PRATIK COVER STORY: HLF/NYWW: Kumbh Mela of World Writing BY Amar Aakash

AMAR AAKASH

 

HLF/NYWW

Kumbh Mela of World Writing

Over two dozen poets and writers—Ruth Danon, Nina Kossman, Tom Lutz, Vassilis Manoussakis, Sona Van, Dariusz Lebioda, Ravi Shankar, musician Nancy Parish, among others—sat on the stone steps facing the eastern gate of Pashupatinath. The air was thick with the scent of burning incense and the acrid smoke of funeral pyres. Bedecked corpses lay on the ghats as families performed last rites, honoring the souls of the departed. Monkeys, joggers, and tourists wandered through the sacred grounds, while young children and black-eyed sadhus searched for alms. The murky Bagmati River flowed indifferently, bearing witness to both the scorching sun and the burning bodies on its banks.

Himalayan poet Yuyutsu Sharma recited his long poem, Pashupati, from his new book, The Alchemy of Nine Smiles. American poet Tony Barnstone provided insights into the poem, helping the audience appreciate its intricate themes and imagery. The host Shreejana Bhandari then shared a deeply personal poem about her recently deceased mother, capturing the poignant moment of her cremation at the very same Pashupati Ghat.

Writers from five continents had gathered along the riverbank as part of the New York Writers Workshop. They found themselves overwhelmed by this novel form of creative exchange, each exploring the spiritual and philosophical dimensions of the shrine and tracing its resonance in poetry. It was an immersion into Lord Shiva's cosmos, where creation and destruction intertwined seamlessly.

After the reading, the group rose from the steps. As they walked, American photographer Julie Krishnan Williams suddenly burst into tears. Surprised, I asked, “Are you crying?” She wiped her eyes and replied, “I was trying to grasp the spiritual essence of a lost family member, and somehow, in this place, it all came back to me.”

A Chinese media professional, Xiao Xiao, having witnessed and filmed Hindu funeral traditions, was visibly moved. Though she was not permitted to enter the Pashupatinath Temple, which is open only to Hindus, British writer Maria Heath Beckett engaged in an animated discussion about Mahadev, Parvati, and Ganesh, passionately exploring the incarnations of deities and their cosmic roles through a series of probing questions.

The New York Writers Workshop in Kathmandu was not just about literary craft; it delved into cultural studies, spiritual explorations, and creative dialogue. It emerged as a groundbreaking event in Nepal’s literary history—a form of literary tourism that allowed thirty-five writers and artists from five continents to experience the country beyond its famed Mount Everest and Gurkha heritage. Whether it was Indian writer Pankaj Bista, celebrated Malayalam poet K. Satchidanandan, Panamanian poet Gorka Lasa, who carried a Nepali name and temperament, or the exuberant South African poet JahRose Jafta, who danced wholeheartedly to Nepali folk tunes, this gathering felt like a modern-day Kumbh Mela of creative souls seeking wisdom, connection, and artistic evolution.

Over a short period, through literary workshops and field visits to Kathmandu, Changunarayan, Pokhara, and Chitwan, the visiting writers absorbed fragments of Nepal, carrying them back to their homelands. The journey exposed them to Nepal's perilous highways, heart-stopping boat rides, and breathtaking natural diversity, offering moments of awe and surprise.

Nepali literature, which often remains confined within its linguistic boundaries, found a rare opportunity to introduce itself to an international audience. Beyond the sessions featuring Nepali-language poets, there were also discussions with contemporary Nepali poets writing in English. Writers like Anand Vijay Gurung and Bhuwan Thapaliya, who are steadfastly crafting Nepali poetry in English, spoke about the challenges and rewards of bridging cultural and linguistic gaps. This exchange made it easier to identify themes that could resonate globally, reinforcing the idea that Nepali poetry has the potential to reach and move readers beyond its native borders.

Personally, I witnessed how non-Nepali audiences perceived our myths, customs, and culture. Many of these traditions, which we take for granted in our daily lives, held profound symbolic significance for those encountering them for the first time. This realization prompted me to reexamine and appreciate the deeper meanings embedded in our cultural practices.

A particularly significant and unique aspect of the workshop was the recognition of Gopal Prasad Rimal, the father of Nepali prose poetry. Discussions on Rimal’s life and work helped clarify his importance as a legendary poet. His son, Madan Rimal, expressed gratitude, stating that this was the first time Rimal’s poetry had been honored on an international platform. Yuyutsu Sharma, who arranged this tribute, has also translated Rimal’s poems into English in a bilingual book, a step that will undoubtedly expand appreciation for his work beyond Nepal. I am hopeful that in the future, another poetic titan, Lekhnath Paudyal, will receive similar recognition.

