I'm joined on the blog today by fellow writer @Naneh_V_H. We met recently at a writing event, and I was struck by her heart wrenching journey to creative writing:
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A DIFFERENT ONE
Although
I was born in the 70s, mine was nothing like your imagined, Western experience
of the decade. My native country of Armenia, to the south-east of European
frontiers, was part of the Soviet Union then. One good thing about it was that
by virtue of association, I’d say domination, alongside my native, Armenian
language, I also learnt Russian, the lingua franca of the empire, and grew up
bilingual as a result.
I
am proud of the fact that apart from reading centuries-old Armenian literature,
I also studied Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov in the original.
Being a bookish pupil, I wrote poems and essays in school - in Armenian and
Russian - but I began writing in earnest as Arts and Culture Correspondent in
the post-Soviet Armenian media; first, there was a newspaper, then TV and
Radio, where I’d interview prominent artists, report daily on the arts and
write scripts for travel, youth and music shows.
One
ambition of mine then was to read Jayne Eyre in English. It would be
decades till I could do that, years after the collapse of the USSR, following
my move to the UK as a twenty-something year-old.
Considering
that in addition to Armenian and Russian, I majored in Arabic at Yerevan State
University, it could be said that English is my second or third foreign
language. I love it - its agility and nuances - and I use it as a tool for
understanding my experience of life.
The
contemporary American writer Dani Shapiro once said that she didn’t have access
to her thoughts unless and until she started writing, and I identify with that.
Writing non-fiction, which I do, particularly short stories and memoir, I seek
to sort through the upheavals that my generation or family have gone through.
And
there is a lot to grasp! For example, it’s little-discussed these days, but the
break-up of the Soviet Union, whilst inevitable and desirable, brought upheaval
and chaos to ordinary people’s lives, who, on the one hand, had to overcome the
trauma of having lived in a totalitarian country, and on the other hand, needed
to adjust to the new political and economic reality. Many of those I grew up
watching and loving didn’t make the transition and succumbed to a desperate
existence.
On
a personal level, through my writing I aim to voice my devastation about my
four-year-old son’s sudden death and make sense of or find hope in life. In
fact, it was following that crushing loss that I finally sat down to do
creative writing in English. When Samuel died in his sleep, while I was
pregnant with our daughter, my previous life disappeared overnight. As a way to
cope with the tragedy, I began dedicating pieces to Sam and charting our years
together, so I didn’t forget.
But
anyone who knows anything about coping with a loss knows that how we deal with
it is a lot to do with how we deal with life. So I began to expand into creating
written tributes to other things I missed. I had been working in vibrant
offices in Central London until then, feeling accepted in the sea of foreign
faces, but all the while thinking of people back in my home country. So, I
started interviewing fellow immigrants, writing and speaking about
cross-cultural identity, including at Ignite Liverpool, in order to bring my
past and present together. In recent years, I’ve also spoken at Nursery World
Awards for the national charity Home-Start about child loss. These subjects
have a lot in common: belonging, trauma and transformation.
I
am a part-time Community Centre Manager, as well as a busy mum and wife. This
year I am also working on my collection of autobiographical non-fiction,
emboldened by terrific feedback from published authors and experiences agents.
In it, I am documenting the personal stories of those people I grew up watching
and loving. I was wrong: I hadn’t left them behind.
Twitter: @Naneh_V_H
©Naneh V H, 2018
Comments
Post a Comment