The doyen of Goan writing in English Victor Rangel-Ribeiro is a name closely connected with the resurgence that Goan writing in English has seen in recent years. An octogenarian, what's admirable about him is not just the high-energy levels with which he works on his craft, but also his generosity in sharing his skills and mentoring others keen to enter the world of writing books and more. Excerpts from an interview with Frederick 'FN' Noronha, as Rangel-Ribeiro returns to Goa for this annual sojourn. This time, to be based in Altinho (Panjim) while his ancestral home at Alto Porvorim gets a facelift.
FN: How do you judge the current trajectory of Goan writing in English? Growing in number, lacking in quality, offering a lot of potential, or what? VRR: Growing in quantity, certainly; improving in quality, because selected writers are becoming more conscious of their craft and technique and are writing better. They in turn are influencing others. I think the Goa Writers Group [http://goawriters.notlong.com] is playing a significant role here. They are like the yeast that causes dough to rise; with good yeast one can make good bread. I see a lot of potential in the writers I meet, a potential limited only by personal factors such as time, technique, and determination. FN: How does expat writing compare to the work of writers back in Goa? What do you see as the main differences and contrasts? Are there similarities, too? VRR: Expat writing is no different from the work of writers in Goa. We have our good writers and our sloppy writers. The main difference is that our sloppy writers overseas fall by the wayside much faster; in Goa, they rush to a local printer and become 'published' authors. The sloppy writers in Goa who self-publish their books then give self-publication a bad name, thus muddying the waters for the good writers in Goa who also decide to self-publish their books. FN: From your interaction with young writers in Goa -- and you have many such -- what do you feel of their potential, their shortcomings, and the challenges they need to work on? VRR: I feel they have great potential, but this potential is limited by an equally great ego. Somehow some of them have come to believe that whatever they write is perfect as soon as they have set it down on paper, and therefore needs no improvement. Revision is an alien concept. "Rewrite? Why? This is already very clear!" is a protest I hear more often in Goa than I would from one of my writing students at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. So the greatest challenge young writers here have to work on is their own sense of self. They need to realize perfection is a goal they have to strive for, not something they have already achieved or were born with. I have gained some success as a writer, but not only do I regard each manuscript as a work in progress, but I also regard myself, the writer, as a 'work in progress'. I am continually trying to improve my writing skills, learning almost every day from writers who are better than I am. FN: Could you mention three most crucial things that Goa needs to be doing, so as to give a push to writing and creative endeavours here? VRR: Goa needs to develop the reading habit. Goa needs to establish a well-stocked, up-to-date, professionally staffed and inviting public library in every village. Goans need to buy books for their home bookshelves, to recommend books that they like to their friends, and to give books that they like as presents, giving them as birthday and Christmas gifts, and sometimes giving them for no reason at all. FN: Whom do you rate as the three most promising young Goan fiction writers today? VRR: Frederick, I'm 83 years old. To me, every other writer is a young writer, including Damodar Mauzo, who is a senior writer, and Margaret Mascarenhas, who will soon have a blockbuster on the international scene! Recently, I read several ghost stories by Venita Coelho, and I found some of them to be really quite out of the ordinary. So I would regard Venita as a promising young Goan fiction writer. Because I live overseas for most of the year, I'm not aware of other young writers who are publishing short stories locally. Jose [Lourenco] writes an occasional story in English, but has now switched to Konkani. If you name some names, I'll be glad to look at their work. FN: How do you compare writing in English, with writing in other languages (in Goa, or the diaspora)? I'm not sure I understand the question fully, and even if I did, I'm not sure I'd be qualified to answer it. Writers writing in English, and those writing in Konkani, Marathi, and Portuguese, have different traditions and different models to follow. I am still familiarizing myself with the Devanagari script so I at the moment I can only read through Konkani stories with difficulty. I have also just begun to spell my way through a Marathi book on the Ranes. So while I'm unqualified now, five years from now I may be able to give you a better answer! FN: Would you go along with the view that writing in English throws up alien and unauthentic voices in a country like India, and particularly in the context of Goa? Writing in English is now throwing up alien voices in countries around the world, because English is now the de-facto national language in many countries that do not recognize it as such. Does it throw up the occasional unauthentic voice? Of course it does. In the past these voices belonged to people who had only a passing knowledge of Goa -- Anita Desai and Irving Stone come to mind. More recently, non-Goans settled in Goa have written about Goa. A non-Goan settled in the US has also been writing about Goa. Some of these works disparage or caricature Goa and annoy the heck out of some of us. They are unauthentic, not because of their subject matter, but because they do not really show any understanding of the Goan ethos. Can anything much be done about it? Re-education camps, perhaps? Nah!!! FN: How do you perceive the outside world taking to your writing, which usually focuses on very Goa-related themes? It is true that I focus generally on very Goa-related themes, but I also touch on universal human values. Tivolem was a novel about a fictional Goan village, but it struck a chord with readers from around the world. A Brazilian teacher told