I heard after leaving the Kabul. I left Kabul a month after the Taliban took over. So abandon my homeland abandon my Kabul was the hardest decision I ever made in my entire life, because I had just one choice, stay with my family and obey the rule of Talib or leave Kabul in order to save my future. So, so I choose myself or my family, and I really feel bad about my decision because it gives me the feeling or it makes me to feel awkward and selfish. And it really hurt and I never thought such hard days come to me. But in this certain circumstance, the only thing that makes me hopeful is the launching event of the book. About my story in the book, The Black Crown of the Printer, it is my first fiction that I inspired from, from a daily life of woman there are some tiny issue in every woman's life, which never seen as a serious issue and always remain. So so this is story a so this is story is about a two hour life of a woman in Kabul that is struggling, that kind of struggling to survive in society. And this story, I wanted to show I wanted to share that in this short period of time a woman face a lot of problem in the society and no one care about it. Because the society believes there are more important things in life compared to that problem of the woman. So this story is kind of not just about Afghan moment is the story of every woman around the world, which are not allowed to talk and their problem has not seem as important and always their problem their issue is prioritised as not important thing. So So I hope this story could help the woman to talk at become a smallish power cord smart, small light to their, to their life.
You know, the publishing is dedicated to a certain category of writer. So there is a zero chance for a new writer to publish their pieces. So as always, the new writers fictions remains untold and die under the desk because they will not be supported for for them. But I'm told the team even to to read our writing tried about uncover layer of Afghanistan, and to talk with the word by translating our story to English. And I am really happy to see that my first fiction has been published in English.
In other hand, I am more happy and more happy to be member of this community. You know, working with a group of a writer from different locations of Afghanistan with different experience with different perspective and different talk is a rare opportunity anyone can get. And I am so proud to be a member of this community. It is a big achievement. It is it is really great. And I'm happy that I'm a member of this community and helping others to this path.
So back to Afghanistan, I remember the day Taliban took over Kabul: all of the members were frustrated in PAP and panic and disappointed. We were in WhatsApp group we were texting to each other and share our fears. And even we even we cried behind the phone because of the situation. So so for me it was it was some some kind of a unique experience. It was a unique experience for me because I saw potential in this group that this group helped each other to survive in the hardest time of their life. So I think publishing the book is not the end, but the starting point for each of us, especially in such situation where a woman needs for more than ever.
Olivia Chapman 24:41
Lucy after that video, I'm going to ask you a little bit about the process of bringing the writers together, which you didn't do in person. It was all done online. But obviously because this project started in 2019 Quite a big chunk of this project would have had to have been online anyway because of COVID lockdowns. She talks a lot about the community of writers that was created by this project. And I know they're all still in touch and quite frequently communicating. But can you talk to us a little bit about how the book actually was - how you work how untold project worked with the writers, individually, but then kind of brought them together as well.
Lucy Hannah 25:17
Looking back on it now, I can't quite believe I can't quite work out how it happened. But so basically, we worked across we working across three languages across three time zones, because our editor was in Sri Lanka. And over nearly sort of two years, really, and as you say, COVID was there. I mean, Afghanistan is no stranger to lock downs, as you'll know, because the security situation is such so we wouldn't be able to go there, anyway, probably. So we devised a way of working as I said, before, editor, writer, translator, via WhatsApp calls, intensively, draft by draft feedback, feedback, as you would do here or anywhere else, but you probably be in the same room. And so this went on, we occasionally we also had regular group meetings, also via WhatsApp. The reason it was WhatsApp was because most of these writers don't have laptops, or didn't have actually till two weeks ago, when a very kind American donor has enabled all of the group to have a laptop now. And so - also data is expensive - and so mobiles is - women had their own mobiles. And they were writing pieces that way, some were writing by hand, and then somebody else would get it onto the mobile.
