Greetings, all! This is Author Abroad, a newsletter on reading, writing, and reflections from a life abroad. Today I’ll be talking about the restorative power of surrounding yourself with other writers, The Economist’s latest livability index, and an unexpected benefit to reading novels, as well as some of the books I’ve been reading lately.
Writing
I started volunteering for my MFA alumni association two years ago, conducting and uploading interviews with fellow writers onto the website. I’d never done either before, but find both to be quite rewarding. Being a curious person, I enjoy talking to other writers about their process, hearing which aspects of writing they find rewarding and which challenging, and sharing strategies for keeping the momentum going. Uploading interviews onto the website is fun in a different way. In addition to learning how to use Wordpress (a useful skill now that I have my own website), I like having writing-related tasks to do that are unrelated to me and my own writing. It helps me feel connected to my MFA program and to the art of being a writer.
At the end of June, this same association hosted a series of alumni events in celebration of the 20-year anniversary of Lesley University’s low-residency MFA program. I’d had a busy month, and part of me was tempted to skip the reunion. I’m glad I didn’t. From the very first event, an evening reception for mentors, alums, and current students, I felt the restorative power of being surrounded by other writers—people who share my love of words, sentences, and ideas, and who know what it means to be compelled to write, even as we struggle with self doubt and that nagging sense of being an impostor.
Writing can be lonely. We tend to work in isolation, seeking out quiet spaces and other conditions necessary to enter the illusive “zone,” that magic place where the writing seems to flow out of you. But spending time with other writers is equally important. Whether it’s commiserating about the publishing industry, showing up at each other’s events, or simply encouraging one another to keep going, we need that sense of community. Unlike some professions, writers are rarely in competition with one another; it’s hard to imagine a scenario where we would be up against each other for the same opportunity or contract, because the stories we write are unique to us. Your friend’s success is your success. So, if you’re a writer, reach out to your fellow writers, celebrate their successes, and review their books. When it’s your turn, they’ll show up for you, too.
Life Abroad
People often ask me what it’s like living in Dhaka. A simple question on the surface, yet invariably I hesitate before answering. The truth is, I feel conflicted. Just as I loved living in Yangon, Lilongwe, Maputo, Luanda, Banjul, Dar es Salaam, and Rome, I want to love Dhaka. But despite many fascinating and endearing aspects to the city, there’s no way around it: traffic, noise, pollution, and growing religious extremism make it a difficult place to live. This was corroborated by The Economist’s latest survey of the most and least livable cities in the world, in which Dhaka ranked the 7th least livable city out of 173 cities ranked. The survey analyzes more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.
With 50% of these factors relating to healthcare, education, and infrastructure, it’s no surprise that the top ten most liveable cities are located in rich countries and the bottom ten in poorer countries. It’s worth noting that cost of living is not factored in, and many of these services are expensive. Other factors, such as humidity/temperature, also skew the results toward more temperate climates, yet are subjective by nature. What is excessively humid for one person may be perfectly comfortable for another.
What I like about the survey is that it helps me identify those factors that are most important to me. Those other cities I have lived in have been much greener and more spacious, not to mention a lot quieter than Dhaka. I realize that what I miss most in Bangladesh is access to nature. With this in mind, my husband and I have decided to move to a different neighborhood of Dhaka come September. Our hope is that moving to a quieter, less trafficky neighborhood, with parks nearby where we can walk, will make it a little more livable on our own personal livability index. Wish us luck!
Meanwhile, the rainy season is in full swing across South and Southeast Asia. Although I’m not in Bangladesh at the moment, my Bangla teacher informs me that it’s very hot and humid, with frequent power cuts making it difficult to keep cool. This was the backdrop for the recent Eid al Adha celebration that took place at the end of June. One of the main features of Eid al Adha is a ritual animal sacrifice in which cows, sheep, goats, and even camels, among the very wealthy, are sacrificed to honor the ancestors. In Dhaka, the animals are slaughtered on the streets by an imam, following specific Islamic conventions. Because the holiday is based on the cycle of the moon, it can take place at different parts of the year. When the Eid al Adha falls during the rainy season as it did this year, the combination of blood and rainwater can lead to scenes like this one:
Not for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure!
Reading
This recent article on novels as a secret weapon for keeping your memory sharp offers some excellent news for fiction lovers. According to a new book by renowned neuroscientist Dr. Richard Restak, reading novels is a great way to keep your mind sharp and stave off memory decline. Interestingly, the same does not apply to straight-up non-fiction (though I suspect it might for memoir and creative non-fiction):
Because while you can flip through many nonfiction books and profitably read a chunk here and a chunk there, enjoying fiction demands extended attention and the ability to remember what happened at every stage of the story. The reveal of whodunnit on page 200 isn't going to be much fun if you don't recall that telling clue you overlooked in Chapter Two.
Any excuse to read more novels sounds good to me! Here a couple I read this month:
The Beckoning World by Douglas Bauer – Set against a backdrop of the 1918 Spanish Flu and America’s growing obsession with baseball, this beautifully written novel by my friend and mentor, Doug Bauer, is a moving tribute to the ordinariness of everyday life. The book features baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as wonderfully fleshed out fictionalized characters, but it’s Earl Dunham and his son Henry who are the real stars of the novel. Through Earl’s journey from coal miner to wannabe professional baseball player to farmer and family man, we learn about love and loss, ambition and sacrifice, and what it means not to be famous, but to love life anyway.
Like a Diamond in the Sky by Shazia Omar – This fascinating novel by Bangladeshi author Shazia Omar (who also happens to be my yoga teacher) takes the reader on a heartbreaking and adrenaline-filled journey into the underbelly of Dhaka’s drug scene. Lapsed university student Deen is a deep thinker and loving son, whose addiction to heroin now shapes his every decision, leading him further from the people he loves and deeper into trouble. Intensely felt and meticulously researched, this gritty and face-paced novel pulsates with insight and empathy.
That’s all for this month. Thanks for reading Author Abroad. Please tell a friend or two if you feel like it.
💕Liz