Yuyutsu envisioned and structured the New York Writers Workshop and the Himalayan Literature Festival to run parallel to each other. Alongside the international panel, a separate panel of Nepali writers made the workshop even more fascinating. From renowned fiction writers like Narayan Wagle and Narayan Dhakal to critics like Sharad Pradhan, essayist and journalist Deepak Sapkota, and foremost journalist Yubaraj Ghimire, each contributed their own impact and insights. The sessions included Nepali poetry readings, Nepal Bhasa poetry readings, English poetry by Nepali poets, and a discussion on contemporary Nepali writing featuring critic Rajkumar Baniya, poet Avaya Shrestha, and Bimala Tumkhewa.

Poets from previous generations, such as Dwarika Shrestha, Shailendra Sakar, Kishore Pahadi and Sita Pandey shared the stage with contemporary authors of the younger generation, including Avaya Shrestha, Ramesh Kshitiz, Tanka Upreti, Shakuntala Joshi, and Laxmi Rumba. Voices of different generations came face to face, fostering a rich exchange of ideas and styles.

With its long and rich literary history, Nepal Bhasa’s poetry session was another major achievement of the festival. From esteemed ambassadors of Nepal Bhasa poetry—Durga Lal Shrestha, Pratisara Sayami, Anand Raj Joshi—to today’s prominent poets like Suresh Kiran, Sudheer Khwabi, Triratna Shakya, Rajnimila, and Sanjay Raj Sharma, each contributed to the diverse dimensions and voices of this poetic tradition. The contribution of TV journalist and poet Mohraj Sharma to the festival cannot be overlooked.

For me, a writers' workshop is more than a structured seminar; it is an opportunity to connect deeply with fellow creators. Beyond the formal sessions, we engaged in informal discussions about language, culture, music, and personal interests. Conversations ranged from Miles Davis to Chinua Achebe, from film noir to pulp magazines.

One particularly memorable encounter was with the affable poet Tim Tomlinson, who, like me, is a film noir enthusiast. I still smile when I recall his disbelief upon learning that Nepal no longer has CD or DVD stores. His book title, This Is Not Happening to You, and its striking cover remain etched in my mind, reminding me of The Woman in the Window.

Despite the joy and inspiration of the event, I couldn’t shake a lingering sadness. Kathmandu, with its undisciplined traffic, choking dust, and urban chaos, risks overshadowing its rich history and vibrant culture. I wonder if my fellow writers also felt this duality—awed by the city’s spiritual depth yet disheartened by its infrastructural neglect.

Nevertheless, our visitors chose to embrace Nepal in its entirety. They overlooked the chaos, relished dal-bhaat with delight, and participated in Nepali folk dances with unrestrained joy. It felt as though the world had gathered in a single village, celebrating the harvest of artistic and cultural exchange.

 

Amar Aakash is a young Nepalese poet and film critic. He has recently published Tungana, his debut collection of poems. Currently, he is working on his first novel and resides in Kathmandu.

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Pratik's upcoming HLF/NYWW Issue Highlight: Robert Scotto on his Favorite Five 2024 Novels in English

My Favorite Five 2024 Novels in English

I hope you find my selections as quirky, penetrating, and unsettling as I did. These five writers have all had highly praised careers, but they are very different from one another, and their works are always full of surprises. D. H. Lawrence called the novel "the bright book of life" because he believed it to be the only literary genre capable of capturing the complexities of the modern world in its fullness and concrete particularity. Some novels can appear shapeless—what Henry James called "loose, baggy monsters"—but if crafted by masters, they are shaped from within, moving at their own pace and guided by their own ends.

The five works of fiction below are technically innovative, propulsively readable, and taut yet open-ended—none of them suitable for a Hollywood adaptation. Be warned, however: they are as challenging as they are captivating, intended for serious readers with open, flexible minds.

---

1. Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Leading the list is this year’s Booker Prize winner, Orbital, a lyrical evocation of life aboard the International Space Station over the course of a 16-orbit, 24-hour day. The six characters and plot details are fictional, but the experience of living in weightlessness is portrayed with such tender yet fierce commitment to realism that the novel borders on prose poetry. There is little narrative and only sketchy backstories for the four men and two women circling Earth.