So gradually, the group that had us sort of - grew a cohesive feel - people from were from different ethnic groups. So there was a little bit of mistrust around that initially. But I think because we all had a common aim, which was a pipe dream at the beginning, which was, well, let's try you never know, we might be able to get an anthology or some sort of collection out of this. In January 2021, I visited about a dozen publishers in London, when it seemed that we might have the makings of a book. They all said, no one's going to be interested in Afghan writing, you know, forget it. One - MacLehose Press - in the April of 2021, said yes, we are interested in fiction in translation. You know, we'll publish it but don't expect it to sell very many but but we'd like to publish it. After Kabul fell, 11 of those publishers rang me up, and said, we, you know, that book you were talking about, we'd love to do that. And I luckily was able to say, Well, bad luck, you could have done it. So we were about three quarters of the way through this when Kabul fell. And we had to make a an overnight, everything changed overnight, and the Taliban swept across the country, as you know. And when they re-took the capital, we had to make some swift decisions, we had to remove all the writers from the internet. So there was no trace of them. You know, we spent the previous two years promoting their work online and being published in places like Words Without Borders. And so on the one hand, we were removing all trace of the people that that we were working with. And on the other hand, we had to discuss with what's going to happen to this, the group all were absolutely determined that this should come out, and that nothing should change that we carry on and that all their names should also be used in it. That was a problem we, we had to address a little bit later.
So literally, people were aware, our interpreter who was based in Kandahar at the time, was quite a high profile, women's rights activist. And we - one time I was talking to her from the back of a van where she was being smuggled towards the border. And I said that really this, this is not appropriate for you to be on this call. And she said, No, Lucy, I really want to be on this call, because it's the only distraction I've got at the moment. And it's helpful. And so we had many incidents like that. And we did, everybody became more committed and we got all the pieces together, as planned.
Also, the writers wanted to stay connected to each other, as Marie mentioned there while their lives were being turned upside down and share on WhatsApp it happened to be and we actually changed to a more secure messaging app, about what they were feeling, what they were thinking what was happening to them, whether they were trying to leave the country, the ups and downs. And they actually then carried on doing that for the subsequent 12 months, and we now have probably about 120,000 words of what has turned out to be a collective diary of 18 women on the frontline, domestically, as it were, reporting, really everything that's going on around them. And this diary was featured an excerpt from this was featured to mark the one year anniversary of the fall of Kabul. I'll just read you just to give you a sense of it:
On the 15th of August, they will have timestamps 15th of August 2021, 19:57. Zainab says "I boil some water and add a little dishwashing liquid, I go through my notebooks and manuscripts one by one and soak them in the hot water. My father told me that the ashes of all these books cannot be hidden. But if you soak them in foamy water, and then wash them like clothes, no trace of your writings will be left. Now that the Taliban are here, my words are just a pile of rubbish."
That was the sort of thing that people were having to do. They also remain defiant. As Marian says here, on 16th of August: "my sister's classmates were told to stop writing on social media. And Batool who you saw, says, "They said the same to me, I said, Go to hell". You can tell Batool is one of our more defiant people. So it's fascinating how this this developed - took on a life of its own. It's now become the basis of a children's book about the fall of Kabul, which will be out in May. And we've just submitted the first draft of that. And we're looking for an adult home for the diary.
But I should also say that now 12, out of 18 of these writers have left Afghanistan. Batool is in Italy, Marie Germany. None of them are here. No comment. They're... Australia, Tajikistan, USA, Germany, Australia, Iran, UAE. And so sorry...
Olivia Chapman 32:19
No, it's ok.... They're all very much in touch with you.
Lucy Hannah 32:23
But they all exist as a community. And we continue to support each each other, very much, so very much. So. Yes. And Massima who reached Sweden, via illegal routes recently, you know, she disappeared for about three months and, and people were sort of - suddenly she appeared on online saying, "I've just arrived in Sweden!" and there was a sort of emojis, like you've never seen before. Welcoming her, after a long, very difficult time.
Olivia Chapman 32:53
Thank you and Parwana? I know, obviously, because you're the translator, and because also this is your home country, you've got a slightly different relationship to the stories and to the, and to these women. And obviously, your your book of poetry is very much inspired by your your life in Afghanistan and leaving Afghanistan. In a sense, you are a few steps further down the road than some of these writers who've just left in the last year or so. How do you feel reading and hearing from them of their defiance and their hope now, especially those who've been able to leave? But also that pull of still being partially back in Afghanistan?
