Happy Songkran from Thailand!š¹šš¦ This monthās edition of Author Abroad explores the various New Year celebrations taking place in April across South and Southeast Asia, the growing popularity of the concept of literary citizenship among writers, and some of the books Iām reading.
Life abroad
Those of us living in South or Southeast Asia get several opportunities to start the New Year right: the beginning of the Gregorian Calendar on January 1st; Chinese New Year in late January/early February; and the various New Year celebrations that take place in mid-April across this part of the world: Thingyan in Myanmar (April 13-16), Songkran in Thailand (April 13-15) and Laos (April 13/14-15/16), Khmer New Year in Cambodia (April 13/14-16), Pohela Boishakh in Bangladesh (April 14) and parts of India (April 15), Biska Jatra in Nepal (April 13/14), and Aluth Avurudda in Sri Lanka (April 13/14), along with several other regional celebrations in India and China.
Iām fascinated by how many different countries celebrate this holidayāirrespective of national and religious boundaries. In Thailand, Songkran has a decidedly Buddhist flavor, with people pouring scented water over Buddha statues as a symbol of purification and renewal. Every street, store, hotel, etc., has a Buddha shrine set up for this purpose. In neighboring Myanmar, where I lived for six years, Thingyan also involves making offerings and pouring scented water over images of Buddha, but the more public event, at least while we were there, was throwing water on each other. The Thingyan story is said to be a Buddhist retelling of a Hindu myth about a celestial being that returns to Earth once a year to make sure humans are behaving.
Meanwhile in Muslim-majority Bangladesh and Hindu-dominated West Bengal, Pohela Boishakh is a secular holiday celebrated equally by all faiths. Some say the festival dates back to the Mughal rule of the 1500s connecting the collection of taxes to the harvest, while others believe it dates back to the 7th-century Indian king Shashanka.
Itās hard not to see that each of these national celebrations is a different variation of the same holiday. From what Iāve been able to understand, they are all based on the ancient Hindu calendar, which follows the sunās journey relative to the stars. The New Year is symbolized by the sunās entry into the constellation of Aries. While some countries continue to mark the actual movement of the sun, others have fixed the holiday to a specific day or set of days in the Gregorian calendar. The holiday also coincides with the hottest time of the year in this region, which explains why many of the celebrations revolve around water. In a region deeply divided by religion, I find the commonality of the holiday a heartening reminder of what brings the citizens of these countries together, as opposed to current-day differences and divisions that so often put them at odds with each other.
Writing
Iāve written previously about why writers need each other and the benefits of being part of a writing community. Today I want to explore the broader concept of literary citizenship, an idea that has become de rigueur among writers in recent years. Literary citizenship is the deliberate and active engagement of writers in support of other writers and the wider literary community. Examples include: attending author events, writing formal and informal book reviews, sharing writing knowledge through workshops and other fora, reading and critiquing other writersā work, supporting independent bookstores, connecting with people in the book industry, posting on social media about other writersā successes, volunteering at literary events, and so on.
The theory is that the more we give, the more we get back. While itās easy to view others writers as rivals, the reality is that we are almost never in direct competition with each other. Assuming two books are of the same caliber, no one knows why one āsucceedsā and the other flops. A robust publicity campaign might help (if you can stand it!), but more often, success is illusive, a mysterious function of luck and being in the right place at the right time. By adopting a collaborative approach, we pull each other along. Your success becomes my success.
Literary citizenship is the deliberate and active engagement of writers in support of other writers and the wider literary community.
Some argue that the whole notion of literary citizenship is a ploy by the publishing industry to get already overworked and underpaid writers to take over the onus of book promotion. While this may be true in part, becoming a literary citizen offers many advantages for the writer. If nothing else, engaging in literary citizenship provides us with a semblance of a normal job description. It lays out a range of other responsibilities besides staring endlessly at our screens waiting for inspiration. Attending an author event gets us away from our desks. Writing a book review or critiquing a friendās manuscripts gets us thinking critically about what makes a piece of writing sing.
Above all, embracing literary citizenship gives us agency over our career. Rather than being at the mercy of the publishing industry, and whatever it is that makes a book successful, here is something we can control, something we can act upon that helps others in our tribe. And in the process, we get a little bit closer to our own version of success, expanding our notion of what is possible.
Reading
Cat and Bird: A Memoir by Kyoko Mori (Belt Publishing, 2024)
This stunning new memoir by my friend and mentor Kyoko Mori is a thoughtful meditation on writing, solitude, and the bond between humans and animals. With steady prose and razor-sharp observations, Mori examines the trajectory of her lifeāfrom her tumultuous childhood in Japan to her life as writer, teacher and bird rehabilitator in various parts of the USāthrough the lens of her relationship with her cats. Five of the six cats she has lived with have been Siamese, but one, Jackson, is Burmese, a fact we bonded over when I worked with her on my Myanmar novel, The Golden Land. Kyoko Moriās memoir resonates with honesty and clarity, a testament to her lifelong commitment to living an authentic life. Cat and Bird is a must read for anyone who loves nature, animals, and writing.
True Biz: A Novel by Sara Novic, audiobook narrated by Lisa Flanagan and Kaleo Griffith (Random House, 2022)
Set in a present-day deaf boarding school, True Biz follows two deaf teenagers, Charlie and Austin, on a tale of political awakening and self-discovery as they navigate the ups and downs of adolescence while confronting the ongoing injustices faced by the deaf community. Born deaf to hearing parents, Charlie was implanted as a toddler with a faulty cochlear device and prevented from learning sign language in order to help her get along in the hearing world. Itās not until high school, when she is finally allowed to spend time with other deaf people like Austin, that she finally comes into her own. I first heard about this novel a month before getting my own cochlear implant and was immediately intriguedābut also a little wary. (Fortunately, my cochlear implant is not faulty!) A remarkable novel, True Biz is a celebration of deaf culture, immersing the non-deaf reader in a fascinating and unfamiliar world and igniting our sense of outrage at the way the deaf community has been treated by the hearing majority.
Thatās it for this month. I look forward to hearing from you!
š Liz