Another chapter in her life
Sonali Deraniyagala has graduated from writing in bed to writing in a room that overlooks her garden. It’s smaller than the other rooms in her London home, but the cosy space suits her well. In a cupboard behind her are the things that belonged to Nikhil and Vikram, her two little boys, and that comforts her.
It was far from inevitable that over a year after the publication of ‘Wave’, Sonali would still be writing. A memoir in which she described the loss of her young sons, husband and parents to the tsunami and what it took to survive her grief, ‘Wave’ had to it an element of catharsis. The book came pouring out as she“wrote to bring back my family to me, to collect the threads of our lives.” But in its wake, writing is a gentler process. Sonali is enjoying exploring the Sri Lanka of her youth – the 1970s, in particular, were to her a time of innocence.
Sonali Deraniyagala in Colombo last week. Pic by Athula Devapriya
Sonali is staying with family in Colombo, and that’s where we meet her. Later this evening friends and family are gathering to celebrate a piece of good news. Sonali has won the PEN/Ackerley Prize awarded annually to an autobiography of excellence. (Previous recipients include Anthony Burgess and Germaine Greer.) Accepting it, Sonali acknowledged the difference publishing ‘Wave’ has made to her life. ‘The pleasure of receiving this wonderful prize makes me see that there is a beauty in struggle and a resting place in the eyes of others,’ she said. ‘I have found myself a writer, another identity in the ongoing bewildering journey of my life.’
In another room across from us, working on the speech she will deliver later that evening is the English actress Fiona Shaw. Fiona approached Sonali after the book came out. She had read ‘Wave’ in her dressing room she said, as she starred in ‘The Testament of Mary’, playing the role of the mother of Christ. Though she still swears she would never want to make a movie of it, Fiona and Sonali have been bandying about the idea of adapting ‘Wave’ for the theatre. This is only possible because of the distance the author now has from the book.
By this point it is very clear that ‘Wave’ has resonated with readers across the globe, earning Sonali accolade after accolade. The New York Times put it on a list of the top ten best books of 2013, it was an Amazon Best Book of the Month and appeared on Best of Year lists across multiple publications. The Kirkus Review and the Christian Science Monitor singled it out, while reviewers like Michael Ondaatje, Joan Didion and Cheryl Strayed praised it. Translations are coming thick and fast, with the count now up to 14 or so. (Sarasavi will be producing a Sinhala version for the local market).
All the attention combined has served to give the book a kind of independence from its author – in the hundreds of letters she receives from strangers, Sonali sees her readers tying it into their own experience. It’s why she’s now more open to the idea of seeing it in other mediums: “I’ve gotten more distance from the book, and the book is steady in the world – I didn’t want it swamped by another image.”
This has also freed her to begin writing again. She loves telling stories about growing up in Sri Lanka – surrounded by a large and boisterous family, her teenage obsession with procuring a poster of that “cheesy pop star” Donny Osmond, the first time she stepped on a plane at age 18 to go to Cambridge where she would meet and fall in love with Stephen Lissenburgh. She’s finding all the vignettes lead to something deeper. “Really right now, it’s fragments. I don’t know what form it’s going to take. I assume it’s going to be non-fiction.”
Her writing, she says, is “also for my sense of self, which went to smithereens and shrapnel.” For someone who produced such an accomplished first novel, Sonali confesses that writing is still hard. “It doesn’t come easy for me.” Still, there’s a pleasure in it, in finding the words that fit, and in the telling of a story.
Though she’s limited the number of interviews she’s given, choosing to speak only rarely in public about her ordeal (a notable exception being her address to the Clinton School of Public Service), Sonali says that when she does she’s also seeking to broaden the conversation around the book. An Adjunct Associate Professor at Colombia’s School of International and Public Affairs, she teaches a course on Disasters and Development.
Her focus on the economic impacts of natural disasters has led to research into disasters like Cyclone Nargis that claimed 250,000 lives, most in the Irrawaddy delta alone. “In the last 40 years something like 3.3 million people have lost their lives to natural hazard events…so the scale is enormous,” she said addressing the audience at the Clinton School. Explaining that the poor are disproportionately affected not just in their initial vulnerability to the disaster but in how quickly they can recover, Sonali added: “The worst thing in the world happened to me but I am privileged enough to be able to seek help and to tend to myself to some extent.”
This awareness of privilege is still only a thin buffer against grief. When we’re talking about how her students come into class, Google their new professor’s name and discover her story, Sonali notes with a smile that her academic credentials have all but disappeared. The book has shoved them far down on the search results. Does that bother her? No, she says, because her work was never what defined her. “It fitted my family life perfectly, and I could do it with ease, but it wasn’t my primary identity. My primary identity was as a wife and a mother.” Considering this, the tragedy that befell her family has changed little. “Even though they’re dead my identity comes from being part of them and being infused by them in the way I carry on.”