In one sense, little happens on this “day” that differs from any other of their endlessly repetitive days in space. Yes, there are experiments with mice and plants in zero gravity, the monitoring of a monster typhoon in South Asia, and a U.S.-crewed voyage to the moon in progress, but neither characters nor events dominate. Instead, the precise yet suggestive prose of a master storyteller redefines what it means to tell a story.

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2. Playground by Richard Powers

Where Orbital is concise, Playground is expansive. I have long admired Powers’ ambitious novels, always compulsively readable but also devoted to exploring subjects often confined to science textbooks. Here, several interwoven plots touch on oceanography (and the plight of endangered oceanic ecosystems), artificial intelligence, and the neo-colonialism these technologies might enable.

At its core are two honors high school friends—one, a privileged white coder who creates the AI threat, and the other, a Black inner-city writer-to-be. After stormy years of intellectual gamesmanship, they part ways, only to reunite in a surprising conclusion I won’t spoil for you. Two women shape the other strands of the story: a Polynesian sculptor who marries the writer and an elderly Canadian scuba diver and scientist leading the fight to protect a pristine Pacific island from foreign capital. These storylines converge in an unforgettable finale.

---

3. Parade by Rachel Cusk

By contrast, Parade is enigmatic, even gnomic, compared to Price’s larger canvas. Cusk seems to eschew many traditional fictional techniques, including plot. All her major characters—male or female, white or Black—are artists named “G.”

If the theme is how the worlds of art and life interact, the overlapping stories are narrated in a stark, sometimes unliterary voice that suggests hidden complexities beneath apparent simplicities. Events unfold, but few are dramatic, and none are conclusive. Cusk has built her career on indirection, suggestion, and rapture, and this novel is her latest exploration of these hallmarks.

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4. Polostan by Neal Stephenson

Polostan is the first segment of another epic adventure by one of America’s most ambitious and imaginative novelists. Stephenson’s previous works span futuristic hard science fiction and alternative histories populated with historical figures.

This time, we follow Aurora (or Dawn, depending on the country she is in), a Russian-American spy and/or counterspy entangled in a pre-Cold War ideological struggle partly played out on the polo pitch. Aurora seeks to aid the USSR’s revolution while escaping the Great Depression in the U.S. The novel leaves us dangling with no clear resolution—but promises more in future volumes.

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5. Every Arc Bends Its Radian by Sergio de la Pava

On a very different note is Sergio de la Pava’s strange and unsettling Every Arc Bends Its Radian. Written in English but steeped in Spanish, this work both sends up and celebrates the noir detective procedural, adding uncanny twists.

Set in Colombia, the narrator’s homeland, the story involves cousins, an aunt, the world’s largest drug cartel, its sadistic boss, and a young cousin who is both a mathematical genius and a prisoner (or recruit) of the cartel. She has discovered a method to achieve something akin to immortality. If this sounds improbable, the last third of the novel—with its submersible journey to the ocean’s depths—will leave you breathless. If the novel is “the bright book of life,” this one bursts with it.

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Final Thoughts

These five novels push the boundaries of what fiction can do. They challenge and enthrall, offering serious readers the chance to experience the modern world through new lenses. Which of these will you pick up first?

Former professor of English at Baruch College, CUNY, until his retirement, Robert Scotto’s previous publications include a Critical Edition of Catch-22, a book on the contemporary American novel and essays on Walter Pater, James Joyce and other major and minor nineteenth and twentieth century writers. The first edition of his biography, Moondog, won the 2008 ARSC Award for Best Research in Recorded Classical Music and the Independent Publisher Book Awards 2008 bronze medal for biography. He has published two poetry collections,  most recent being, Imagined Secrets (Nirala, 2019).

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Pratik's Noir Issue Special: American poet Dorianne Laux's "Homicide Detective: A Film Noir"

 

DORIANNE LAUX

 

Homicide Detective: A Film Noir

 

Smell of diesel fuel and dead trees

on a flatbed soaked to the bone.

Smell of dusty heater coils.

We got homicides in motels and apartments

all across the city: under the beds,

behind the doors, in the bathtubs.

It's where I come in at 5 AM,

paper cup of coffee dripping

down my sleeve, powdered

half-moon donut in my mouth.

Blood everywhere. Bodies

belly down, bodies faceup

on the kitchenette floor.

¿Dónde está? Que Será.

We got loose ends, we got

dead ends, we got split ends,

hair in the drains, fingerprints

on glass. This is where I stand,

my hat glittery with rain,

casting my restless shadow.

 

These are the dark hours,

dark times are these, hours

when the clock chimes once

as if done with it, tired of it: the sun,

the highways, the damnable

flowers strewn on the fake wool rug.

 

These are the flayed heart's flowers,

oil-black dahlias big as fists,

stems thick as wrists, striped, torn,

floating in the syrupy left-on music

but the bright world is done and I'm

a ghost touching the hair of the dead

with a gloved hand.

 

These are the done-for, the poor,

the defenseless, mostly women,

felled trees, limbs lashing

up into air, into rain,

as if time were nothing, hours,

clocks, highways, faces, don't step

on the petals, the upturned hands, stay

behind the yellow tape, let

the photographer's hooded camera pass,

the coroner in his lab coat, the DA

in her creased black pants.

 

Who thought

to bring these distracting flowers?

Who pushed

out the screen and broke the lock?

Who let him in?

Who cut the phone cord, the throat,

the wrist, the cake

on a plate and sat down and ate

only half?

 

What good is my life if I can't read the clues,

my mind the glue and each puzzle piece

chewed by the long-gone dog who raced

through the door, ran through our legs

and knocked over the vase,

hurtled down the alley and into the street?

 

What are we but meat, flesh

and the billion veins to be bled?

Why do we die this way, our jaws

open, our eyes bulging, as if there

were something to see or say?

Though today the flowers speak to me,

they way they sprawl in the streaked light,

their velvet lips and lids opening as I watch,

as if they wanted to go on living, climb

my pant legs, my wrinkled shirt, reach up

past my throat and curl over my mouth,

my eyes. Bury me in bloom.

 

 

 

Dorianne Laux is the author of Life on Earth (W. W. Norton, 2023); the textbook Finger Exercises for Poets (W. W. Norton, 2023); Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and other collections. She has taught creative writing the U. of Oregon, Pacific University and North Carolina State U.  

 

 

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PRATIK's CURRENT CITY SPECIAL ISSUE : "Unsinkable City" Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka reflects on a lifetime in Lagos

 

WOLE SOYINKA

Unsinkable City

Wole Soyinka reflects on a lifetime in Lagos*

 

Going to the Portobello Road Market for wosi-wosi— the Yoruba name for odds and ends, antiquities true and fake, and general bric-a-brac of even unmapped nations—has remained my routine destination whenever I find myself in London. It may have commenced in curiosity, provoked by the aqueous association of names—Portobello, Beautiful Port; Lagos, Lakes, originally Lago de Curamo—I can only testify that it all began while I was a student in mid-1950s and has remained ever thus. Periodic forays into Britain even decades after my first student incursion have failed to diminish the tug, despite deleterious changes at the Lagos end of the axis. Each visit still registers personal correlations, some stimulating, others sobering. It is no longer the innocent, prying eye on antique oddities, ogling, desiring and caressing art objects of dubious pedigrees; it is now both attraction and repulsion, but always evocative—in absentia—of that amphibious city, thousands of miles away, called Lagos. It was the official capital, once upon a time, but it is still the commercial capital of the most populous, and perhaps most unmanageable, black nation of the world: Nigeria. Lagos exerts a secretive, sometimes resented, but tenacious hold on all who pass through its steamy streets and tumultuous markets. Do not take my word for it. Ask any foreign resident or mere bird of passage through that frustrating capital. The accustomed expression is, “You can take the expatriate out of Lagos, but you cannot take Lagos out of the expatriate.” The less charitable version goes, “Lagos is akin to a mosquito bite: the malaria spores never completely leave your bloodstream.” The ever-popular high-life song with fluctuating lyrics that give away recent peregrinations of whichever band leader appear to settle the matter once and for all, applicable even to Portobello addicts, but with increased dosage of disenchantment:

Lagos is the place for me

Lagos, this lovely city

You can take me to England and Amerikay

Keep your Paris or Roman city

Give me Lagos any day

Lagos, for my temperament, is perhaps best enjoyed vicariously and in small doses. Luckily, the city shares many features with the antique mart or, perhaps less glamorously, a flea market. Sometimes one feels that the world’s discards, the detritus of the constantly surging ocean, eventually come to rest on the beaches of Lagos. No wonder, the argument also rages forth again and again, especially at election time, that Lagos is a no-man’s land. Historical facts jostle with myth, migration waves with politics of concessions, attributions and conquest. Were the monarchs of Lagos truly vassals of the Benin kingdom, or was Benin a mere occupation force on military camps established in parts of Lagos island? Does the name by which a large Lagosian group of settlers, the Awori, are known, truly derive from the triumphant cry Awo ri? This would lend credence to the Lagosian origin myth that claims a roving hunter from the Yoruba hinterland, having decided (or been forced) to migrate with his people, consulted Ifa, the Yoruba divination system. The outcome was instruction that he place a bowl on a stream and follow its progress. Wherever the bowl sank—ibi ti awo ri— that was the destined habitation.

