By Hira Nafees Shah
Fulbright Alumnus Bilal Tanweer reads from “The Scatter Here Is Too Great” at the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan on 28 February, 2014.
An old communist poet. His wealthy, middle-aged son. A young man caught in an unpleasant, dead-end job. A girl who spins engaging tales to conceal her heartbreak. A grief-stricken writer.
What happens when the fates of these ordinary Karachiites converge after a deadly bomb blast? You’ll have to read The Scatter Here is Too Great by Bilal Tanweer, to find out. Random House published the debut novel by the 2007 Fulbright alumnus (MFA, Columbia University) last December, and the book has already earned critical acclaim.
“A beautiful debut,” writes Mohammad Hanif, author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes. “And a blood-soaked love letter to Karachi.”
“A superb and genuinely exciting debut,” writes Nadeem Aslam, author of Maps for Lost Lovers. “Tanweer assembles a story of Karachi through lovingly-collected fragments. By the end of this book he had made me see that certain things are more beautiful and valuable for having been broken.”
Since the novel’s release, Tanweer has been invited to various readings for his novel—including one hosted by United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan (USEFP) on February 28, 2014 in Islamabad, which brought together literati, academics and students from different universities across the capital.
Tanweer spoke about his novel and his Fulbright exchange experience in a phone interview with the Pakistan-U.S Alumni Network.
Q. What was your motivation for writing the book and why did you choose Karachi as its setting?
A. I did not have a set motivation for writing the book and just wanted to engage with my experience of the world and render it for others. I choose Karachi because it’s the city that I define myself against and I consider it as a reference point for understanding everything else.
Q. How was the creative process like when you sat down to write the book? Is there a specific kind of writing technique that you decided that you would draw upon?
A. I write from a point which is most compelling and deduct intuitively. I tried to explore the dramatic energy. You write about what matters to you as a writer because a writer is also a person of the world, so you give shape to whatever you have on the page.
I was not worried about the technique, but thought about the emotion and stayed true to my voice and tried to capture it as honestly as I could.
Q. The adverse law and order situation in Karachi is a theme that pervades the book, but it does not become so overwhelming, so as to detract from the lives of the characters. Was this a conscious decision on your part?
A. The notion of fiction these days is that it is about information in the world, but I feel that fiction is not about so to say what is happening in Karachi, but it investigates the human heart. How real human beings are affected and what it is like to be alive in those circumstances. How is it like to love, lose and come across someone you haven’t seen for the past 20 years.
So there are sociological reports if you want to understand the conditions in Karachi, but I was looking at what it is like to be alive in those circumstances.
Q. How did your Fulbright exchange experience pave the way to your writing this book?
A. It was my first time living outside Pakistan when I went for the Fulbright, so it was a huge cultural shock to begin with. But I loved it and I have great memories from my time in New York. Also Columbia University’s MFA program is one of the best, so I was very lucky to find the funding.
So I can say that I won’t have written my book without the Fulbright funding.
Q. Lastly, please tell us about the response that the “The Scatter Here Is Too Great” received and are you satisfied with it?
A. I am more than happy with the response. The book has found big publishers in India, U.S, U.K and France. My aim was just finding some publishers for “The Scatter Here Is Too Great” so the book has met my best expectations.
So far, my book has been released in U.K and the U.S and will be published in France in August. In Pakistan, it is doing very well and has become a best-seller.
The Scatter Here is Too Great is available for purchase at local booksellers and from Amazon.com.
