Farah Ali, an author from Karachi, Pakistan, is known for her evocative short stories and impactful narratives. Her first collection, People Want to Live, reflects her Pakistani roots and offers a deep dive into the everyday lives and struggles of its people. Farah’s latest novel, The River, The Town, released in autumn of 2023, expands her exploration of societal issues in South Asia.
Farah, your journey from Karachi to becoming an internationally recognized author is truly inspiring. How do your roots in Pakistan influence your storytelling, especially in your collection People Want to Live?
Karachi is embedded in me, its sounds, smells, all the experience of life there, the good moments and the difficult ones. The language, daily life, it all goes into my characters and the settings for my stories.
Transitioning from short stories to a novel, as you’ve done with The River, The Town, how does your writing process differ? Do you approach the structure and development of a novel differently than a short story collection?
The similarity, for me, in writing a short story and a novel is that I start with a strong feeling or thought about something, a situation or a person, and I don’t know how it’s going to end. And then I begin to write and let the character find their voice and then the story starts getting clearer. The difference in writing the two is mostly to do with the time I can spend with a character on the pages. Relatively more room in a novel than in a short story; in a novel, I can give a few more scenes, for instance.
Your novel has been hailed for its exploration of climate-induced poverty and the divide between urban and rural life in South Asia. What inspired you to tackle these themes, and how did you approach weaving them into a family drama?
In South Asia, Pakistan is going to be hit the hardest because of climate change. We’ve been seeing and experiencing signs of it for so long now. Warmer winters up north affecting harvests, fatal heat waves down south, floods. When I started writing this book I was thinking about a river that changes shape – it shrinks – and about how the town or city changes accordingly.
But then it really became about the people living in that town and their psyches as they dealt with unreliable water, year after year. And this we see everywhere, the lack of understanding that not everyone can move to improve their personal economic situation. Migrating itself involves money. So there is a sense of superiority that creeps into the tones of some of those who speak about what the “others” should do about their difficulty. “Why don’t they just move?” or “Why don’t they have fewer kids?”
Your prose has been described as spare yet powerful. Can you share how you developed this writing style, and how does it help convey the depth and complexity of the characters’ experiences?
I love the works of Grace Paley. And growing up I read a lot of Raymond Carver. That almost ascetic style resonated hard with me. I feel like the sparseness of the words aligns with the sparseness of their own selves.
How did your writing routine for this novel differ from your short story writing? Were there any particular habits or practices that helped you maintain focus over the longer form of a novel?
I didn’t lose focus, really, because I was completely into the story that I was writing. My curiosity about the different people in it kept me writing. As for habits, I can’t say that I have any. Except that when I’ve started working on a story or a novel I tend to write almost every day, no matter how little.
I’m curious what a typical writing day looks like for you. Can you walk us through a recent session?
I would start writing in the morning, and then if I’m teaching I would do that, then get back to writing whenever I have pockets of time available. If I’m not teaching then I’d write all morning, stop for a bit for lunch, and continue till about early afternoon.
If you could have a conversation with any author throughout history about their writing routine or creative process, who would that person be?
I would talk to Khalida Hussain, a phenomenal Urdu writer who passed away a few years ago.
Lastly, I’d love to know about the books you’re reading at the moment. What have been some of your favorite recent reads?
I’m reading Tinkers by Paul Harding, and Masroof Aurat (translation: Busy Woman) by Khalida Hussain.
Recent favorite books have been Jon Fosse’s Septology, The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier, rereads of Seamus Heaney, Edith Wharton, and Kaveh Akbar.
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