Lagos’s numerous ties to the ancient Benin kingdom—culture, trade, indigenous names, etc.—are not disputed, only the details. A Yoruba war leader wrote a unique chapter in war chivalry by journeying for several weeks just to return the corpse of his slain foe, a Benin war commander, to the king, the Oba of Benin. As a reward, the king sent him back as regent over one of the Benin war camps and its zone of authority. Just as strong are the claims of another set of “true owners”—the Idejo, the Olofin, plus the radiating lines from a great hunter, Ogunfunmire. Ogunfunmire wandered in from the heart of Yoruba land and founded Isheri, from where his 12 descendants fanned out along the coast and farther inland to establish a clan dynasty. Was that the same hunter? Or a different ancestor entirely?

The Lagos of today is what preoccupies, agitates, repels and seduces, and from widely different causes. Lagos is truly a Joseph-city, a garment of many colors, textures and stylists. Try to imagine a straight line, drawn from any point on the border of Lagos across its land mass until it terminates at the beach. Walk that straight line through buildings, markets, lagoons, canals, upscale and hole-in-the wall shops and residences, flyovers and clotted streets, shrines, parks, warrens, mosques, churches, etc. You would end up surfeited by sheer variety, like a jumbo meatloaf attempting to set the world record in the stuffing of incongruities. I suspect that it was a whiff of that wanton ecumenism of identities that I sensed in those stalls of Portobello markets at my very first visit as an impressionable youth. I gratefully found it a generous, accommodating substitute that served as relief from the notorious British inhospitable and insular character, plus the unpalatable weather menu of the 1950s—cold, wet and dismal.

But even as Portobello began to burst its bounds, both in its capture of neighboring streets and enlarged cosmopolitanism in its offerings, opening out to other continents, so did Lagos begin to expand, become more haphazardly textured, more daring, with insertions of thematic galleries and mobile stalls, its squares and traffic islands pocked also by itinerant performers and lethargic to enraptured audiences, vanishing into endless by-streets and cul-de-sacs, in and out of festive seasons. The pace has become so rapid that it is hard not to imagine a Lagos of the future, prefigured in those intensive transformations, including new hordes of visiting or relocated nationalities—Japanese, Chinese, Caribbean, and other babblers in their own tongues and accented English. Let us traverse backward through the years to a significant fin de siècle transitional phase in the life of this writer, for a sampling of human and other exotic wares.

Occupational risks, of the political extracurricular kind, eventually prescribed exile. I returned to Nigeria in 1999 after a compulsory spell outside her borders, an exile of some four years. Before that hasty departure, I had lived mostly in my hometown, the rockery encrusted city of Abeokuta, but also with a foot in Yaba, a Lagos suburb where the trees had not been eaten, and even enjoyed residential, integrated status. By then, I had long terminated a career of regular teaching at my former university in Ile-Ife. It had served as the transient third of a residential triad of unequal occupancies. The other two were Abeokuta, maternal home, and Isara, paternal, a small town of unremitting red laterite whose dust permeated even the human skin, giving it a russet pigmentation.

Back from exile, I found myself obliged to seek another toehold in Lagos. I found one, right on the island itself and close to a sandy stretch known as Bar Beach, largely a weekend and holiday relaxation recourse that also serves as a buffer between the Atlantic Ocean and the newly developed residential zone known as Victoria Island. That habitation sometimes felt, in some ways, a further extension of my exile, as so much of it had changed. My awareness of the sea, from childhood vacations spent in Lagos, had been formed by friendly surf and wave-sculpted sand. Nature was then at its most placid and collaborative, in peaceable partnership with the lagoon and sluggish canals that threaded the marshy islands—Obalende, Ebute Metta, Ikoyi. Apapa, Isale Eko—each wet surface with its own network of plying canoes, shacks and shanties, cries and gurgles, whispers and raucous sales chants and dark silences, even in brutal daylight.

