Oh Sempreviva!

Trevor Zahra is simply an infectious author to talk to - full of spirit and life, so enthralled and excited by what reading and writing can give us as both writers and readers! The relationship between author and reader is always a fascinating one, and we shall impinge upon it, yet most importantly we are here to discuss his latest title - Sempreviva.

Sempreviva is a collection of short stories for adults, the first for Zahra to revolve solely around one theme. Perhaps it was because of being bound to just one theme, he confides, that at times he either wrote three stories at once and had to wait a month or so to be inspired for the next one. This is part of the natural process for writers of course, there is a time for months full of activity and non-stop writing and then there is a time to pause and write other things till the inspiration comes back.

The fact that Zahra was tied to a theme aided his sense of discipline too. Zahra is a great believer in discipline, and thus does not leave the art of writing down to simply inspiration or muse - you also have to help yourself. “You can just sit and wait around for a divine ray of sunlight to fall upon you, these are romantic notions that are simply not the case in reality. There is an element of inspiration, it just doesn’t happen like that - you have to be the one to help it along, to push your inspiration forward. You have to work for it.” He passionately continues, “Ideas don’t simply come to you, you have to be the one chasing after them, looking for them.”

And this is an image I resonate with. Zahra paints a beautiful and also very true picture before us as writers (and readers), that like everything else this is not an easy task we place upon ourselves - ideas and inspiration have to be earned! And I guess this is true for many aspects of our life, we can only find that which we seek or which seeks us, if and when we seek with purpose.

“Ideas don’t simply come to you, you have to be the one chasing after them, looking for them.”

It is so refreshing to speak to someone who is as passionate about writing, if not more so, than I am. Someone who believes that a writer has to be an avid reader, and who recognises how important reading is for everyone for that matter. This phrase has been a constant companion of mine since I started this journey and I believe it’s there in my head as a driving force:

You have to read as though your life depended on it. And as dramatic as that sounds, there is such truth and beauty in it. A writer lives to write but also reads to live.

Zahra is very adamant on the notion of one’s quality of reading, it’s not the quantity and it’s definitely not a matter of how quickly one reads - it’s the quality of what and how one reads that makes all the difference. At times he catches himself reading a paragraph over and over again, just to pick out the delicacies of turn and the subtle techniques employed by the writer to express their theme - he finds much joy in this analysis [although I, for one, am not quite sure if that is solely a gift nowadays!]. Zahra on the other hand only finds joy in needling out all the workings of a writer - he equates this with opening a watch and seeing how all the parts work separately but also in unison - “To be able to see the mechanisms for what they are is a skill the author should develop, and it is ultimately a joy too!”

Our conversation thus spills out onto questions of mattering and somehow also on whether you have to or should finish a book till its end. You know how sometimes you start to read a book and notice it simply is not for you, and yet you also find yourself questioning whether you should push on! This puzzling-to-some question is a very relevant one, and it is something that has been tackled quite interestingly by the essayist and translator Tim Parks - but this really is a topic for another day! Yet where does Zahra stand? Zahra might have continued every book to its end (even if just to give it its chance) when younger but now he knows better - “Maybe I have noticed that life is too short. And if after one or two chapters I realise that this is not the kind of book that I like, then I won’t continue it - there are many times I have done this.” Which is where I pop in to say that this might occur because as you grow you come to know yourself better and so you also mature in your reading style.

Now let’s give Sempreviva its deserved space …

Let’s start with inspiration. What inspired this collection of short stories and why was it so important for you to have the Semprevivum as the emblem?

So, this is the sixth book of short stories that I have published for adults. The stories are in themselves slightly weird, and have what you might call imbued within them some magical realism … yet they are stories that are functioning within normality (here you won’t find fairy tales, that is), they are stories of everyday life. Nonetheless many times there is a type of magic - in the wide sense of the term you understand - either the character is passing through some kind of trauma, or because their past is catching up with them ... and so you have this abnormality wriggling it’s way in. The magic created is that which is almost bizarre. So I had the idea to create a set of stories that would be linked to flowers in some way - in a direct but also indirect sense, of course. One story, for example, revolves around a woman who covered her whole body with flower tattoos and what happened to her as a consequence of this - and again there is a sense of magic. You also have the flowers that we lay down on a tomb or grave, and the flowers that we use to celebrate occasions with - if it’s a wedding, or simply decorating our house. I also took flowers which we have the tradition of spreading, such as in Corpus Christi, the petals on the ground. In certain countries they still do this in the most creative of ways as flower carpets, also known as infiorata.

So what I mean to say is that I’m not writing about flowers, I’m writing about people. And yet also how the flowers are in some way incorporated into our lives.

This is all very interesting, what I’d like to go into a bit more is this notion of the bizarre. Is the bizarre there, in a way to connect the readers to the stories. I say this just because sometimes, although somewhat ironically, with magical elements the story almost becomes more approachable and down-to-earth. Is that what is happening in some of the stories?

