WINGS UNFETTERED, FEMINISM DECIPHERED

Author Interview with Sana Munir

Sana Munir has a Master’s degree in Mass Communication Theory & Research from the University of Punjab, Lahore and has taught International Communication and Feminist Film Theory at her alma mater Lahore College for Women University. She has come up with the book “Unfettered Wings: Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Women”, which is a collection of short stories delving on the themes of Women equality and Feminism. To Sana, Feminism is not a mere school of thought or ideology but an entire way of living embedded in essential moral principles of equality, humanity and justice. In a candid chat with Chirdeep Malhotra, she discusses about her latest book, her writing journey, her idea of feminism and much more.

From having a master's degree in Mass Communication to writing articles for magazines and newspapers and then authoring a full fledged book, your writing journey seems very interesting. Can you tell us more about your writing journey?
Having a father who taught, studied and wrote poetry and drama all his life meant having access to classical literature for as long as I can remember. Apart from reading the types of Austen, Cervantes, D.H. Lawrence and the Bronte sisters as a teenager to more serious writers as Tolstoy, Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Maya Angelou, John Keats and Anton Chekov in the youth, I was continuously contributing short fiction or articles to magazines and newspapers while pursuing BA (Eng. Lit. and Journalism) and MA (Mass Comm. Research). I wrote articles for The News International and worked as a regular Feature Writer at Weekly Independent. That was the time for activism through writing: I realised how much pestered I was by the social taboos and cultural nuances attached with being a woman, an Asian woman and a Pakistani woman. At 20, I was irked by chauvinism, misogyny and gender discrimination. The more I looked into it, the deeper the chasm seemed to be. I wrote my heart out. After a few years, after being encouraged by a few Pakistani writers who found publishing platforms in India, I tried my hand at writing fiction, a novel named The Satanist. It had feministic undertones while being a story about racism, diaspora and cultural integration. Being inexperienced, I went down a very dwindling route of self-publishing which was rather discouraging. I was signed up, very luckily by the literary agency The Book Bakers for my latest venture, Unfettered Wings, an anthology published by Rupa Books, despite being new on the scene and ever since its release in June 2018, it has got encouraging reviews and now there is no looking back.

Can you give a brief overview of your book “Unfettered Wings”?
Unfettered Wings is a collection of stories about ten women, in ten different situations, opposing settings, facing certain contemporary tribulations that women face in their everyday life. The issues that I have opted range from child marriage, honour killing to choosing to stay single among seven other issues. Each story has a female protagonist: a literary rarity which needs to be made as common as a hero in charge of a plot. The book takes the reader(s) to various nooks and crannies of Pakistan, helping to visualise the broad spectrum of cultural diversity and social taboos attached with women in Pakistan, who, are very much relatable with their Indian counterparts. My characters are not sob-queens. They are not damsels in distress. Rather, they are fighters, survivors and brainy – very much the woman of the contemporary times, despite their several handicaps.

How has your journalistic pursuit helped in the literary endeavour of writing a book?
Journalism is a highly opinionated way of writing. It keeps the reader and writer away from their imagination. The clever use of words easily gives a tilt to an objective piece of writing so an honest journalist has to be very picky, very timely, very accurate. What journalism taught me about writing, was in deep contrast with what the literature books back at home had taught me all my life: fanciful imagery, allegorical accounts, poetic verbosity and filling black and white books with thousands of images that are carefully crafted in a reader’s mind, taking them away on unimaginable voyages. Oh, I missed literature! The pull was so strong that I had to take refuge in writing, crafting images myself and I have yet a lot to learn about the art of the bards.

In your book, the names of the protagonists have been used as the titles of the chapters. Apart from depicting their centrality to the story, was there any other reason to do so?
The relatability factor is the answer to this question. A reader feels connected with a character, more if the story is read from a biographical point of view. These stories despite being pure fiction are a chunk right out of reality.

What is your idea of feminism?
Feminism is, at the simplest, a way of living and not a certain cult as some people fear it to be. It is about Acceptance: to accept every woman the way she is instead of trying to cattle-brand her as per the rest of the herd. Feminism is about Respect: respect is for women as much as it is for men. There is no imbalance required on either side. Respect has its gauges; behavioural, verbal, sensory and mental. The third core point for feminism to me is Justice: be it the Suffragette Movement in 1903 or the #MeToo or #Time’sUp waves in 2017-18, justice through equality is the rightful demand of women with a voice. Men and women, both, are entitled to equal fundamental, social, cultural, religious rights, everywhere in the world. In literature, feminism means representation of the womankind, in all her facets, all her ways. This book, Unfettered Wings attempts to do the same. Only the readers can be the best judge of how successful an attempt it is!

Do you think that feminism as an idea takes on different contours in different parts of the world, depending on the level of patriarchy and the degree of suppression that has been faced by women, or are facing now, for that matter?
What an interesting question! The contours of feminism do not alter, if the above given definition of feminism is to be taken as a hypothesis. A woman’s outfit, for instance, does not determine how feministic she is. Dressing is a seasonal, cultural and social (and at times, religious) expression. Demographics such as finances, education and social status do not exempt any woman from her right to be accepted, respected and deserve justice. A woman who lives in a desert, and a blue-blooded urban royal princess, both deserve these feministic privileges.

You are also an active blogger. Can you tell us more about your blog and the themes that you write about in it?
The internet is a huge place. Everyone with a keyboard seems to have an opinion about everything these days. Thus, the influx of blogs. I have done my best to keep my blog clean from all sorts of rants, emotional write-ups and opinionated pieces of writing. I post short or flash fiction and sometimes short poetry, which gives the blog an exclusively fictional personality. (Psst! I am saving the short stories for another collection!)

What are your other interests apart from writing?
I love to read. Books have been my best friends ever since I learned to grab a water-proof board book as a toddler. Traveling is a passion and a privilege I enjoy with my husband.

Are there any new literary projects that you’re currently working on?
I have just completed work on a historical non-fiction. It is a picture-based book which brings together a fragmented and deeply enriched historical heritage of the subcontinental times for the Indian reader. The manuscript is with Suhail Mathur of The Book Bakers agency and I have my fingers crossed. I have started writing a novel as well.

There are many new writers who are aspiring to get their work published. What would you say to them?
Write the best you can, and read it. If it is not good enough, toss it out. Rewrite. Produce the best version of the story, even if it takes double or triple the time. Always sign up with a literary agency. Most importantly, do not lose heart.

Authors can give the best advice regarding literary matters. Can you share some tips with our readers about how to choose a good book for reading?
A good book…. To be honest, has there ever been such a thing as a bad book? It’s subjective, this black and white definition is not flexible enough to be applied to books. Choosing a book from the stall is dependent on external and internal factors – the buyer’s mood, current phase of life, pure unplanned whim, a word of recommendation from a friend about the book, a favourable (or not) review in their favourite magazine, the ‘bestseller’ tag hanging outside the shopkeeper’s door… et al. Whatever book you choose to buy/borrow/rent, as per the factors listed above, do justice to it: read it, add the book to your list of achievements even if the acquisition would be two grains in a heap of chaff, and respect it.