Ask the Author: Tamim Ansary
Answered Questions (10)
Tamim Ansary
I'd go to the Roman Republic depicted by Colleen McCullough in The First Man of Rome and The Grass Crown, the first two historical novels in her Masters of Rome series. I'd be there as an unobserved observer, just gawking and learning what it was like in that cruel, complicated, exhilarating, brutal cunning society. And then come back glad that I live here now instead of there then.
Tamim Ansary
The question has never really arisen for me. I'm walking around or sitting there drinking my coffee and daydreaming and some idea starts buzzing around in my head and I feel this craving to go bag it in words.
Tamim Ansary
Let go of my destination and just start talking to myself, telling myself what I would be writing about if I didn't have this damned writer's block.
Tamim Ansary
Here's one I didn't make up up but I remember from my childhood"
"The last surviving human locked himself into the room. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door."
And here's what popped into my head the moment I read this question:
"The clown laughed and laughed and laughed. Then it stopped laughing."
"The last surviving human locked himself into the room. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door."
And here's what popped into my head the moment I read this question:
"The clown laughed and laughed and laughed. Then it stopped laughing."
Tamim Ansary
Like Water and Other Stories by Olga Zilberbourg
Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich
Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History
Who We Are and How We Got Here by David Reich
Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History
Tamim Ansary
That's a complicated question. Aren't they all. Regarding the curtailment of social gains, my simple answer would be: yes. If Taliban-types take real power, they will try to roll back women's rights, drive women out of public life, and reinstate the most reactionary interpretation of the Islamic shari'a. But there's another side to the coin: war tends not to go with real progressive social change. Social change that matters comes from within a society, not from outside forces imposing progress by force. And the progressive impulse exists in Afghanistan, it's a force too. Afghan women should not be seen as objects of pity but as subjects to be admired. The progressive side of Afghan culture, mostly urban, is just as tough as the rural reactionaries. The most dramatic period of social change in Afghanistan was not the 19 years since the fall of the Taliban; it was, by far, the 19 years from 1959 to 1978, when Afghanistan was pretty much at peace and under sovereign Afghan rule. Left to themselves, ruled by themselves, Afghans were making staggering strides. Then came the Soviet invasion and all that followed and by 2,000 the country was buried in a nightmare of reactionary darkness. So peace, I'd say, is essential to progressive social change. If the meetings in Qatar bring real peace, there's no predicting how the struggle between progress and reaction will go in Afghanistan. But let me complicate the question one step more. The term "Taliban" is often used as if referred to a certain organized group with a particular program. Really, it's more like an umbrella term for a social demographic within Afghan culture. It would be more accurate, if more clumsy, to use a term like "reactionary Islamism rooted in rural culture," Quasi-organized groups of that description abound and which of them answer to which others is, I believe, an open question. Therefore, when we speak of peace negotiations between "the" Taliban and the U.S. we must ask: which Taliban? And over whom do these particular Taliban have actual authority back in Afghanistan? Finally, I'd be surprised if these negotiations lead to a real peace deal. The thing is, Taliban of all stripes have one non-negotiable demand: a complete U.S. withdrawal from the country. And while some reports make it seem like U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is in fact winding down as troops are removed, there are private military contractors swarming in to replace those troops, a foreign army of a different kind. Also, since the Obama years, drone warfare has taken over from boots-on-the-ground soldiers as the military tactic of choice. So number of troops is no longer really a measure of military involvement.
Since the U.S. has two major air bases in Afghanistan, from which U.S. airplanes can reach Moscow, Tehran, Delhi, and Beijing, I'd be surprised if U.S. negotiators agree to an actual military withdrawal that results in the loss of those bases. So, I guess my answer is: we'll see. (And hey: thanks for the comment about my books.)
Since the U.S. has two major air bases in Afghanistan, from which U.S. airplanes can reach Moscow, Tehran, Delhi, and Beijing, I'd be surprised if U.S. negotiators agree to an actual military withdrawal that results in the loss of those bases. So, I guess my answer is: we'll see. (And hey: thanks for the comment about my books.)
Tamim Ansary
Ten years ago, I published a book called Destiny Disrupted, A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. Basically, I was arguing that world history is the story of how we got to where we are today, but embedded in that narrative is always an assumption about who constitutes the “we.” I hoped to illustrate this point by showing how, if you assumed the center of the world to be the Islamic heartland rather than Europe and its offshoots, the history of the world looks completely different, even though it may contain many of the same events. The shape of the story depends on the teller of the tale. But after that book came out, it struck me that today, with pretty much everyone on the planet all up inside one another's business, it might be possible to construct a history of the world from the perspective of a global “we”. So that's what I set out to do. The Invention of Yesterday is what I came up with--a history of the world that looks at ever-increasing interconnectedness (with all its discontents) as the throughline of human history.
Tamim Ansary
I spent the last six years writing The Invention of Yesterday: A 50,000 Year History of Human, Culture, and Connection, which will be released this fall. So you might say, I am now resting. Resting, in this case, means that I stumbled across a novel I started writing almost 40 years ago, called Sinking the Ark, about six characters who work for a counterculture newspaper in the seventies. I found I wanted to immerse myself in that fictional world again, because after all these years , I think I see where it's supposed to go. The odd thing is, themes that I thought I had discovered and developed in the Invention of Yesterday in these last six years were already twinkling in that novel I was working on 40 years ago.
Tamim Ansary
You have to have a reason for writing that isn't money or fame. For me, I write to make sense of the world and invent the reality I'm living in. Some of my own favorite works are ones that nobody knows about. For aspiring writers, I would say: don't just get it written. Get it right. (I forget where I heard that phrase; apologies to whoever I stole it from.)
Tamim Ansary
In my experience, writing is mostly like trying to bring a half-remembered dream into focus. You can feel something there , just outside your conscious awareness, but you can't see it until you've clothed it with words. But when you reach for it with words, it dissipates. At the end of a day, typically, you've got a whole bunch of words to sift through and nope: whatever you were fishing for, it isn't quite there. But it's almost there. You can feel it, you just can't see it. Every part of the process is like that: take structural revision, for example... throwing away good stuff because it doesn't fit...rummaging for the mot juste that doesn't seem to exist. So: the best part about being a writer? Those moments of closure along the way, That aha!-got it-experience. I'd compare it to fishing if I'd ever succeeded in catching a fish. And what's especially wonderful is that euphoric sense of closure you get at the very end if you're lucky: "Wow, that's so exactly what I wanted to say that now at last I can let it go." That experience is SO great that you want it again, sou find yourself back at your keyboard, because there's this other idea tickling at your brain, you don't know quite know what it is, it's lurking just out there in the darkness, if you could just wrap a few words around it you'd be able to drag it into the light and see if it's worth pursuing...
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