One of the oldest adages about writing is “Write what you know,” and Cristina Henríquez proves that this is at least a good place to start. Her highly acclaimed first novel, The World in Half, follows a young woman who is, like Cristina herself, a Chicagoan with roots in Panama. However, the novel departs from this autobiographical starting point to explore the journey of Miraflores, the narrator, down to Panama to pick up the pieces of her broken family and her divided self. The characters compel and the prose delights. Below are excerpts from her interview with Oxford American, in which she discusses writing, envy, superstition, and home.***
Oxford American: Why do you write?
Cristina: Honestly, I have no idea. Why does anyone do anything? Because he or she is drawn to it through a combination of genetic disposition and environment. I just like it. I like stringing words together on a page—a surface that's flat, a tool that's ordinary—to create something that's full and alive and that tells us about ourselves. I'm fascinated by the idea that we share this language, we use it every day, and yet how a writer orders the words on the page and how he or she chooses those particular words can so drastically make meaning and change meaning.
Oxford American: Does reading great writing by others inspire or deject you?
Cristina: Mostly it inspires me. Occasionally, it pummels me with the idea that plagues every writer I know from time to time: I will never be able to write like that. But mostly it provides inspiration.
Oxford American: The all-knowing Wikipedia says that "all writers are superstitious." What is your pet superstition?
Cristina: I have a few. I can't sleep when a closet door is open. I refuse to listen to the flight attendants when they do their safety demonstration because somehow I believe that by listening, I'm jinxing the flight. If I don't get any e-mail the first time I check in the morning, I think it means I'll have a bad day. I'm sure there are others, but those are the first few that come to mind.
Oxford American: Even the greatest writers must endure a period of writing juvenilia. What happened to cause you to grow beyond the "struggling-young-writer" stage and find your own voice?
Cristina: I think what happened was I found my material. I found Panama. I had been writing stories set in the United States, and they all sounded like terrible rip-offs of the writers I was reading and admired: George Saunders, Kurt Vonnegut, Jason Brown, Aimee Bender. Then I read a story by Sandra Cisneros and I realized that there was a whole side of myself that was untapped. I hadn't written about Panama because I wasn't sure I had the authority to. I was only half-Panamanian, after all, and I had never lived there. But reading her work made me at least want to attempt it. And when I did, it just felt so different. It was like making this giant leap. I had never read a single other story set in Panama. For me, it was uncharted literary territory in the way that the United States wasn't. There was so much freedom in that.
Oxford American: Mira struggles with her identity and at one point says that she doesn't know where her "home" is. Her Panamanian friend, Danilo, says home "is where you feel most like you belong." Where is "home" for you?
Cristina: This is the second time in my life I've been asked this question and I don't think I'm any closer to being able to answer it now than the first time. I've lived in Delaware, Florida, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Texas, and Illinois. I've spent extended portions of my life in Panama. And yet, where is home? Is it where I live now? But I've only been here for three years. It doesn't feel any more like home than any place I've been. Is it where I primarily grew up and where my parents still live? But when I go back there, I hardly recognize it anymore. The best I can do is to say that home for me is with my family—my husband and my daughter. When I'm with them, I feel at home.
***
The full interview is available here. Cristina Henríquez will be reading and signing books at the American Library Association Annual Conference at the following date and location:
Sunday, July 12 at 11:00 a.m.
McCormick Place
2301 S. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Ill. 60616
312.791.7000
--Emmaline Silverman
Photo by Cheryl Diaz Meyer / Dallas Morning News
No comments:
Post a Comment