Parwana Fayyaz 33:35
It's certainly true that I've been away for almost 12 years from Kabul, but I used to go every summer and I've got - I used to have family my parents and three youngest sister and a brother, youngest brother, used to live in Kabul until October last year. And so you know, I've always had this isn't enough sense of always lead these two lives. You know, even though I left Afghanistan, left as a kind of establishing myself as a independent woman elsewhere, they're always my siblings being there. All this felt like part of me was there, right? And some the sense of trying to feel that connection is stronger than in order, not to forget that Afghanistan can exist beyond what what it is now. So I got to experience very similar situation with my siblings, my my sister, my older sister, she was 20 at that time, and she called me one of those days and she said, "Parwana, we've got your diploma." I graduated from Stamford with two degrees undergrad and Master's. And I had left them home in Kabul, just because that's where home is and I had put it on the wall and to be a piece of achieving you let me to study abroad. I completed education and everything. So my sister calls me and says "Parwana this, we are burning everything. Can I burn your diploma?" And it took me a second and I'm Like, "of course, you can burn the diploma because I can always request Stamford to send me back another copy. It's fine. Yes, do that." And messages that, okay, and she hang up. And luckily my family got evacuated last October. And they were they went to Albania. And I went to visit them. The first thing, my sister hands me were the diplomas where they have hid them. And I'm like, "How did you do it?" Because going from Kabul from one part of Kabul to the airport, you basically every everything had to be checked through, right, what you're carrying and you couldn't be just hiding things. But my mom had tied them in her clothes, you know, just like you. I don't know, why would she do it? Because I told them that they were not important. But she for some reason, she thought that was important. It was just for them. That was what's important. And it was me. Yeah.
But you know, I, to be honest, I felt like I left Kabul and for me that, like, all of a sudden, I was feeling homeless. And I was talking with Lucy about this. I went through this moment of depression for a whole year thinking that the city that I wrote my poetry about the people that I inspired my writing, I felt like I got disconnected all of a sudden, and it that's like forcefully being told that you can't visit your city because it's it's not technically your city anymore, because it's ruled by a different regime, you're not welcome there, that sense of no forced displacement happened to me once more. And that really affected me and my writing, but meeting these young woman elsewhere, and meeting Afghans elsewhere, it's that sense of hope that comes back.
It was amazing in Albania, spending a few days with my family with so many young women and Afghans who left so many things behind so many family, family members behind sitting with them listening to their story, and being able to talk to them, I felt like I could write about Afghanistan in a different way. You know, these people, they left the country, they continue this, this story still continues. And it obviously is very sad, those who are still in Afghanistan, cousins, aunt, my uncle of uncles, cousins, and everyone is back in Kabul and so many other parts of Afghanistan. And it's hard to, to do anything for them, but to call them and listen to them, but they have to send and there's always events happening, you know, that are unexpected, and is sad. And and they are just so good at telling you everything it is just everyone is a storyteller, you know. And when you hang up, you just you just drawn into this moment of desperation that these people are going through this. But the moment they start telling you that that's the power, you know, if they can turn a very bad event into a coherent form of story, like I was walking in the street, this man came to me, he told me this, and this happened in that in you get a sense, okay, at least they are aware of what's happening. And that power, that the power, that emotion that come with that is just worth writing about. And, you know, I'm putting together the second book of poetry, trying to recapture the stories after the fall of Kabul. And so, with that, I'm trying to, you know, kind of feel, you know, with this, this moment that I thought I lost my country once again. And that's poetry to revisit what happened after the fall and everything that every other stories that people are carrying with them Afghans elsewhere, that's gonna be helpful to me as a writer, but also to those who the story is going to be told in the book. So yeah, I think it's stories and the idea of hope always comes when you know that you were able to talk about things and this young women I think they're going to tell their stories, but I'm sure Afghanistan or come again in the scene and that connection to that line is never can never be erased, and no one can erase it. Even if it takes aggressive regime like Taliban, they can just can't make us stop feeling what we feel toward that land and toward our city. So yeah, definitely this we're going to keep writing.
Olivia Chapman 39:22
And the writing is crucial. The foreword of this book is written by the BBC's Lyse Doucet and within the first few paragraphs she says if you're a writer, you write you can't you can't do anything else. And for me, hearing you hearing the writers who've contributed to this book, they do many other things besides and so do you but you write so that people who are here people who are in America, who in Albania can identify, can empathize, can understand, just that little bit more. And that's the for me the power of this book is the simplicity of some of the stories which belies the context of where they've been written and where they're set. I'm going to come to questions from the audience in just a couple of minutes. And I think we may have a roving mic just as my volunteers is getting ready. Just as a final thought maybe from Lucy for now. This isn't the only project that you're working on, this is one of a few that Untold is working on. Could you tell us maybe a little bit about where you're also working and kind of what's coming up in terms of the Untold projects?
