Writer and Reader Praxis

Sir,

I read the essay "Where to Begin" from Granta.

Here the author, Nadeem Islam, explains how a writer connects to his readers by sharing his own views of life, and when a fiction writer lacks this quality he fails, i.e when he burdens his work with unnecessary identities and surrounding information of the characters. In doing so he is unable to connect all the information to flesh and blood human being and thus the book fails as the people are not real. According to the author, his writings are an exploration of his own world- an attempt to discover his true self. He always begins with the conviction that there is nothing extraordinary or special about him, and that he is just a mere part of billions of people. So whatever is true to him would be true to them too. And in doing so, without even realizing and making an effort to connect with the people, he does so. A writer is heavily influenced by his surroundings and environment. He observes everything around him but later when he writes, his own culture subconsciously reflects in his writings. While writing his novella, the author resisted his thoughts on Leila and Qes legend but he found it inevitable that they should affect his writings.  it enters my thinking automatically each time my heart beats and the blood is sent to my brain. Thus what makes up a writer is his perception of his culture and motherland, and it is the basis of what motivates him to write. A writer is portrayed as the spokesman of the society overall. He/she possesses the ability to convey radical social messages which acts as an eye-opener for its people, and initiates them to think differently and question conventional social laws. Due to this they are feared by the politicians and some of them even had to escape from their own countries such as Qurratulain Hyder. Her novel "River of Fire" questioned the Islamic fundamentalists who regarded that Pakistan was all about Islam and the Islamic world. It dared to trace back the ancestry of its characters back to Pakistan's Buddhist past and more shockingly, back to Hinduism. 

When you are writing you see your own very ordinary ‘face’ behind the words. But when you finish and hand it to the reader, the reader sees his or her own ‘face’ behind the writing. 

Thus the author concludes that the writer and the reader are linked by their basic human concern and that is where the connection occurs. Thus whether it is writing about Iran, Spain, Argentina or Uk, the basic essence of it all is the same. good writing is writing on a mirror. 

Sukanya