Otherness

by Mandira Pattnaik

Maria Teneva

This week sitting at my virtual editorial window, I peeped into the minds of writers from Korea, Japan, Philippines, Chile, Nigeria, besides India, the UK and the US. Like the other weeks before this, I have come to expect a great variety in voice, wonderful explication and brilliant ideas. Reading for a magazine is something I hope every person who cares for literature might get an opportunity to experience at some point or other. Of course, this is enabled by the unifying language of English (and internet), which has opened itself up to myriad usage, diverse vocabulary and interpretation. No wonder it is so challenging to examine each work for merit knowing that every writer’s thought, process and output is different. That’s the beauty of literary magazines — to curate a small collection every month that serves so many flavors, styles, and narrative voices.

Coming to literary magazines and output, this week there was a heated online debate on the sustainability of small magazines and presses. Undoubtedly the closure of several publications in this post-pandemic time has left writers skeptical about the maintainability of fair practices, ethics and standards by those at the helm. On the other hand, if not these then what? What would be the future of innovation in literature? Who would nurture risk-taking and newness in theme, style and content. I wonder what would become of the healthy competition that leads to the discovery of unpolished talent, and where would thousands of writers exercising their creativity from places as different as Alaska and Dibrugarh find a welcoming page?

This thought of giving platform to new voices, instead of backing a few big-ticket authors, echoes in a recent newspaper article in India. Several publishers are quoted as saying they are making an effort to be more inclusive and broad in their selections. For a start, the JCB prize for Literature for 2022 (carrying an amount of Rs 25 lakh awarded each year to a distinguished work of novel-length fiction by an Indian writer) has longlisted six translated works, out of the total 10 books, including Geetanjali Shree’s International Booker-winning novel Tomb of Sand. It goes without saying that the article reflects the organized novel-length publishing industry in India, meaning paperbacks and hard-bound books, and certainly not literary magazines, because only a handful of them exist in India anyway.

By extension, this also perhaps means the reluctance to embrace diversity and inclusivity by the big publishing houses, in India as well as globally. A space where that is consistently offered is the small presses and literary magazines. I am curious to know how writers feel about this gatekeeping by organized publishing, in spite of growing efforts at equalization of opportunities at least on the surface.

I am glad this ‘otherness’ has been acknowledged. But we are waiting for the revolution to extend to short stories and literary magazines.

Not only in full-length translated books, it’d be worth our time to explore language, identity and ‘otherness’ with increased zeal in the scope of online magazines and short-form fiction and poetry, a topic I examined in my last column.

Short-story writer of Sri-Lankan descent, Hasanthika Sirisena, who believes the short story has an impact because it is “one deftly delivered blow,” says that she uses Sinhalese words (in English-language stories) with fervor and does not favor italicization of those words because, “Italicizing … becomes an exercise in degrees of foreignness.” Love that publications are more open to using the creator’s preferences about such things, and thus deviating from hitherto strongly guarded notions of correctness.

Beyond content, I think language and usage find focus in how writers deal with boundaries and strive to make a place for themselves. In an interview, novelist and academic H. Nigel Thomas questions the approach of his own people — “what makes a West Indian West Indian?” — and goes on to suggest that if we want to learn about a people, it is through its stories, and that “we write because we feel we need to explore reality by way of the imagination.”

One needs to remember that such explorations of incredible ingenuity have always begun at the doorstep of small publishers and magazines, where boundaries are pushed and redefined, both in character and content.

I am heartened to note the increase in publications, mostly online, and based in the US, that declare openness to non-conforming work (sometimes defined under the category ‘hybrid work’) and identity-fluid creators. This, when, in New York of 1932, “Drunkenness, waywardism, disobedience to their parents, being out at night by themselves, wearing pants, accepting a date from a man, accepting a ride from a man… could have gotten you arrested if you were perceived as the ‘wrong kind of woman’” — in the words of Hugh Ryan (author of The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, May 2022).

Even the scope of ‘hybridity’ is being pushed, and writers are increasingly experimenting with original ideas. Recent reads include “Mail-Order Brother” by Kristina Ten, and “A Broken Alphabet” by Tracy Seid.

If I have made a case for original, bold, and smart work, I hope writers willing to play with form, theme, and content take a chance with small and medium-scale magazines. The world is looking out for such courageous explorations of otherness. Someone just called it “Writing Beyond Recognition!”