SUNEETHA BALAKRISHNAN talks to British blogger Ann Morgan about her extraordinary journey of words that touched 196 countries.
When the world came to London in 2012, for the Olympics,
Ann Morgan, a Londoner, wanted to reciprocate the gesture. She decided
to travel the world too, but through books.
Her plan
was simple. She intended to read a book each from the 196
U.N.-recognized countries and throw in a 197th from ‘the rest of the
world’ for good measure. But it wasn’t as easy as it looked. The
numerous dots on the map offered more than Morgan bargained for. Plus,
she did not foresee the unprecedented interest that her blog
(http://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/) would create. But Morgan says the
choice of the book was itself the most difficult of tasks. Morgan lives
in the U.K., where only three percent of the books published each year
are translations. Elsewhere, there are countries with only oral
traditions and have next to nothing by way of books, and there are yet
others who frown at art going outside borders. And then what defines
national literature; is it a book by a resident, about the country, or
one by a person born there? In a country with multiple languages, how
does one choose? In case of a single language spoken, does one choose a
classic or a contemporary work? A daunting task, Yet Morgan persisted.
Her experience of a ‘year of reading women writers’ plus help from her
blog readers stood her in good stead. The guideline was: the books
should be ‘the literature’ of a country and a ‘good’ read.
Morgan
adopted a sensible method to avoid the ‘danger of a single story’. “As I
intended to read only one book from each country this year, I couldn’t
make the mistake of thinking that I have gained a rounded insight into
any particular nation. I’d be annoyed if someone assumed they knew all
about Britain just from reading
Great Expectations
! For me, the project was more about exploring and accessing voices than
garnering complete pictures of life in other places. I was careful
never to read a book as a reflection of national characteristics or
mindsets.”
She also paid attention to the opinions of
readers from those countries and checked out regional book prizes.
Sometimes the story behind a book was so fascinating that she had to
read it. “My Bhutanese choice, for example,
The Circle of Karma
by Kunzang Choden, stood out from the recommendations sent to me by the
Writers Association of Bhutan because it is said to be the first book by
a Bhutanese woman to be published outside the country. That intrigued
me.”
Her target was to read a book in 1.85 days, and
blog about it, while she went about her normal routine. “I decided the
only way to approach it was to break it down. To stay on track, I needed
to aim to read four books a week. That’s reading one book every two
days and then one short book in one day once a week, with a little give
and take for very long and very short works. As most books are between
200-300 pages, this meant reading 100-150 pages a day, around three
hours. My daily commute — when I got a lot of reading done — was an hour
each way, so this necessitated finding an extra hour or two at lunch
and in the evenings after work. I then had to write the blog posts and
do all the research into the books, so I got up early and spent a couple
of hours on that each day before I left for work.”
Morgan
bought all the books herself except when people, especially those
following the blog, gave her their copies. Even authors and publishers
sent her their work — at times unpublished — to read. “It was a great
privilege to be one of the few people, sometimes ever, to read the
English versions. A couple of the books, such as my Belarusian choice –
King Stakh’s Wild Hunt
by Uladzimir Karatkievich – were also available free online. Still, it was rather an expensive year!”
Morgan
says the project is nothing like her previous book blogging endeavours.
Now she questions things that she once took for granted, from what the
word ‘country’ means to what we talk about when we call something a
‘book’. “It has also brought me into contact with people all over the
planet, and for that I’m very grateful. My world is a much richer place
for it.”
A single incident that she would call the
defining moment of the project? “In October 2011, less than three days
after the blog post went live, Rafidah from Malaysia liked the project
and told me she wanted to buy me a book to read. That was the moment I
knew the project was really happening. Somewhere, 6,000 miles away, a
person I had never met was going to a shop to buy a book on my behalf. I
owed it to her and to all the other people supporting me to give it my
best shot.”
Morgan finds it impossible to pick the
best/favourite reads in 2012. There are some books that are just so
beautifully written that they stand out in her mind. “Galsan Tschinag’s
The Blue Sky
from Mongolia is one, as is Andrei Volos’s
Hurramabad
from Tajikistan. My Burundian book,
Weep Not, Refugee
by Marie-ThérèseToyi is special because it was sent to me by the author
from Africa after a search that involved many Burundians around the
world.”
There were also books that changed her thinking. “Of these, Abdul Aziz Al Mahmoud’s
The Corsair
stands out. It is one of the first Qatari novels to be translated into
English and is set during the early 19th century during the struggle for
control of the trade routes through the Persian Gulf. The picture, the
novel presents, of the role Britain played in the region during that
time, is far from flattering and forced me to confront some of the
darker stories attached to the British Empire, which many people in the
U.K. prefer to forget.”
So her most prominent discovery of 2012 in reads? ‘Perhaps my Mozambican read,
Ualalapi
by Ungulani Ba KaKhosa. It was named one of Africa’s 100 Best Books of
the 20th Century by an African jury in 2002, but is unavailable in
English translation. I was lucky enough to be given an unpublished
manuscript by a publisher who had been going to launch an English
version but sadly went out of business before he could do so.” It is an
extraordinary book, full of startling imagery unlike anything I have
come across before and with a towering legendary hero who stands
alongside great tragic figures such as Oedipus, King Lear and Okonkwo
from Chinua Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart
.
Morgan also mentions
A Casa do Pastor
by Olinda Beja. “This collection of short stories by a writer born in
Sao Tome and Principe, the second-smallest African nation, was specially
translated for me by a team of Portuguese speakers in Europe and the
U.S. after I struggled to find anything I could read in English from the
country. It was very humbling to have such a talented group of people
give up their time to help me complete my quest.”
Her
most difficult choice? “India, without question. I could easily have
spent 10 years reading Indian literature and still not have scratched
the surface of the rich and diverse stories the country has to offer.
But an Indian journalist stopped by the blog and pointed out a key
omission in the nominations: all the books were written in English. This
was second-best to the literature on offer from the many languages
spoken across the country. I was struck by the comment, particularly as
translation was a big part of my project, so I found a translation of
Malayalam writer M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s classic
Kaalam
and enjoyed it immensely.”
“Reading is a great way to
stand next to someone in a situation you have never been in and look at
the world through their eyes. .”
She is also
conscious of the amazing moment in history we live in. ‘The internet
makes it possible for us to build links with one another as never
before. Twenty years ago it would have been impossible to read the world
in a year. I hope that as Internet law and the monetisation of social
media take hold we are able to preserve the incredible freedom of
communication that we have at the moment in most parts of the planet.’
The natural progression of a blog of these dimensions would be a book, and it is happening. “
Reading the World: Postcards from my Bookshelf
will come out in early 2014 and will tell many of the stories behind the stories that I read that year.”
Her
next project is ifwomenruled.com and an attempt to gain an insight
through fiction of what the strengths, challenges and problems of a
women-led society might have been.
Happy reading, Ann Morgan!
Reading is a great way to stand next to someone in a situation you have never been in and look at the world through their eyes.
For me, the project was more about exploring and accessing voices than garnering complete pictures of life in other places.
(The Hindu, Sunday magazine, 05:05:2013)
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