Abeokuta of the rocks was my principal home, Isara a stolid, impregnable linkage with time past. Lagos of the canals was my escape into exotica, yet also within the seamless consciousness of a personal proprietorship that comes with affinities. Bar Beach was still a stranger to public executions of armed robbers, by firing squad, under a military regime, a spectacle that was open to all non-paying audiences, including children. Until then, that beach was little more than a home to makeshift churches—more accurately, bamboo and palm fronds around a cross-topped mound of sand, the cross itself sometimes made from fresh palm fronds. They were presided over by colorful charlatans who would later people such plays as The Trials of Brother Jero and even pop up in everything from cameos to major roles in stories such as my novels The Interpreters and Season of Anomie. My mother being an itinerant trader, and with a family line stretching through Lagos, the lagoon city became a mere extension of the maternal home, Abeokuta.

So did the markets. I grew up familiar with all the open-air markets—Ita Faji, Iddo, Ebute Metta Sangross—a name derived from a corruption, it is claimed, of the sand grouse that once populated the area. I did eventually take to the hunt, but as I was not remotely close to conception at naming time, and no historian has traced my ancestry to the alleged founder of Lagos (the hunter Ogunfunmire) I could not be held responsible for the extinction of the grouse population. I do not even know what a sand grouse tastes like. It was a different matter from the flavors, smells, colors and sounds of the market itself, identical—except for the riveting forms, the heady smells of freshly delivered fish, crabs and lesser shellfish—with the markets of Ibarapa or Iberekodo in Abeokuta. All provided a medley of sensations that relegated Portobello to the ranks of deodorized human spaces, nonetheless irresistible. But then, I was prejudiced. My vacation home in Lagos was Igbosere Street, just a stone’s throw from Sangross. To seal an unspoken pact, one of the more famous juju bands took up residence in a night-shack that opened its doors after the market women had departed. It became a favorite haunt after I joined the ranks of lawfully and lowly employed school leavers.

My mother, that enterprising lady, had her main shop in Ake, Abeokuta, quite close to the palace, reigned over by a monarch who exuded much mystery and dignity until his downfall at the hands of rebellious women in the famous anti-tax riots of the 1940s. They were led by my aunt, the feisty Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti—name sound familiar? Substitute Ransome with Anikulapo, and the equation reads Anikulapo Kuti—yes, the Afro-beat king, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who dominated the Lagos—then the entire Nigerian— music scene, extending into the continent, the Diaspora and even Europe. France was certainly the earliest European conquered territory. Fela’s “Afrika Shrine” remains a pilgrimage destination today for a cross-section of avid music consumers or simply the merely curious—indigenes and expatriates, diplomats and the underworld, even foreign presidents with a yen for the raw, raunchy and raucous. His sons, also musicians with their own bands, keep up the legacy, including a guaranteed line for the fattest smoke wraps to be encountered in the world’s republics of nightlife.

That much, at least, has not changed. An extension of that shop, in a coincidence that took years to register in my mind, was my mother’s stall in Isale Eko, near Iga Idunganran, the seat of another monarch, the Oba of Lagos. We shared our vacations between Lagos and my paternal home, Isara, a city bereft of either rocks or canals; it had just a stream, and a deep wooded spring that appeared to be the source. Isara was a somewhat in drawn village of supernatural and numinous forces, steeped in tradition.

 

For Full version, pls read the print edition of Pratik’s current Issue

(*First published by Stranger’s Guide in 2020)

Wole Soyinka is a Nigerian playwright, poet, author, teacher and political activist. In 1986, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. A towering figure in world literature and a multifaceted artist-dramatist, poet, essayist, musician, philosopher, academic, teacher, human rights activist, global artist, and scholar, he has won international acclaim for his verse, as well as for novels such as Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth. His works encompass drama, poetry, novels, music, film, and memoirs; he is considered among the great contemporary writers He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems, two novels, books of essays, and memoirs, including The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness, and numerous plays. Soyinka has held positions at Harvard, Yale, Duke, Emory, and Loyola Marymount in the US, as well as highly regarded institutions throughout Africa and Europe. 

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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Pratik Magazine's Special Issue Himalayan Literature Festival/NYWW Edition

 

  

Call for Submissions

Pratik Magazine's Special

Himalayan Literature Festival/NYWW Issue

Pratik Magazine is thrilled to announce a Call for Submissions for a special edition inspired by the 2024 Himalayan Literature Festival (HLF) and the New York Writers Workshop (NYWW). We invite writers from the Subcontinent and around the globe to submit original works of poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, and artwork that reflect your experiences, insights, or creative engagement with the festival, whether attended in person or remotely.

This special issue, part of our Winter 2024 edition, will be enhanced by images and photographs from the festival. Feel free to share photos from your archives to be considered for inclusion.

