Literary Safari

This post originally published at Sepia Mutiny.

I’m playing a new online video game today. It’s called “Homeland Guantanamos” and it has transformed me into an undercover journalist whose task is to unearth clues about the mysterious 2007 death of Boubacar Bah, a Guinean tailor who was held at a detention center in Elizabeth, NJ for overstaying his visa.

“Homeland Guantanamos” is the latest multi-media offering from Breakthrough, the human rights organization which uses media and popular culture to raise awareness here and in India. [Abhi covered their video game “I Can End Deportation” or I.C.E.D. earlier this year. ]

We’ve all heard stories about immigrants (illegal and residents) being detained without explanation or for prolonged periods of time. At the website, I got to see what life might be like on the other side of the fence. I took a tour of a simulated immigration detention center and collected clues to help solve the mystery of Bah’s death (he died of a skull fracture and brain hemorrhages). Along the way, I saw other detainees (eg: a pregnant woman kept in shackles during labor) and witnessed conditions of the facilities, including the solitary confinement room, the bathrooms, and the dining hall. Though this is a simulated experience, the content is based on factual sources such as news articles, court documents, and interviews.

Why call the site “Homeland Guantanamos”? According to Malikka Dutt, executive director of Breakthrough, “the Department of Homeland Security is violating the human rights of legal and undocumented immigrants” and some of the inhumane conditions of detention centers where these immigrants are being held are not all that different from the facility at Guantanamo Bay.

A few facts:

Last year, more than 300,000 people were held in detention centers on mainland USA.
The cost to tax payers last year alone was $1.2 billion to tax payers.
Since 2003, 87 detainees have died in detention centers.
There are over 100 detention centers throughout the country. [ A map of detention centers is available here, searchable by zipcode. The most detention centers seem to be clustered in the Northeast. ]
Between January 2004 to November 2007, nearly a million people passed through immigration custody.

As with I.C.E.D., response to this project has not been all warm and fuzzy. In a Times article published this weekend, Kelly A. Nantel, a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the video game was “a work of fiction that dehumanizes the individuals depicted and grossly distorts conditions in detention facilities.”

Dutt maintains that the Dept. of Homeland Security’s enforcement measures are “increasingly draconian” and hopes that this game will serve as a platform for increased support of the Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act, proposed by Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Edward Kennedy (D-Ma.). More in the NYT article.

The Homeland Guantanamos site features compelling video testimonials from detainees. Breakthrough went “live from jail” and interviewed several long time permanent US residents who face possible deportation because of unfair immigration laws. It also has an action guide and a memorial wall. Most certainly worth checking out.

By way of Paper Cuts, news of Sangam House, a new international writers residency program in Pondicherry, India, a town in South India known best for Auroville, the “township devoted to an experiment in human unity.”

Sangam House is a brand new undertaking, a partnership between the Danish Council for the Arts, Finnish Literature Exchange, Random House India, the Sahitya Akademi for the Letters, and freeDimensional, an organization dedicated to finding safe havens for artists of all disciplines who have been put in danger directly because of their work.Applications for the inaugural residency session this winter are currently being accepted. From the website:

The word sangam in Sanskrit literally means “going together.” In most Indian languages, sangam has come to mean such confluences as the flowing together of rivers and coincidence. The intention of Sangam House is to bring together writers from around the world to live and work in a safe, peaceful setting. The world we live in makes a space such as this necessary on many levels.

Assembling writers from various cultural backgrounds broadens the scope of each individual’s work. Exposure to regional and national trends in literature, to multiple political and economic obstacles and varied social and cultural milieus enhances each writer’s understanding of his/her work, as well as his/her own notions of identity and home.

… Most importantly, our residency programs are designed for writers who have published to some acclaim but not yet enjoyed substantial commercial success. Sangam House seeks to give writers (and we include here translators, poets, playwrights and those involved in creating fiction and non-fiction works) a chance to build a substantial and influential network of personal and professional relationships that can deepen their own work, in effect, expanding and diversifying literature. We understand that literature can and should evolve, allowing it to remain a thriving force of illumination for our times.

More on application guidelines here.

And, while we’re at it, other artist’s residency opportunities in India:In New Delhi, Global Arts Village and in Bangalore, Khoj International Artists Association.

I’m completely taken by this ad from Doctors Without Borders.

Human Ball is a dark animation (claymation) for an AIDS treatment campaign in Africa. It was the recipient of a 2006 Epica Award – Europe’s premier creative awards – as well as recognized at Cannes. As Doctors Without Borders explains, this ad “draws attention to the continuing ravages of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in resource-poor countries around the world. More than 40 million people are infected with HIV today. Only 15 per cent of them have access to life-prolonging medicines readily available in wealthy countries.”

I’m embedding the ad here, but you might also want to watch it here for the higher resolution.

I’ve started calling them the Literary Brat Pack of the early 21st century – Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nick Hornby, and the other authors that Eggers regularly manages to recruit for his fantastically creative projects that benefit his nonprofit organization 826. The latest addition to that lineup is The Book of Other People, an intriguing short story collection edited by Zadie Smith, a writer who has such a lucid style that even her introduction stays with you for days to come.

In this case, the beneficiary of The Book of Other People is the Brooklyn-based 826nyc which helps students aged 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills. It’s nice to know that you could be furthering an admirable cause while engaged in a good read.

There were very few rules that the contributors were given in the call for submissions, Smith tells us. In fact, the instructions were simple: “Make somebody up and name your story after your character.” That’s it. Since this is a charitable project, each of the 23 contributors to this volume also wrote his or her short story gratis. As Zadie Smith writes in her introduction, “It is liberating to write a piece that has no connection to anything else you write, that needn’t be squished into a novel, or styled to fit the taste of a certain magazine, or designed in such a way as to please the kind of people who pay your rent. ”

The result of this creative freedom is an eclectic, magnetic collection that celebrates the place of character in fiction and that pays tribute to the short story. Character is so central to the vision of this book that Smith even chose to arrange the stories in alphabetical order (by character). Thus, the reader is given the creative choice to read them in the order he or she wishes. (Of course, because I am a good girl who always begins at the beginning, I started my journey into this world of characters by reading the first story first!)

When I say this is an eclectic collection, I really mean eclectic. Here are just a few examples of what you will find in this book:

David Mitchell’s “Judith Castle,” the first story, introduces us to a middle-aged woman in England who receives a phone call informing her that her lover with whom she is about to “consumate” her long distance relationship has been killed in a hit and run. Mitchell writes in the first-person and is generous with the dialogue, a technique that yields a memorable personality who stands up to William Faulkner’s reasoning that “It beings with character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does. ”

In Nick Hornby’s illustrated “study” of a writer’s life, “J. Johnson,” we are presented with the varying back of the book bio blurbs of a single author. If you have ever had to write an author bio, you will want to frame this gem of a piece and hang it above your desk for it is a delightful and humorous reminder of how we, as writers, are called upon to constantly reinvent ourselves for our audiences, depending on the nature of the published work.

Zadie Smith’s “Hanwell Snr” is a well-paced rumination on the nature of a father-son relationship, in this case a father who pops in and out of his abandoned son’s life “like a comet, at long intervals.” Though the story is about sons and fathers, it is told by a daughter, a choice that adds additional layers to this already textured story … therefore making a reader want to go back and read it all over again.

As usual, Jonathan Safran Foer’s ability to capture a nuanced voice (and thereby illuminate character) shines through in “Rhoda,” a monologue (you can imagine a tape recorded conversation a la StoryCorps between an elderly NYC Jewish man and his college-age grandson). Reading this story is like a treasure hunt – it invites readers to look for clues in dialect and intonation … all of which bring us face to face with a Holocaust survivor in the winter of his life.

My favorite, however, was Edwidge Danticat’s “Lélé,” a lyrical tale about dying frogs and two sisters living in their family home as adults. The story is written in the first person, from the point of view of the younger sister, a judicial witness following in the footsteps of her father and grandfather. Her sister, Lélé, is a pregnant late 30s-early 40 something who learns that her child has a terminal birth defect. Here is a piece in which the house – a wooden gingerbread house  in Leogane, Haiti, filled with leather bound notebooks -  is as much a character as the people who live in it.

There are enough short stories in this anthology to make readers of all persuasions happy. Truly, if all short stories were written with as much grace and heart as these, Stephen King would have no reason to say that many short stories he read while editing The Best American Short Stories 2007 felt “show-offy rather than entertaining, self-important rather than interesting, guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open, and worst of all, written for editors and teachers rather than for readers.” In fact, I came away from the book feeling that this collection is an antidote to King’s observation … and a statement to attest that indeed, the short story is alive and well today.

Related:
What Ails the Short Story, by Stephen King (The New York Times)
100 Best Characters in Fiction per Book magazine(NPR story, from )

I just finished judging entries in the second round of the Scenarios USA “What’s the Real Deal?” contest. Wow. What a wonderful set of stories by teen writers between 12 and 22. I’m blown away by the depth and insights. This was a really great way to start my day,

About the Brooklyn-based Scenarios USA:

Scenarios USA is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that that uses writing and filmmaking to foster youth leadership, advocacy and self-expression in under-served teens. Scenarios USA asks teens to write about the issues that shape their lives for the annual “What’s the REAL DEAL?” writing contest, and thousands have responded with their raw and revealing insights.

The winning writers are partnered with some of Hollywood’s finest filmmakers to transform their stories into award-winning short films. 15 million people a year watch the Scenarios USA films at film festivals, on television and in high schools nationwide. Scenarios USA believes that by valuing youth and listening to their opinions we can have an impact on promoting healthy relationships and lowering the rate of HIV, STDs and pregnancy among teens.

As I was reading my set of entries, I had no idea how old the writers were. I was also asked to not pay attention to spelling or formatting. It’s the story and its accessibility to teens that most counts, and since the winning entry will be developed by the teen writer and a professional scriptwriter and director (well known Hollywood types), there’s time yet to fine tune things. Given that I spend so much time thinking about the correctness of language and grammar, spelling, etc. in my day job, it was refreshing to look at the work of teens purely for the qualities of storytelling, depth of emotion, and impact.

If you have a minute, take it to watch one of the past winning films at their website. And, and if work by teen writers interests you, this is a wonderful and not too time-consuming way to get involved with a fantastic organization in the future.