Lucy Hannah 40:28
Yes, I suppose this model, if you use a bit of jargon, which we were did kind of work on. I mean, you might have more view on this, but I'm not sure what I think it worked in, in the sense that writer and translator were we're in, we're working with the editor at the same time, which is, as I said, was unusual. Young, you'll know it's unusual. So we were invited to do the same model in northeast India, where, for example, Assam where the separatists there, and it's there's quite a lot of tension. There also commune LGBTQ+ communities who are who feel very marginalized. And if you're writing in Assamese, it's it's difficult to get your work, like in published locally, in your own language, let alone in translation. So we're just bringing out an anthology in January, a collection work by Assamese writers, new Assamese writers, and we're looking into several other countries, which would be next up as it were. But also, what we're working on at the moment is a is a network of Afghan writers and those in diaspora who are starting with this group, and growing this group into the wider diasporas that were so that, because when you leave off, and when you arrive somewhere, you're almost worse off than you were to try and develop a writing career than you were at home. So we're exploring really what, how how useful that could be. So using this group as a kind of test, actually, who are all keen to try and start this off, and and hopefully that will start in January, so that you have an online community, exactly as as we have now. But grow it. And if anyone would like to support that in a significant way, we're very happy to talk to you.
Olivia Chapman 42:28
Amazing legacy, isn't it of this project that if that comes off, it would be...
Lucy Hannah 42:32
What's so good about it really, is that it's it's it doesn't need Untold, I mean, this group we're going on, whether we're here or not, and that's, that's kind of the point. And so I think, from our point of view, that's, that shows hopefully, that it's been useful, and money well spent.
Olivia Chapman 42:50
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, if you have any questions, this is your opportunity. There's, there's a person in the second row just there. And then a person just at the front.
Audience member 42:59
I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about how the families of the writers felt about what they were up to, because it may or may not have been something that they understood or supported. And also the impact of some of the writers having to felt they had to leave, and how the families felt about that, because it must have impacted on both both parties, the writer and the family.
Parwana Fayyaz 43:22
I wish I I had in person conversation with those writers, but I'm not really sure. But usually the writers that are writing, they seem to come from very supportive family, because you can tell the kind of story they're writing and the I don't know the kind of space you can imagine you could tell that this this writer is not hiding her skill, if anything she is encouraged to write. I mean, as an Afghan myself coming from a very supportive Afghan family, we you know, when Rosie says that they receive about 120 entries for this project, that says a lot after after 9/11 that Afghanistan fell that we became free again, everyone was a writer already everyone wants to be a poet because poetry literature, it runs in the family, it runs in the culture of Aghanistan. And it's only obviously selected group of people who didn't never allowed literature enter their household or that their women go pursue education or anything, we you can tell what kind of group are those, but there are a lot of people that read poetry and read all sorts of literary works even during the Taliban period. And afterwards, everyone wanted to become a writer and for women especially that was a way for them to live a different kind of life and their mind and the most peaceful, the most beautiful life that they could have any sort of writing or any kind of subject really allowed them to experience that. And there was I think, I don't know about this specific 18 writers but writing was never prohibited during those time for Afghans. And it's very interesting. There is a very interesting documentary on love crimes of Kabul. I don't know if you've ever watched it. This is a documentary about the the only women's prison prison in Kabul, where they basically put women who have gone since as of, you know, having sexual relations with any men before marriage and those things. And if you see there are characters that there are women who are writing poetry, because they just embodies a poetic persona. And that is in the culture. And it's, it's, I don't know how to say it. But you know, as coming from that culture, I know, that significance of that seeing yourself as a writer and imagining your space and your private way of thinking about the world. And I don't Yeah, I don't - if you know about any stories in particular....?