Yes it could be, because you see what happens is that we are always imagining - and thank goodness for that. I believe that imagination is the base of our existence; because all that we do in our lives, we first imagine or dream it. Everything begins with a dream - an imaginary element. Now a lot of the time our imagination runs with us, and you know it cuts the strings tying us down. That’s what imagination does, isn’t it? It cuts down that which attached us to normality. And this is so important - it is essential! So what we commonly term as strange, is nothing other than our imagination running wild, as though we are throwing the doors wide open for our imagination to be free.

And so the same is mirrored in these stories - they reveal that they are not quite normal, they are magical, yet this is nothing but our own fantasies - that we all dream about and have.

I really enjoy the moments in which I am approached by readers who tell me “You know that thing that you said [something they would have read], I thought about it so many times” or “That was something I lived”; but then obviously the writer has a way of describing and recounting it in a different and interesting way. But this does not mean that there would be experiences or thoughts which have not been thought of before by others - that is what is actually beautiful. The beauty lies in the fact that we find ourselves in the writing - I find myself in the story because that is something I have gone through.

Do you find and feel that people are not experiencing or perhaps indulging in their imagination? Maybe because they are not giving themselves the time to imagine, to create - even on a normal or day-to-day level. Are we still living the beauty of imagination?

There are two facets to this. Today, it could be, because as you’re saying there is on one hand the reality of everything being given to us as pre-packed - ready - so instead of imagining them they’re there and ready. Let me explain what I mean. So if I’ve read a book, all the characters and situations are in my head and I’m using my imagination. But on the other hand, if instead of reading the book I’ve seen the film I am seeing the director’s vision. So the characters now are not being chosen by me, but have been chosen for me. The situations might not be the ones I might have imagined, but they are those which the director thought were important. So in this case it could be that I am impinging on my imagination's potential. But let’s look at the other side to this. It could be that the vision the director has shown me is so rich, beautiful and full of aspects I could not have imagined - so in this case I am adding to my imagination.

Now I’m taking film as an example, this discussion could be broadened to include so many other aspects. Even technology (depending on how it is used), could surely increase our imagination, but one has to play his own part too. One has to be using technology well, that’s another issue.

Nonetheless, I am coming from the world of books, and so I am a bit subjective when I say that as Trevor there is nothing that gives me more imagination and joy than a book. But I do love cinema and films immensely, and so I have to say that a book gives me a type of pleasure and a film another. And as much as possible I try not to compare the two. It’s as though you cannot compare because they are such different mediums - a book strengthens my imagination in one direction while a film strengthens it in another. Though it has to be said that whenever I’ve seen a film and read the book, the book has given me more than the film, let’s say that.

“Today, it could be, because as you’re saying there is on one hand the reality of everything being given to us as pre-packed … but one has to play his own part too.”

Yes I agree, I think it’s what your intentions are and it might also be a matter of what you’re exposed to. Some people might be more inclined or be exposed to films rather than books, but at least there is some form of exposure.

Exactly. You know, if someone has never read Tolstoy [which I highly recommend you do, it’s a whole new experience to what we usually read as European, colonial or American writing goes] but at least they’ve seen a film, then they have tasted a little bit of the author, of Tolstoy. The same goes for Dickens’ romantic novels which have all been turned into cinematographic adaptations. I am sure many who have seen the films have not read the books, and for me nothing comes close to what Dickens is able to give in his books. But here again, at least if you haven’t read the books you are getting a taste of the author, getting to know his work through film.

You’re reminding me of how sometimes there is a certain book that you keep returning to. And each time you do, you find something new in it - if it’s a new part or section that catches your interest, as if it wasn’t there in previous readings and now it pops out at you … with a movie this might happen less because you’re already expectant - you already know - of what’s coming next, or what will be said next. Just as when kids want to see a movie over and over again, sometimes even as soon as the movie finishes they want to start it over. There’s a sense of familiarity and comfort in that, I guess it’s about being happy and consoled because what you already know is being reaffirmed.

Yes I’m glad you brought this up. When we read and reread a book - I have no problem confiding that there are books I’ve reread 4 or 5 times - and I always find something new. Why? The book remained the same, but I have changed since my previous reading of it. If years have passed and I too have passed through new experiences in life, I come back to the book and read it in a new light. I have simply matured. It happens many times with books which have been read at school as textbooks (as part of the curricula) and so we’ve read them with the intention of preparing for an exam, for what might be asked and so some of the pleasure of reading might have been lost. Then 10 years go by, and you read that book again and pleasantly realise how beautiful it is - this is natural because your circumstances have changed and the context in which you now read it are different.

This can of course happen with film too. Because your cultural baggage has changed and also grown quite possibly.

But you also mentioned children and how they love to see the same movie, not years later but even the next day! This has been researched and it is said that they might be doing this as it gives them a sense of security, because as you mentioned, they know what is coming and how it is going to end. So it gives them the security that they need, which is so important for children.

