INTERVIEW - Ian McDonald

I was saving this one for a special moment.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Irish writer Ian McDonald, whose Brasyl I reviewed here. Thanks to the internet, we were able to talk about his Hugo-nominated novel, writing in and about the periphery, next releases and current projects. Brazilian readers, a translated version will be posted on Human 2.0. Enjoy.

PWT - Your previous book, River of Gods, was born in a lunch with your agent. How did Brasyl come up?

IMD - I woke up one morning with the word on my forebrain: Brazil. To us it sounds a very sexy, exotic word, that seems to have no bearing on anything else in the world, and certainly not like the name of a country. I've been interested in the country for a long time, as a place that everyone thinks they know, but in fact is still relatively unknown in the UK, and the US: I still see comments on blogs and reviews complaining about the amount of 'Spanish' in the book. I rest my case.

PWT - For all its ideas and structure, Brasyl was a challenging read. Was it hard to write?

IMD - I wrote each of the three timelines independently -2032 first, then 1732 (my favourite bit to write) then Marcelina. The challenge was introducing the linkages between them to get the point that each of the three main characters recruits each other to engage in the war for reality. Difficult: maybe. Then again, if you want something easy, watch television.

PWT - What did you want to accomplish with the book?

IMD - Tell a rocking, dazzling, kick-ass story that would make your eyes open, one that in some way expressed what I knew of the spirit, culture and history of Brasil. My first editor on the project, when it was at Simon and Schuster, said that the whole multiversal, shifting realities thing seemed right for Brasil, a country where many realities seemed (to me) superimposed on each other

PWT - You've mentioned there are not many books in English about Brazil. How did you research for it?

IMD - Bought all the books I could get. Learned to cook. Drank the beer (while I was writing the book, they launched Brahma as this extremely cool, designer bottled beer for classy bars, which made Brazilians over here fall about laughing) Travelled as much as I could afford. Got an awful lot of music (and I mean an awful lot). Met Brazilians in Northern Ireland (a lot pretend to be Portuguese). Only watched 'City of God' once I'd finished the book because I didn't want to be influenced by it.

PWT - Where did you go and what did you see in Brazil that most influenced the book?

IMD - Rio and São Paulo were musts, the Amazon as well. There were wonderful trips off the main research itinerary, like the Pantanal, which is incredibly wonderful (he hottest place I have ever been in my life) and I must try and work into some writing some time.

PWT - What did you avoid writing in Brasyl or about Brazil? What were the misconceptions and preconceptions you faced in your research?

IMD - I didn't want to get into 'City of God' favelado-hell stuff -Edson's district isn't a favela, it's moving up from that and aspires to be a respectable neighbourhood. The bad boys are up the hill and they're definitely a class below. Carnaval -a no no as well. I liked strange quirks like the very arge Japanese population; and though football plays a prominent role, it's not up-front in the story. Likewise, samba doesn't play a role (though I do touch on the funk-ball scene a bit.) I think for me the main challenge was trying to convey what I understood of a society that exists between Europe, with a very large sense of privacy and private social space, and India, where social connections are everything and individuals have very like private space or lives. Brasil seemed to me to be somewhere in between, connections to seemed to flow long small groups -families, neighbourhoods, teams, gangs, workmates, churches -and it was a challenge to express that.

PWT - Was quantum theory and its implications chosen because of the setting in Brasyl or did you just want to write about the multiverse AND about Brazil, which lead you to put the two things together?

IMD - I'd been wanting to do something that expressed, in human terms, the reality of the Everett Many-Worlds interpretation, and, as I said above, Brasil seemed the country that best expressed it.


PWT - Some people complained that Brasyl really starts when it is actually ending. Other people complained about the open-ended finale. Having so much universe to cover, why did you write it that way? It seems to me it could have been at least twice as long.

IMD - Good question! (SPOILER ALERT!) I wanted the story to end with our three heroes joining the forces of the life against the forces of decay. They've realised the true nature of reality, and made their decision -to remain with the status quo or take the ultimate risk. That seems to me a good ending. So what they can actually do? How would they do it in a way that is comprehensible to us? To write that pushes the story in a different direction: it stops being in and about Brasil and becomes less human. They've entered the domain of the gods of reality -and it's always boring to write about gods. They don't need to beat the bad guys -the bad guys, in fact, aren't terribly effective; they're more like a civil service tasked with maintaining the status quo. I tend not wrote about bad guys and villains, because no one is a bad guy in is or her own eyes, and also because badness doesn't work like that. Evil is institutional, almost bland -not for nothing do they call it 'the banality of evil'. Though each one of the characters overcomes an opponent to reach their place in the great army of the good -in Marcelina's case, it's herself.

PWT - You've just sold a Brasyl short story. What about it? Do you plan writing more Brasyl stories? Maybe do a collection of them? A sequel to the novel?

IMD - There's a story for Pete Crowther's Postscripts magazine coming out at Denvention 3. Otherwise, I've a vague novella idea, maybe set in the 1800s -could be my chance to talk about the Pantanal! Nothing firm though.

PWT - There's going to be both a collection and a novella set in the universe of your previous novel, River of Gods. What can you tell us about those?

IMD - Coming out from Gollancz and Pyr later in the year, Cyberabad Days is a seven-story collection of the existing tales from various magazines and anthologies, including Hugo and BSFA winner The Djinn's Wife and Hugo nominee The Little Goddess, and a new long novella 'Vishnu at the Cat Circus' to round out the cycle.

PWT - Your fiction always deals with "the other". What do you find so interesting in the periphery of the world?

IMD - I live on the periphery myself, geographically, politically and socially. I like it. In the future, the periphery will be the core. Centre nowhere, edge everywhere.

PWT - How do you chose your setting? Do you have a list of places of interest or do you just "surf the zeitgeist"?

IMD - I like to feel I'm ahead of the curve on some things: I follow my instincts. Something about an economic or political or geographical situation will make something chime in my head, then I start to look into it and things fall together, ideas open up. There are weird synchronicities.

PWT - Are you worried with the reception your books may have in the cultures you write about?

IMD - Of course. The odd thing about River of Gods was that in general it's got a great reception in India (some of mildly tinged with 'why didn't we think of this ourselves'?) -the real objectors have been Westerners, usually from a liberal-guilt intellectual background. They make arguments about 'entitlement'. Yes yes, but writing is and also has been that monstrous exercise of 'entitlement': how dare we presume to say anything about anything outside ourselves? Everything is sourced from somewhere else, all writing, if it isn't to vanish in a spiral of self-rerefentiality, steals unashamedly from the world, from the lives of others from history, from other cultures. But see my above point on living on the periphery. And re Brasyl: yes, I know. The spelling!

PWT - What can you tell us of your next book, The Dervish House? Where it is set and what is it going to deal with?

IMD - Turkey. A waiting giant. Set five years after Turkey joins the EU. In my head, about 2027. It all takes place over five days of a spring heatwave in Istanbul, with six main characters who all share an old, converted dervish house; from a nine-year-old kid to an old fat retired academic. And a guy who sees djinns. It'll have everything. Themes are nanotechnology (the kind we're likely to get) and economics/game theory. Economics and markets are a real intellectual challenge -insanely complex.