This edition will offer a unique platform for both emerging voices and established writers. Submissions should explore the themes and essence of the festival, celebrating its rich literary culture, breathtaking mountain landscapes, and the vibrant creative exchange it fosters.

Submission Guidelines:
• Submit your work as a single Word document attached to an email.
• Send submissions to: pratikmagsubmissions@gmail.com
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Pratik: A Magazine of Contemporary Writing
Edited by Yuyutsu Sharma
White Lotus Book Shop, Hanumansthan, Kupondole, Kathmandu, Nepal
Phone: +977-5520248, +977-9803171925
Email: whitelotusbookshop@gmail.com
www.whitelotusbookshop.com

PRATIK CITY WRITING SPECIAL : JULIE WILLIAMS-KRISHNAN'S "A Photographer’s Journey Through Time and Light"

 

PHOTOGRAPHY

 

JULIE WILLIAMS-KRISHNAN

A Photographer’s Journey Through Time and Light

 

Day by day, moment by moment, with both intention and divine happenstance, we move toward that person that we are meant to be. We are, and we are becoming, at the same time. For me, connecting with that authentic artist inside me, that photographer who sees images all day long in her mind, has been a process of learning to trust myself, to see myself, to believe in myself, and very importantly, to make time for myself. What has been very important for me to come to understand is that my creative voice offers something meaningful to the world, and only I can say it in that unique way.

My journey as an artist and photographer has tendrils to my childhood, but my coming of age as an artist was much later. I was raised in central Pennsylvania (USA), in a rural and working-class area, and art was not experienced or valued in a significant way. Like many of my generation, I had a point and shoot film camera and I enjoyed photographing my friends and family. When I was about 15 years old, I learned about French Impressionism from Mrs. Vanderhoof, a volunteer art teacher at school, and I was hooked on art. I started taking photographs of the nearby jewelry store sign covered in snow and the ice mounds as they built up on the river that snaked by our home. I wanted to study photography in college, but we could not afford the camera that was required to take the program.

“The Threshing Place” is a body of work that was inspired by my upbringing. My mother taught Bible stories to children and I inherited her archive of teaching materials. Years later, I used that material to tell another story, one that weaves in my personal narrative as subtext. Most of the images are photographed in London in the Unitarian chapel where my husband and I were married. The final five images were taken in my hometown against the windows of the basement of the church where I went to school.

Washington DC

After college, I moved to Washington, DC. It was my first time living in a city. Every weekend I visited art galleries like the Smithsonian Institute, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Phillips Collection, the Corcoran Gallery of Art. I fell in love with art and dreamt of having my work on the walls. The first large photography exhibition I saw was Annie Leibovitz’s portrait retrospective and I was amazed at how she portrayed her subjects. To this day, those images stand out in my mind. All this art exploration and self-discovery helped immerse me in the ways of seeing, of representing, and of interpreting. I invested in a serious film camera with some manual functionality and I started photographing the city and my life more intentionally.

London

I moved to London, UK in my late 20s, initially as an English literature graduate student and then I worked at a university for a number of years as an international admissions officer. I always travelled with a camera and many rolls of film! One of my students from Nepal, Hom, and I became friends. Hom needed an old motorcycle to get around London to make pizza deliveries and I needed a more serious camera to pursue my ever-growing photography passion. He had an Olympus manual camera that he no longer needed and I happened to have a non-functioning motorcycle that needed some repairs, so we did a swap! I signed up for a photography class at the university where I worked and started shooting with my “new” camera. I exhibited my first print at the end of that first class.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I was taking about 1000 photographs a day in my mind. I was seeing the world as a photographer, even when I did not have a camera in my hand. I bought my first digital SLR camera, I built a portfolio, and I pursued my MA in Photographic Studies at The University of Westminster in London. There I learned about the work of some of my photographic influences, such as Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Jeff Wall, Stephen Gill, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, to name a few. The MA program solidified my love of photography, taught me so much more about the language of imagery, and made me believe in myself as a photographer. 

Since then, the journey has been about learning to flex my photography muscles, and I have been able to do so in a variety of ways. I started freelance work for a media company that made huge billboards and I photographed their installations around London. I also assisted a food photographer, photographed events, and did some editorial assignments (for my friend Hom, who started a magazine!) and some portrait photography. I also exhibited my work around London and Oxford. I also taught photography at the university where I had worked in admissions. Being an artist can be a solo practice, but it does not have to be a lonely practice, and I have found it very important to stay connected to other artists and to trust them to give honest feedback and to provide mutual support. I started a monthly group for my artist friends so we could support each other. It was called “The Flying Eggs,” named after the Ethiopian proverb “Given the time, even an egg can fly.” I even did a photography project called “Learning to Fly” in which I wore angel wings and repeatedly jumped off a bench on Hampstead Heath.

