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What makes this particular writer tick? Ruhanie Perera finds out
On familiar ground
The sparsely furnished annexe housing only the bare necessities. The large desk that occupied prime place, the laptop opened and set up for a morning of hard work. It all looked like what I'd always imagined a writer's abode to be. The writer herself is calm, charming and accommodating even though I am quite obviously eating into her work schedule.

Chandani Lokuge: August deadline Pic by Athula Devapriya

Chandani Lokuge, a Sri Lankan writer residing in Australia, was present at the South Asian Writers' Conference organised by the International Centre for Ethnic Studies and The British Council last month, where she made two presentations; an academic paper and a reading from her latest novel which will be out in August next year.

This upcoming novel is the main reason for her trip back home as the deadline for the manuscript to be sent to the publisher is this August. She needed "some intensive working time" in order to put the finishing touches to the novel before the deadline. She feels it would be easier to work on one's own and more importantly to be where the story is set.

"It's almost done," says Chandani with a smile, looking as though nothing, especially not the looming deadline, could perturb or shake her. "What's left now is the aesthetic shaping of the book, which can be completed before I go back."

There is, of course, the small matter of a title. She recounts that it was her younger daughter who came up with the successful suggestion for her last book - If the Moon Smiled, which came out in 2000. (Its popularity is reflected by the fact that it was translated into Greek.) "So I might just leave that job for my daughter," she laughs.

An extract from her new novel titled 'Maya's Baby' is already included in the collection Gas and Air: Tales of Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond, which will be published this year, something she considers a "stroke of luck!"

The storyline of the book is one that is constantly evolving. "I never know what the end is going to be until I get there." The plot revolves around an orphan girl returning to Sri Lanka from Australia in search of her biological mother and traces the individual stories of mother and daughter. "Family relationships are my forte," she smiles, herself a mother of two girls.

Family bonds, the life of migrant families and mother-daughter relationships feature prominently in her work. However, her work carries no autobiographical undertones. Says Chandani, "I start with what I know best and move into unknown territory. That gives me observer status; so that I can watch my characters live out their lives. The story becomes theirs and not mine, this way the autobiographical content that can sometimes creep into a novel is eliminated."

"It is the malfunctioning element within a relationship that I write about, where two people try hard to work things out, but the attempt is futile." For Chandani, the creative process of writing a book initially involves the writing of one person's story, broadening, perhaps into a relationship. "I think I am a short story writer by nature so my novel takes the form of a series of short stories crafted into something richer, more substantial for the reader."

When writing her attention is focused on the potential for images within her chosen situation and she devotes time to crafting techniques, while not deviating from the overall sense of pleasure of the text.

Looking back she feels that some of her initial stories sound rather "raw", the first of which was published when she was a student at St. Bridget's Convent. Later on Chandani's stories were accepted and published in the Island and the New Lankan Review. Her mother, quite unconsciously, provided her with the first burst of inspiration - "Every time I had a fight with my mother I used to write about it and I'd leave it where she would see it." At the time her writing was not a serious concern; her parents, who regarded it as an interesting hobby, never thought that their little girl who was "forever scribbling something" would make them proud by becoming a very successful, hugely published writer. Chandani's first degree was obtained in Sri Lanka, as was her masters for which her research was based on Sri Lankan Writing in English. It was only then that she moved on to Australia to complete her doctorate choosing to study Indian writing in English. Her topic was 'Pre-Independence Indian Women Writers', which she found an exciting and stimulating venture that has led her to editing a series of seven books of the Classic Reissue series of autobiographical and fictional work by Indian women published by the Oxford University Press, thus bringing back literary works which had been out of print for years.

Chandani is also the author of a collection of short stories titled Moth and Other Stories, which was her first major publication. Her works of fiction have been included in numerous collections, some of them being the Penguin Book of Modern Sri Lankan Short Stories, Penguin Summer Stories 2 and the forthcoming Penguin Summer Stories 4.

The beginning of last year saw her take up the post of lecturer in English literature and co-ordinator of the Centre For Postcolonial Writing, School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies, Monash University, Australia. Postcolonial Literature, she feels, is a hugely developing field and the centre she co-ordinates aims to promote excellence in teaching and research, while offering a stimulating forum for the exchange of creative and intellectual ideas for both writers and scholars.

Her lecturer status sees her taking creative writing courses and postcolonial literature courses. She is what she terms a "hybrid academic" for though she is technically an academic she is also very much the creative writer. Thus in her courses she integrates creative writing with the traditional forms of literature, making creative writing a part of the mainstream.

She finds this an exciting experience and is spurred on by the fact that student enthusiasm is high. "I've always loved teaching. It's just amazing to watch your students grow," she says. She puts down her passion for teaching to the fact that both her parents were in the field of education.

That's not the only family she talks of with that fond smile. The support she gets from her husband, two girls and even her son-in-law is "enormous". Actively involved with her life, especially when a new book is around the corner, they all pitch in by reading chapters and commenting on the work. Funnily enough she is a part of the 'migrant family' she writes about, but unlike her novels that depict a breakdown within the family, hers is a success.

"We've had hard times, but I think we made it because we understood where things could go wrong and worked hard together, to avoid a difficult situation." Together being the key word for she adds, "We developed and progressed as one family not as four separate people going in four different directions."

Just what is it that makes her tick, one wonders. What took her from the scribbling schoolgirl to the successful writer she is today? She smiles, "Giving full flight to my imagination."

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