Category Archives: Will Johnson

Author explores Israeli-immigrant experience

Reviewed by Will Johnson

Ayelet Tsabari didn’t want to write about Israel.

Although she grew up there, and visited regularly, she didn’t feel prepared to tackle such a weighty subject. While completing her MFA at the University of Guelph, she toyed with the idea of writing a novel. Then she started a collection of stories that explored the immigrant experience. But nothing was working out as she planned, and she found herself obsessing over her homeland.

“I was scared to go there, because it’s such a loaded place. It’s almost impossible to write about Israel in a way that would not be perceived as political, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the responsibility,” Tsabari said.

But after some gentle encouragement from her mentor Camilla Gibb, she decided to tackle Israel head-on. “Once I committed to it, my writing really started to flow,” she said.

That manuscript ultimately became The Best Place on Earth, a collection of short fiction that will be released in March by Harper Collins.

Tsabari knew early on that she wanted to finish the collection with the title story “The Best Place on Earth” because she liked the idea of ending with the image of two Israeli sisters on a Gulf Island in the Pacific.  This theme of travel and displacement flows through the book. Tsabari has spent a large amount of her adult life travelling, in India as well as the Middle East, before settling in Toronto.

“I’ve always been fascinated, and somewhat envious, by how some immigrants are able to move on and embrace their new homes fully. I have friends like that. For some reason, I’ve always been torn between my two homes, and I don’t know how to reconcile this dichotomy. I love Canada; it has been extremely good to me and I’m happy with my life here. But Israel continues to haunt me,” Tsabari said.

“The protagonist of the stories are mainly Israelis of Mizrahi (North African and Middle Eastern) descent and the majority of the stories take place in Israel. Like most writers I write about subjects I’m obsessed with: family relationships, loss, displacement, gender dynamics. I think many of my characters feel exiled in some way and are searching for a home.”

One story that has special significance to Tsabari is “Warplanes.” She said it was the first story in which she consciously tackled an aspect of Israeli life she’d been nervous to write about. “It also has a strong autobiographical element, unlike most of my stories,” she added. “I, too, lost my father to illness during the Lebanon War and I remember feeling like his death was overshadowed by the death of soldiers at the front.”

“It wasn’t a rational thought, but I was ten and obviously couldn’t comprehend or cope with his loss,” she said.

Tsabari said she prefers not to think about her audience too much while writing, because it has the potential to paralyze her process. However, she would have written her book differently if it was intended for an Israeli readership rather than the Canadian audience that might be unfamiliar with some of the customs, place names and events she’s writing about.

“Still, I’d like to believe that literature has the power to transcend the boundaries of land and race and citizenship, and that people can relate to stories from everywhere,” she said.

Tsabari is now working on a novel that tells the story of the Yemeni community and the hardships they face when they immigrated to Israel in the 1950s.

 

Will Johnson has just completed his master’s degree in writing at UBC.

Victoria author bares more than her soul

By Will Johnson

Yasuko Thanh is not afraid to take off her clothes.

The Journey Prize-winning Victoria author, who published her debut collection of short stories Floating Like the Dead last year, is slated to appear as Miss July in a calendar of nude Canadian authors due in 2014. The project, titled “Bare it For Books,” will raise funds for PEN Canada.

But Thanh may be the only author in the calendar who already has experience working as a nude model.

“I’m trying not to tie those two worlds together as a deliberate decision,” she said. “In my wild-child days, or whatever you want to call it, I did modeling and it was certainly of a different texture. That was working as a part of the sex industry. And that’s not necessarily something I want to relive.”

“I think I have a nudist streak in me,” she said. “Anaïs Nin has this wonderful line, in one of her stories or journals, I’m not sure. ‘As sexless as a child who thinks nothing of his nakedness’. I think of it kind of like that. It doesn’t need to be provocative in that sexual way.”

“When we do the photo shoot that’s coming up on March 3, we have some interesting ideas that are going to stay away from that. It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be tongue-in-cheek,” she said.

The project, which is the brainchild of author Amanda Leduc and classical music producer Allegra Young, will feature 12 nude authors and will raise financial support for PEN Canada.

When Thanh was contacted by Young and Leduc, she eagerly accepted the invitation to participate. Victoria photographer Anastasia Andrews volunteered to take the photos.

“I said any way I can help, I’m there. I think most people have heard of PEN, and I certainly support the work they do.”

