|
I met Azrael Tseng in Okinawa, Japan when we were coworkers teaching at a NPO. He lived in a country home with sky blue walls on the outskirts of Okinawa City with his wife and his son. Six and half feet tall, skinny, you can find him working on his stories on a park bench stationed in his living room. There, he wrote stories before work from three o’clock in the morning, and played real-time online strategy games building a solar galaxy. Today he resides in his home country Singapore. Chasing Desire & Other Heretical Stories was published June 23, 2020 on Amazon.  Interviewer Chasing Desire & Other Heretical Stories is historical fiction. How did you prepare for the collection of short stories? I especially noticed your precise usage of vocabulary for each period. Tseng I was taking part in a year-long writing adventure hosted by Writing.com. Every week, a random country would be selected for the prompt and you would have one week to write either a short story or a poem based on it. These stories are edited versions of the occasions when I chose to write a story instead of a poem. To prepare, I spent two to three days just reading everything I could find about the country and noted down what called out to me. Then I narrowed it down to two or three ideas and then read up on what had already been written about them. For example, a lot of English history covers the two great wars of the 20th century from the Allied perspective but not a lot is offered from the viewpoint of the losing countries. Thus when I decided to write about the maiden battle of Admiral Graf Spee, I chose to imagine the German captain’s thoughts. The military actions and consequences from both sides in the battle are well documented but what were the reasonings and motivations behind them, especially for the German captain? Naturally, to write military history (even if fictionalised) convincingly, the jargon is important. Having served in the Armed Forces for my country, I was familiar with some aspects but lots more research had to be done. Thank God for Google. Thirty years ago, there was no way I would be able to finish such a story in a week. Of course, my military background helped since I knew exactly which terms I was looking for and that helped narrow down the search parameters. Interviewer Why did you select these points in time? Tseng I enjoy writing across a variety of genres and some of what I read when doing my research leaned towards specific genres that I was interested in trying my hand at. For example, the execution of King Charles I was splendid material for horror. You had the first time in history that a God-ordained ruler was tried and convicted of treason (the irony!) which would be a horrific affront to those who believe in a certain kind of order, and certainly to the king himself. The conditions of the time, the psychological impact of solitude and imprisonment, the trauma of the fall from the apex of power to beneath the feet of the masses. Then the practice itself of sewing back the head for burial, which I find macabre. All such perfect elements for horror. King Charles’s execution has been studied and dissected by academics for centuries, but who has focused on teasing out the horror of the situation rather than the political ramifications? History is chock-full of stories that deserve retelling with a twist, or a touch of a new flavor. Interviewer Do you think you can expand a story into a complete novel? If so, how would you approach a larger project? Tseng History lends itself especially well to novelisation. We have all these timelines crisscrossing, personal stories unfolding, the imminence of violence, heightened passions, grand ambitions, and best of all, the ability to see how all the pieces fit together. You could focus on the rise and fall of a dynasty, the ambitions and machinations of a political family, the exploits and conquests of a warring general, or go small and find someone with humble beginnings who gets caught up in larger events beyond comprehension and control. So many possibilities. The stage is already set; it’s just up to you to bring your touch and style to the telling of the story. That said, getting the novel written is no easy feat. For my first novel (scifi), I spent about three years getting it out, and most of that time was research and editing. Interviewer What is your philosophy on writing historical fiction? When does fiction violate historical accuracy? Tseng My intention in writing historical fiction is not to teach history. That’s for history professors and textbooks. I am merely telling a story using the fragments we know, and imagining how the holes are filled to make the story as complete and compelling as possible. Not to be controversial or to offer something for historians to pore over, nothing like that. It’s fiction - it’s meant to be entertaining. If it inspires someone to read up more about a specific period or person from the past, or educates them on some aspect of history -- fantastic, but that’s not my goal. I just want them to enjoy the story. That said, I do try to be as accurate as possible and weave in irrefutable facts and documented details into my stories, but I am only as much an authority on history as anyone with Internet access and a determination to read up what they can find. Interviewer I noticed you wrote about the entire world except for your home country Singapore? Why? Tseng It didn’t come up as a prompt! Well, I have a special affection for my home country and that’s why I am working hard to produce two works based in Singapore. One is a collection of poetry inspired by Singapore’s nature (in the final stages before printing), and the other is a semi-autobiographical account of a homeless boy who grew up on the streets of Singapore and all the misadventures he gets up to. It covers the 1970s all the way through to the present day. Not quite ancient history but for my son’s generation and those after him, unfamiliarly ancient enough. Interviewer Do you believe world literature is accessible to everyone? Tseng Depends on the fit, doesn’t it? I’ve read literature from the other side of the world that resonated but also some that just didn’t do much for me. So I don’t really think the setting matters as much as the themes and style of writing. A good writer will be able to help readers connect with the story world, no matter where it is set. Any nuances or inside jokes that will be especially appreciated by those familiar with the culture and context of the novel should be accessible just as easily to a neutral reader, or that’s really on the writer. Unless, of course, the writer is writing specifically for a localised audience. Interviewer Women play a large role in defying the status quo. Can you talk about their functions in the collection of stories? Tseng I didn’t set out with any gender equality agenda in mind when it came to writing the stories. Some stories simply revolved around exceptional women in history, such as “The Last Heads of Tomoe Gozen” and “A Sea of Glittering Lies” about Irene Sendler. Others centered on remarkable men. As for “King Zog and the Fifty-Fifth Life”, even though the story is ostensibly about an assassination attempt on King Zog, I chose to narrate the story from his wife’s point of view because it gave me an opportunity to explore the uniqueness and wonder of Albania’s culture and architecture from a more westernized, modern perspective. I didn’t choose it because it was female. Quite a few of the stories had male protagonists, for example “Cry of the Llano” and “Kill Tide”. I didn’t invent female characters and stick them in the stories just to give them equal representation. However, they do feature strongly in the collection not because I am trying to make up in some way for their under-representation in the past or hop onto some flavor-of-the-moment bandwagon, but simply because history has both story-worthy men and women. My collection simply reflects that. Interviewer The writing is cinematic, for example, in “Locked Horns”? Are you influenced by cinema? Do you think visuals translate into literature? What kind of literature do you read? Tseng I binge watch a lot of stuff, partly owing to the fact that I spent a year doing film studies way back in university days. When I write my stories, the scene actually plays out in my head and I simply describe what I “see”. That’s how the cinema buff in me influences my writing. However, when I go back and edit, the reader takes over and I ask myself how the words move me. Cinema and writing touch us in different ways, so trying to replicate a movie’s impact in writing seems foolish. However, there is an undeniable influence. I do aspire to make my stories as visually arresting and vivid as words can achieve. As for literature, my tastes are as varied as the genres I write in. I love horror and science fiction, but also indulge in chick lit and graphic novels / manga. I covered most of my serious literature readings as an English Literature major but that’s mainly the classics. When it comes to contemporary literature, I am simply overwhelmed by the options. Some of my favorite authors include Ursula le Guin, Michael Crichton, Dean Koontz, Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, Khaled Hosseini. Interviewer Where can people find more of your work, and how can they reach you? Tseng My books are available on Amazon, and I have a website “The Words We Breathe: Poetry, Pain, & Other Pleasures” https://azraeltseng.com/ on which some of my stories and poems can be read. The illustrations and excerpts from my latest work, a collection of nature-inspired poetry, can be found on my illustrator cum collaborater’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cissachinensis/ - John Tang, 4 July 2021
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |