Nadia Sagar is an attorney-at-law. In her spare time, she writes short stories and is currently working on a collection she hopes to one day publish. Her poem, Punt Trench Dam, explores a place from her childhood.
TWR: Can you tell us a little about what inspired your journey as a writer and how you’ve managed to maintain writing as a creative outlet while pursuing a demanding career?
NS: Writing was and still is a means by which I make sense of the world around me. I don’t write as much as I would like to, time doesn’t permit. I’m a working mother so I’m always scrambling for uninterrupted periods of time to think about the subject matter of a story or poem. What often happens is that an idea will form whilst I’m sleeping (yes, I dream about writing) or innocuously whilst sitting in traffic on my way to work. I then, almost obsessively, try to build on that idea. Several iterations later I might like the end result or I will discard it. Writing requires discipline and discipline is a skill I am still working on acquiring.
TWR: What themes do you usually explore in your writing? Has your background in law in any way influenced the subjects you choose to explore?
NS: I draw on personal experiences when writing. I explore themes, such as misogyny, domestic violence, child abuse, post-colonial small society angst, love, to name a few themes. I like exploring the idea of love and its manifestations as between parent and child, lovers, the environment, politics, just about any way in which humans interact with their world.
TWR: Punt Trench Dam is inspired by your childhood home. Is the piece a flashback to a specific period of your life or a collage of experiences over a broad timeline?
NS: It is a flashback to a specific period in my life. The poem is a collage of memories of village life in the 1980s.
TWR: In the poem you present to the reader a nostalgic glimpse into a multicultural society and describe what seems to be a typical ‘day in the life’. However, the end (where you mention “births and deaths and beatings”) seems to be at odds with the rest of the poem, in that it is unexpected and adds a whole new layer of emotion. What did you hope to portray to your readers with this piece?
NS: It’s a stream of consciousness piece but using imagery instead of thoughts and feelings. It’s not a depiction of a day but the depiction of a little life in a particular place at a particular time. It’s a political statement about overcoming racism and tribalism through lived experiences. It’s an acknowledgement of our cultural cook-up and how it forms our sense of self. It’s about poverty and beauty and brutality and how they intersect. It’s about stripping away pretence. I hope readers will see themselves somewhere in there or recall a memory. I hope it evokes some emotional connection or acknowledgement of the peculiarity of our Guyanese experience.
TWR: Do you have any plans to publish your poetry and short stories? Is there a blog where we can find your work?
NS: I do plan to publish my writing. I am working on a collection of short stories. Until then I regret there is no other way to access my writing.
TWR: Are there any local/Caribbean authors whose work you’d like to recommend for our readers?
NS: There are so many – Martin Carter, Pauline Melville, Shivanie Ramlochan, Harold Bascom, Rooplall Monar, Janice Shinebourne, Grace Nichols, Ryhaan Shah, V.S Naipaul, Jean Rhys. This list is not exhaustive.
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