Authonomy is Harper Collins’s online community where “writers become authors”. So it’s pretty disappointing that Wednesday’s One to Watch selected by the authonomy administrator is Ramadan Sky by Victoria Hunter.
I read it and wept. The main character is supposed to be an Indonesian man looking back to when he was a twelve year old. It’s written in first person. Great Expectations it is not. I just couldn’t believe it! It’s like listening to people who put on a Goodness Gracious Me accent in Indian restaurants to order egg and chips.
“Now I see it was hard for him to tell me.”
“I crossed the high bridge over the motorway that was swarming with beeping cars.”
Imperialist twaddle. I know many people are back from their hols and want to write about places they’ve been, but please, why do people think they can write in the voice of other people? You’re not an Indonesian man. You never will be an Indonesian man. You’re a white, middle-class woman from the Thames Valley. Get over it.
Here’s the antidote to all that, the extraordinary No Worries Have a Curry by Jyoti Thanjal.
And I don’t claim the voices in Tiger Hugs are the true voices of Hackney, but at least I’ve written about something I know.
Filed under: Arts Tagged: | authonomy, new-writing, racial-stereotypes
