A tricky question, and one I often consider: I agree about the sliver of ice in a writer’s heart. We will take from our experience. Following my older sister’s death in 2009, my family was blown apart by a whirlwind of grief-fuelled emotion which has never really settled. I’ve ’used’ all of this in my novels, and I would understand if another sister of mine would never forgive me for a poem I wrote and published a few years later — but I wouldn’t know, because there’s not much communication between us.
The loss of my first baby, FORTY years ago (what, really?) has permeated everything I’ve written, and there’s usually a lost child — in some sense — in my books. I think that’s why I empathise so strongly with the mothers of the ‘lost’ asylum-seeking sons I’m involved with.
Thanks for a great and thoughtful piece of writing, Sanjida!
Oh Tracey I’m so sorry to hear that. What a loss you’ve had to bear for so long. I think, deep down, all my books are about loss too. The thriller Jasmine was reading, One Year Later, about a child who dies when she’s two, is about how grief ricochets through a family and spans generations. I think we all write from a deep place within us - the true inspiration for every book as I described in my previous post about The Stolen Child and the Black and Ethnic Minority Book club. We can only write from who we are and the life we’ve experienced.
A tricky question, and one I often consider: I agree about the sliver of ice in a writer’s heart. We will take from our experience. Following my older sister’s death in 2009, my family was blown apart by a whirlwind of grief-fuelled emotion which has never really settled. I’ve ’used’ all of this in my novels, and I would understand if another sister of mine would never forgive me for a poem I wrote and published a few years later — but I wouldn’t know, because there’s not much communication between us.
The loss of my first baby, FORTY years ago (what, really?) has permeated everything I’ve written, and there’s usually a lost child — in some sense — in my books. I think that’s why I empathise so strongly with the mothers of the ‘lost’ asylum-seeking sons I’m involved with.
Thanks for a great and thoughtful piece of writing, Sanjida!
Oh Tracey I’m so sorry to hear that. What a loss you’ve had to bear for so long. I think, deep down, all my books are about loss too. The thriller Jasmine was reading, One Year Later, about a child who dies when she’s two, is about how grief ricochets through a family and spans generations. I think we all write from a deep place within us - the true inspiration for every book as I described in my previous post about The Stolen Child and the Black and Ethnic Minority Book club. We can only write from who we are and the life we’ve experienced.