London was a launchpad for me in so many ways, including photography and travel. Much of my urban work was done during these travels. I made a series titled “Between Towns” because I was photographing details of urban life rather than the obvious icons of the cities I was visiting.

Boston

In 2010 Sanjay and I moved to the Boston area. I accepted a consulting job in higher education and decided to focus on fine art photography rather than commercial photography. This was a pivotal decision for me. In addition to the consulting work, I set up a small studio, first at home and then in an artist building. I also worked part-time for several years as the director of programs at the Griffin Museum of Photography, which connected me to fine art photographers across the US and elsewhere. I learned about many different approaches to photography, got involved in portfolio reviews, and helped run photography classes, lectures, and events. I continue to make my own photographic art and submit work to shows and reviews. I also am part of a salon group of very talented female photographers and we support each other in our practice. I also started teaching photography classes and workshops, which I love to do. All these activities keep motivated as a photographer and artist.

Chennai

Another very important city in my life is Chennai, India. When I lived in London, I met and married Sanjay, who is from Chennai. We have spent much time there over our 20 plus years together. When visiting the family home and places important to our family, I use my camera to observe and investigate, as well as find my place within the family and in a culture so different from mine.

My personal photographic work is narrative and autobiographical. Work I have made in Chennai is about my relationship to my husband’s family. In my series “The Bindi Collection” I photographed my mother-in-law’s bindis across many years. In “Morning Poetry” I photographed the family home on one regular morning. In “The Third Eye” I photographed Tamil soap operas, seeking moments of tension between scenes that layered together stories.

In 2020, when the pandemic hit, the consulting work went quiet for a while and I decided to see what commercial work I might do in photography. I was hired as a real estate photographer and learned a whole new genre of photography. I have continued to do that work part-time and I enjoy telling the story of the space where people make their dwelling. It has been profitable and enjoyable work. I am also learning to be a food photographer and look forward to entering that field soon.

Cities are an inspiration to me. They are both a place to live and a place to play.  They are where ideas and people come together, where you can seek out your own interests and passions, where you can be as anonymous or as flamboyant as you wish. If you are curious, you can meet strangers who lead you to new lives. You meet ideas that take you new destinations. You learn about the gritty and the glamourous. I have been fortunate to visit many cities throughout the world, and while each has its own identity, there are common threads that make urban life stimulating. As a photographer, I seek to observe and celebrate meaningful moments, and the city is a delightful playground in which to photograph. Cities allow you to reinvent yourself without judgement, and I have taken advantage of the opportunity to evolve and grow in each city in which I have lived.

“I am a photographer.” The power those words have for me is immense. For so many years, it was a far-away aspiration, but now, photography is my language, it is part of what I do and who I am. It is not a journey I did alone. My husband, Sanjay, is my biggest supporter, and I am so grateful to him and for the many family members, mentors and teachers along the way. I also have a wonderful group of photographer and artist friends upon whom I rely for support and encouragement. I have learned that if I am not doing something related to photography, even if it just a small part of my day or week, it is as if a light has turned off inside of me. When I am making work, and I am connected to photography and photographers, my creative self is fulfilled and the spark is lit.

 

 

Julie Williams-Krishnan is a fine art and freelance photographer, artist, and educator who teaches photography and leads workshops at university and community level. Julie served as the Director of Programs at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts (USA) for five years. She has served a juror for the Somerville Arts Council and the Winchester Public Schools, a committee member for FlashPoint Boston photography festival, and on the committee for the Renaissance Photography Prize, an international photography competition that raises money to support younger women with breast cancer. Julie’s personal photographic practice investigates identity and personal narrative. She has exhibited her photographs at Melrose Tiny Gallery, The Sanctuary, Cambridge Art Association, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Khaki Gallery, and Zullo Gallery in the Boston region, the Colson Gallery in Easthampton, Massachusetts, and The Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, A. Smithson Gallery in Texas, as well as other venues in Boston, London, and Oxford. She has also been included in online exhibitions with “Don’t Take Pictures” and “Lenscratch.” She earned her MA in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster in London, UK. Based in Boston Massachusetts (USA) since 2010, Julie lived in London (UK) for more than 16 years and has traveled to more than 75 countries. She lives in a multi-cultural family and travels regularly to India. Learn more about Julie’s work at www.jwkphotography.com and on Instagram.

 

 

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