Thanh enthusiastically agreed with author Vincent Lam, who will appear alongside her in the calendar and was quoted in a recent story in The National Post as saying that it’s much more personal to publish a book than to expose your body to the world.

“Putting a book, putting your soul out there, that’s way more personal,” she said.

But she also emphasized it’s important to keep her experiences in perspective.

“Yes, it’s a little soul-baring to have a book, to put it out there and to have people saying things about it. Oh, poor me. But there are places where you’re not just putting your soul out there, you’re actually putting your life on the line or you could be looking at a prison sentence,” she said.

This is why Thanh felt so strongly about supporting PEN Canada.

“The fact that there’s an organization out there, fighting for people’s freedom of speech, well that’s great. And I want to support that any way I can.”

When asked why she thought of Thanh for the calendar, which also features a diverse selection of authors such as Miranda Hill, Angie Abdou and Daniel MacIvor, Leduc’s answer was simple: “because she’s hot stuff.”

“The point of BIFB, in addition to raising funds for PEN, is to introduce Canadians to writers they might not have encountered,” said Leduc. “Yasuko is a great writer, a young writer, and maybe not as well known as some of the others in the calendar.”

When asked how she feels about appearing alongside Yann Martel, bestselling author of Life of Pi, Thanh beamed happily.

“It feels friggin’ awesome,” she said.

 

Writer Will Johnson is back in Victoria after stints in Vancouver and Nova Scotia. 

 

Why I use a Kindle

Rant By Will Johnson

Photo by Darby Jack

My girlfriend bought me a Kindle for my birthday last year.

I was pretty ambivalent about it for the first while, and it sat unused in its box for nearly three weeks before I decided to tinker with it. Like so many other people, I was reluctant to give up the tactile experience of holding a book in my hands. My most cherished novels were dog-eared, maybe water-stained, with notes scribbled in the margins and unrecognizable brown stains in the corners. They were vehicles of instant nostalgia. How could that be replaced by this tiny gray machine?

But after learning how many Hemingway novels I could download for free, my love affair with this gadget began.

The first book I read was The Antagonist by Lynn Coady, and right away I liked the way it updated me on my progress (7% done, 12% done) as I read and the way I could slip it into my coat pocket while rushing out to the bus. By the time I started The Hunger Games trilogy, it had become an irremovable part of my daily life.

Then I discovered the Clippings function, which meant I could highlight choice passages and save them for later. My Clippings file is now a compilation of hundreds of quotes from authors like Christopher Hitchens, David Mitchell and Kurt Vonnegut all thrown together at random.

But perhaps my favorite feature? Every time I reach a word I don’t understand, all I have to do is click over to it and the dictionary will pop up with a definition. This is especially helpful when reading short stories by David Foster Wallace.

My new word for today, learned while lounging in a soapy bath: Contrail.

(If you don’t know already, a contrail is the mist-like vapor that streaks across the sky when planes pass overhead. I never knew what to call those before. Cool, right?)

Then there are the daily deals. At first, I was annoyed by the constant advertising, but for every shitty mystery novel or random shaving gel, there’s a chance to get a classic book for less than three bucks. The other day I downloaded Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Junior for 99 cents!!!! (Sorry, I felt like one exclamation mark wasn’t quite enough there…)

Also, I find I can switch between books with ease. Buying Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond does not seem as daunting when it’s simply another bullet point in a list of titles. And though reading it sometimes feel likes a scholarly chore, on a Kindle I can dip into it for one grueling chapter, and then switch back to a Tom Clancy thriller to give my brain a rest.

I still read and buy normal books, but I’m finding my patience with them is starting to wear thin. I was working my way through the hefty hardcover of Dear Life by Alice Munro the other day, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t tap my finger on the page to find the definition for “bilious,” “commensurate” or “irascible.” What was I supposed to do? Go find a dictionary? And if I find a beautiful passage that I’d like to remember, which happens every page of two with Alice Munro, do I need to resort to a highlighter? Or maybe I could scribble it down on a notepad?

My Kindle has irrevocably changed the way I interact with literature. It has been a boon to my reading life, has probably saved me hundreds of dollars and it expands my vocabulary every day. Rather than having random piles of unread books lying around my bedroom and stacked on every windowsill, I have this little gray companion that fits comfortably into my bag.

I take it with me everywhere I go.

Will Johnson, a UVIC graduate, is completing his MFA in creative writing at UBC.