Omar Musa on his novel Fierceland, a “deliberate critique” of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Sharing the signifier with authors Jeet Thayil and Iffat Nawaz astatine the Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest recently, Bornean-Australian writer and writer Omar Musa had the assemblage hooked arsenic helium work from his genre-defying caller novel, Fierceland (published by Penguin). Musa, who is besides an creator and musician, shared that his “polyglot, polyphonic” publication is astir the “faultiness of representation and truths that unrecorded connected unstable ground”.

Fierceland is Musa’s 2nd caller and was precocious awarded the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Fiction. A scathing representation of the ecological crises facing humanity successful the epoch of the Anthropocene, the caller is told done the lives of Rozana and Harun, heirs to the humor wealth of patriarchal thenar lipid baron Yusuf. In an email conversation, Musa elaborates connected however his publication is simply a nonstop critique of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Edited excerpts:

Q: Fierceland foregrounds galore important debates, from assemblage origins of capitalist greed to wide ecological crises. What was the contiguous driving unit down the novel?

A: The contiguous driving unit was a operation of love, longing and fury. It was idiosyncratic reflections astir the dynamics of families, arsenic good arsenic privilege and complicity (my ain included) successful systems of oppression and biology destruction. I picture Fierceland arsenic a emotion missive to Borneo and an elegy for the things we’ve lost. I became fascinated by the dark, fraught satellite of logging and thenar lipid successful Borneo. I knew that if I wanted to archer this communicative truthfully, I had to dive heavy into the tectonics of capitalism and corruption; to grapple with the ghosts of imperialism and language. As individuals, however bash we interface with momentous forces acold bigger than ourselves? Do we prosecute with them retired of prime oregon coercion? Is it adjacent imaginable to heal the wounds we person caused oregon regenerate the things we person destroyed?

Q: There is simply a deliberate effort to not explicate for an Anglophone Western readership, erstwhile it comes to the Malay phrases and references successful the novel. What was the thought process down this aesthetic choice?

A: Accent and travel of code are truthful intimately tied successful with identity, and representing the souls and dynamic lived experiences of my characters meant capturing them successful the novel. Sabahan slang and Manglish person their ain bushed and texture, and the publication wouldn’t person felt arsenic authentic if I had made it rigidly conform to “proper English” (whatever that is), and if I had italicised words rupturing the leafage each fewer sentences. I look backmost connected immoderate of my aboriginal work, wherever I did that, oregon adjacent had a glossary of Malay words, and it conscionable seems truthful unusual and othering now.

I truly privation radical to prosecute with Fierceland connected its ain linguistic terms. As a reader, I find it amusive to bash that — I’m reasoning of however revelatory it was to work Sandra Cisneros’s blend of Spanish and English for the archetypal time, oregon adjacent Irvine Welsh penning successful Scots English. We unrecorded successful a polyglot, interconnected satellite — if radical don’t cognize what a connection means, they tin google it. I bash it each the clip with arcane English words, and world penning oregon legalese, for that matter, which are besides their ain languages.

Q: While speechmaking the novel, 1 is reminded of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, to which determination is besides a nonstop reference. How would you accidental your enactment speaks to that assemblage literate contented of depicting indigenous landscapes and wilderness?

A: Well, Fierceland is decidedly a deliberate subversion/ critique of Heart of Darkness. In the transition you’re referring to, a quality responds to Conrad himself, saying that if you travel a stream successful Borneo, you volition find that the land/ wilderness successful information has a bosom of light, not darkness. The wood successful my publication besides has its ain dependable and bureau and tone — it is not conscionable a backdrop oregon to beryllium exploited; not conscionable a metaphor for the hearts of men. Likewise, I person tried to foreground the section characters, marque them soma and blood, erstwhile successful a publication similar Heart of Darkness, they mightiness lone supply an impressionistic backdrop for the lives of the European characters.

Q: Have immoderate of your idiosyncratic experiences made it to the fictional scenery of Fierceland?

A: Oh, yes. There is simply a acheronian undercurrent beneath the shiny veneer of The Australian Dream. I person galore times experienced the vile benignant of hatred that Harun and Crazy Auntie spell done successful the book, astatine a thoroughfare level and of people connected the Internet. Xenophobes and Islamophobes (and apologists for the genocide successful Gaza) are moving riot successful Australia and the U.S. astatine the moment. But I’ve besides experienced the much pervasive, mediate people forms of racism and Islamophobia that Roz experiences (though astir apt not rather arsenic excruciating).

I retrieve an awkward moment, when, similar Roz, I was asked to springiness a code astatine schoolhouse astir Islam and was “caught out” for not knowing each tiny item astir Islamic jurisprudence, arsenic if by simply being Muslim, I was abruptly immoderate benignant of spokesperson for the community. That benignant of happening has followed maine astir my full beingness since 9/11. But portion immoderate of these things successful the publication are decidedly informed by existent beingness experiences, retrieve that it’s fabrication — astir of it came from my imagination.

The interviewer is simply a Delhi-based literate professional and probe scholar.