Lucy Hannah 45:51
Yes, that so a couple of examples. So Mariam, her sister sent in her story originally, because it's - Mariam said, "I'm not, I'm not sending that any of my work." And she has been writing, had been writing, for about 10 years. She's in her mid 20s now, and her sister said, "you're good. I'm gonna send this in." And she's got two stories at the beginning - The first and last stories, she's the strongest writer, I would say in the group. And so in a way her family was giving her confidence in that way.
Meliha, is - comes from a rural area, she wrote her story by hand, asked her brother, if he would photograph it, and somehow get it - email it to us. And so in a way he supported her in that way. I think she said that he thought it was a bit of a joke, you know, it was never thought that would happen. So essentially, what the beginning I think most people had family as far as those who were vaguely supportive. The crunch came when we had to say are you going to use your real names, post the fall of Kabul. And that's when that's when you really saw the true colors. So Maliha has family absolutely didn't want - were terrified of her using her real name. And the same, so if the more rural writers tended to be, less metropolitan - tended to be nervous of that, and that's where the families came in. And so obviously, we respected that. I was actually urging everyone to have a pen name anyway, because of Untold, having the responsibility, but we went with the writers' wishes, so about about half the names in here are not true real names. And they tend - that tended to be family concerns.
Parwana Fayyaz 47:38
Just one more than one more thing, you know, when even if the families try to, you know, ask for the last name to disappear or something, it only has to do because the society, you know, the kind of society that leads around this family could be a little too conservative. For the sake of being safe, they would do it. But internally, they're very supportive. I couldn't publish my poetry. I know, until two years ago, just because of that fear. My family were very well educated. My father is an engineer. He's worked with Americans and Germans, and it's his whole world has been all about, you know, women having the same sort of liberty as any men and all those things. But for me to be to put my words out there always felt dangerous. You know, I kept writing poetry for the past 10 years, but could never share it on social media or anything. And when the book came out last year, in July, and then a year later, a month after that Kabul fell, I was terrified, because they could go will me find something. I had to shut down all my social media accounts, no Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, just because of that, because I don't want my family to be in a position where they've they're in danger because of me. And I think a lot of that goes...
Lucy Hannah 48:54
Yeah, we had to keep balancing if one, writer... I mean, so we had people who were very defiant and who left who were who said, No, we must have our names. And we must all talk about it and everything. So we've had to all the time, and still now we're balancing those that are still there, where they are, what ethnic group, they're from, where their families might have been associated with everything is by association the whole time and on it goes all the time.
Olivia Chapman 49:22
Thank you. I think there was a question just here. Yes.
Audience member 49:26
You have just partly answered my question. I was going to ask when the Taliban took over, and you had to remove all traces of the writers from the airwaves, the internet and so on. What would have happened if you'd left them there? Would they be sought out? Would they be punished? And if so, would it be because they were women? Or because there were writers, or both?
Parwana Fayyaz 49:50
Yeah. I think I'm trying to imagine myself in that scenario, and any writer I think would feel the same coming from Afghanistan. I think is just both really, it's just being a writer, and then a woman, and, and then also the West is reading you, the West is liking your work. And a good example of that goes to this point. Now, [unknown name], I don't know if you know of her. She used to write poetry during the first time when Taliban was rolling. And as soon as the Americans took over Afghanistan, she became very well known, had two book of poetry was published. And she became very well known. And all of a sudden, she was killed by the husband thinking that she was just got too overexposed in public, and her poetry was read, and she was dangerous. And I mentioned her in my book, two of the poems are dedicated to her, because that is, I mean, she was basically a very well known poet of Herat, and that's why she was targeted, but with this type of information, that definitely, you know, it's the other thing we have to learn is that, you know, when the Taliban took over, it doesn't mean that one group came, and they took the control. It's not that it's also because it's an ideology, right? A family members not liking your way of life, they can, you know, turn against you. And this is what the fear is, a lot of the people that don't have the righteous whose names are out there, they fear that type of, you know, enemy within the house that, you know, they made it made it possible for the people to take revenge or do something. And that's the case, I think, and also, so easy to come to find one on, you know, by Googling, then, I don't know, it's just like, if a overexposure was always a dangerous thing, especially if you're a writer, a woman writer, so I that's would be my best answer.