me it reminded her of home in Sao Paulo; an American poet who had travelled widely said it reminded him of time he had spent in the Abruzzi in Italy; a Filippina said it reflected life in the Philippines, and of course every Goan thought Tivolem was his own native village. It was because of this universal connection -- and inspite of its 'Goanness' -- that an American publisher not only brought out my book in hard cover but awarded it a fiction prize, and that a professional publication picked it as one of the 'twenty notable first novels' published in America in 1998. And a New York Times critic praised it precisely because it "resonates with events in a far-off place and time." [I am quoting from memory.] I should tell you that in the United States the years from 1956 through 1989 were fallow years for me as a fiction writer. The breakthrough came when in 1990 I wrote a story about Lazarinho, the petty thief who figured later in Tivolem. This story got me a rave letter from a top literary magazine, the Iowa Review, which accepted it because they felt it projected a vivid and believable picture of village life. The same story, along with two others, won me a New York Foundation for the Arts fiction fellowship worth $7,500. It also got me readings all over New York. I promptly enrolled in the Iowa Summer Writing Workshop, choosing a group that would be led by the editor of the North American Review. At the very first session, I read a story about life in the US, which he accepted that very evening. At a later session he accepted Angel Wings, a story about life and death set again in a small village in Goa. Obviously, the fact that I wrote about Goa was not a handicap. Rather, I became known because my stories about Goa intrigued American readers -- but to intrigue them they had to be well written! FN: Tell us what were the three most difficult challenges you yourself had to face to make it as a writer? VRR: Strangely enough, it was the fact that whatever I wrote while I lived in Bombay was published the very next day. This gave me the false sense that I was better than I really was. When I got to New York in 1956, the stories that I sent out were rejected routinely. I realized then that I really had to settle down and learn the craft of fiction writing. I also had to learn to critique my own work, and to revise it and rewrite it much as a jeweller works with a diamond. Secondly, the constant rejections made me question my faith in myself as a writer. But at the same time I was covering concerts and opera for The New York Times, under my own byline, and that did help sustain my self-confidence. Because I was deeply involved in music, I began writing on that subject; my first major book on music was published in 1981 and the second one followed ten years later. The third challenge was having to earn a living. I often had to work two jobs. For example, while copy chief at an industrial Fifth Avenue ad agency, a 9-5 job, I would go home for dinner, then go back to Manhattan to type ads for the Daily News from 7 p.m. to midnight. Or I'd be teaching at a school while copy-editing for major publishers on the side. Bread had to be put on the table first; but giving up writing was never an option. FN: Which of your books do you feel most proud about in hindsight, today? Why? The first is a book nobody knows about. In January 1953 the Times of India had recruited me away from the National Standard and sent me off to Calcutta as Sunday Editor of its new Calcutta edition. In August they shut us down overnight and I was jobless. Back in Bombay, I had an irresistible urge to go to St. Xavier's College and see my old guru, [the prominent historian] Fr. Heras. He said, immediately, "Victor, an angel has sent you." Apparently he was desperate to find someone to edit a stack of secret East India Company documents, 1796-1803, that Dr. Saletore of the National Archives had turned over to him on Independence. A professor Fr. Heras had assigned to do the job had done nothing, and now Dr. Saletore was threatening to cut off his grant. Fr. Heras showed me the stack and said, "I need an introduction, thorough editing, footnotes, maps, and a bibliography. You have three months. Can you do it?" I was young, stupid, and out of a job. I said, "Of course I can." And I delivered. The volume has been published by the National Archives, with Fr. Heras's name as editor. But I have letters from him proving I did the work. The second book I am proud of is Baroque Music, A Practical Guide for the Performer, published by Schirmer Books in New York in 1981. It was praised by Yehudi Menuhin and other great musicians, and helped change the way music of that period was being performed and recorded. It took me ten years to research and write it, and now anytime I read it I am surprised by the depth of scholarship that was involved. The book is found in music libraries across North America and Europe, and also in the Kala Academy library in Panaji. I am now preparing a second edition. FN: Is it viable to live from writing in the 21st century? If you write about sex. If you write a series of self-improvement books. If you write believable horror stories and novels. If you write gripping mysteries. If you write fiction that includes lots of sex and/or violence. FN: What advice would you give to young writers wanting to enter the field? VRR: Believe in yourself, but shed any illusions you have of quick success. Prepare to work hard. Acquire technique. Read widely, but selectively. Write every day. Writing is a discipline as well as a profession. Join a writers' group. You will learn to critique and to accept criticism. Learn to edit and to proofread -- these are essential skills, and you will need them when your work is accepted and you are given proofs to check. Prepare yourself for rejection slips -- react positively, revise your work, send it out again. If you achieve success, remain modest. Success can be very short-lived. Share your knowledge with others, especially if they reach out to you. Contact Victor Rangel-Ribeiro: vrangel...@yahoo.com ENDS VRR mentoring a writer's workshop http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/169979105/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/169973942/ First published in the Herald, Panjim on Dec 28, 2008.