Lucy Hannah 51:52
And also, a lot of these, several of these women were doing women's work for women's rights groups, or when kind of not high level, but sort of low level activism. Instead, there were obvious target, because they were, they were advocating what being crushed, right? So some were more at risk than others, or worked for BBC or, you know, as a day job, or whatever it might be.
Audience member 52:19
What could happen to them? And would they be thrown in prison or...
Lucy Hannah 52:25
You know more about this... worse, I mean, tortured, I mean, possibly killed? I mean, the reality is real. You know, it's, it's real. It's, at worst death, at best.... Yeah, sort of harassed. I mean, there's been a spate recently of - you'll know more about this than me Parwana - people's phones being - I was talking to the group the other day - and women's phones being snatched. So the fact that we've now they've now been all able to get laptops is quite good, because they can hide them at home. Whereas if you're on the street and your phones snatched from you just out of harassment, then you suddenly lost everything if it was on there.
Olivia Chapman 53:03
Well, and that phone is key to that woman's only independence, which is to be able to communicate and to be able to write. Yeah, it's essential. Like it's yeah, it's more than just the item, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Any more questions? Any more questions from the audience? We've got time for one more, there's a question right up at the back. Second, from the back.
Audience member 53:24
Thank you. I wonder if you could touch on the relationships of the writer and the feedback processes with the editor and translator and how, how this all evolved and how the the stories evolved through that, please?
Lucy Hannah 53:37
Are you a writer?
Olivia Chapman 53:39
No. That's an unusual question for non-writer. That's why!
Lucy Hannah 53:43
if you are a writer, then you'll know that it's a joyful experience if you find an editor who you like and get on with, and who understands what you're trying to say. And that's a really valuable relationship. And it's a kind of bridge towards publication. So what we were trying to create is a meeting with with an editor who the writers got to know there were two editors throughout each of the editorial processes. And so it was how it works anyway, which is an editor would need the work feedback in the sense of top feedback, there's a conversation about different in each case, because the relationships different in each case about what the writer might think about in for its for her next draft of the story. And these are new writers. So the these are people who've never worked with an editor before, have never rewritten anything before on the whole. Some are more experienced than others, but some had no experience of that. So some of these stories went, this is seventh draft. At some of them. it's three, but it's minimum three. I might even be more than seven one particularly. And so it was a conversation many times with translator, editor and writer about what the writer is trying to say, how they're saying it how structurally they may shift the story to make it read better. And it wasn't about making it for Western readers. It was about very basic craft, you can correct me if I'm wrong, because we've got it in we're very aware of there are gatekeepers everywhere. But we this was not about trying to create something for an international market. It was actually originally with this was going to be published in Dari and Pashto, but unfortunately, for obvious reasons it hasn't been. So it was a traditional, I'm not explaining it very well, somebody else who is a writer can explain it better than me. But the feedback was about making the story stronger, and enabling the writer to say what they wanted to say through the fiction that they were writing.
Olivia Chapman 55:48
It's not an unusual process for any writer who's working in translation...
Lucy Hannah 55:53
completely.
Olivia Chapman 55:54
It's the whole setup here... And the context...
Lucy Hannah 55:56
It's not an unusual process for people writing not in transit. It's the normal process. But it would be unusual for somebody to write and be published in a book form with no edits result. And possibly foolhardy.
Olivia Chapman 56:13
Thank you. We've nearly run out of time. Thank you. Both Lucy and Parwana. Parwana is actually part of an event tomorrow as well, off the top of my head, it's a 2pm tomorrow. It's called Writing From a Warzone. And we've got writers who are contributing who are from Afghanistan, and Ukraine. And I've forgotten the last one, Jonathan, (Bosnia!) Thank you. So that's taking place tomorrow. Parwana. I'm springing this slightly on you. So I hope that's okay. But I wonder if you might finish yourself by reading one of the poems from your work?
Parwana Fayyaz 56:45
Right. I think I'm gonna read the final poem in the book, which seems to really close the collection in a nice way but also very relevant to this event. In Search of a Woman. [reads In Search of a Woman from 40 Names by Parwana Fayyaz]. Thank you, thank you.
Olivia Chapman 58:51
Thank you both. It's a wonderful book. And I'm very grateful that you were here. Thank you all for being here.
Shantel Edwards 59:00
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at BhamLitFest. All information about the festival and upcoming events. Can we find on our website www.Birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.