“I come back to the book and read it in a new light. I have simply matured.”

I like that term, “cultural baggage”; I think that if we stopped to think and reflect on our lives we realise how much we are being influenced by the external …

Yes, of course, this is an ongoing process after all. Let me take myself as an example; I have books that I read first when I was 23 years old, and reading them again now that I am over 70 I still think “Oh wow, I hadn’t even sniffed this out - I hadn’t even realised this!”. And you realise that you have changed completely from that time.

Yes I understand what you mean, I experience that too. To go back to ‘Sempreviva’, I gather that you aren’t talking about the plants or the flowers specifically, yet in using the semprevivum as an emblem - a hardy, resilient and healing plant as it is - is there a message in this?

Yes, yes ... I have one of the episodes dedicated to and about the semprevivum. This is a plant which does not die, and that is why it is so called - a semprevivum! I do not particularly like this flower because beautiful things are those which die, in many ways; for the interest is lost in something which lives forever. Even life, it is beautiful because we know it has its beginning and its end.

At the same time I did also use the metaphor of the sempreviva for art and literature as a whole. Literature is always alive and with us - the author may die but his work will remain. We breathe in [and I think we also live only thanks to] art - without even knowing. And so I believe that literature is sempreviva as well.

Yes I see what you mean. I also feel that whilst it embodies life, the semprevivum is also revealing its opposite - death, in which there is also a form of beauty like you said. So it creates a sort of natural aesthetic forming around this, whether it’s in your writing or in what you do as an author and a creator - the art itself.

Precisely. In fact with these novellas on flowers I have touched upon this theme various times, in different ways. Death comes in, in many ways. Now you might find people who do not particularly take to stories around death, but I personally find it to be a very interesting theme and in literature from around the world you find that it is full of the theme of death. Simply put, death gives life meaning, purpose. So life without death would be without scope. And in our lives everything is like that - everything has its beginning and its end, all our life follows this natural cycle. If we take a plant, or the weather that is changing, or the sun which rises in the morning and then goes down (even metaphorically speaking), so too our life revolves around this cycle of beginnings and endings. It is as though in our own DNA we do not allow for immortality, it is created to start and end - and in this I find real beauty [and possibly consolation too].

And do you think that the reader understands and recognises these life/death/life cycles that are happening naturally around us as well as within us?

Yes and I think this is aided by the fact that these are short stories. When you have a short story, as opposed to let’s say, a novel -

I see what you mean, even the form lends itself - yes!

That’s so. Many times there are links between one story and the next, but they are not that obvious. And so as a result many times, this understanding that you are talking about can only be grasped when you come to the last story. And then you can see and appreciate how they have been linked all along, but not in the same way as a romance or a novel comes together, in which you have links between the chapters themselves. So with short stories the link isn’t that evident, yet a trace is there. And you may notice that a certain theme is being developed and carried from one story to the next. Maybe in one story I’m taking one facet and in another story I will take another.

You know in another book of mine, I had once used the metaphor of a room. Imagine a closed room, we are looking in from various openings - the keyhole, windows, a hole in the wall - and so we see small bits and pieces of this room. If I see a painting hung up on one the walls I might think this is a sitting room, but this painting might also be there because this is a storage room. Only when and if someone opens the door to this room for me, will I see what this rooms’ purpose - the pieces of the puzzle, the glimpses come together to make sense. This is what happens once you’ve read all the short stories in the collection. Individually the stories are only mere glimpses onto the main themes. Then when you’ve read them all, it’s as if opening that door and walking in to see what those glimpses meant together.

“Simply put, death gives life meaning, purpose. So life without death would be without scope. And in our lives everything is like that - everything has its beginning and its end, all our life follows this natural cycle.”

That’s lovely. You know I’m thinking about these links and your writing career. At this stage do you feel like the links are subconscious, they come naturally and you only notice after how wonderfully the stories actually connect to each other or do you sometimes have to work at the link, decide to move a story to create a better flow. How does this process occur?

I think it comes unconsciously. I work story by story, with themes that I enjoy, which I research and then think about. I enjoy writing a lot of notes too, and the research is essential because many times you have to add to what you already know, because what you know is only a drop - so you need to add to it. So in the moment of writing I’m focusing on that particular story alone.

But afterwards, unconsciously you look at how they string together … you know there was an author who said that in a writer’s whole career they will only focus on one to two themes and they will do nothing but keep on analysing and tearing those themes apart. It therefore becomes recurrent. The challenge is to always make the theme feel new, feel original, even as it revolves around the same theme.

For example, the most common theme in literature must be love; from poems, to novels and romances, short stories and films, and dramas - it must be the theme human beings have touched upon most. The challenge here is that although it is a well-known theme you will still be original when tampering with it yourself. The original many times lies not in what you say but how you say it. I love this and I repeat this - many times art is all about how not what. You know it’s all about how I present something in art - this works really well when bringing a comedian to mind, someone may say a joke and you burst into fits of laughter, yet someone else might say the same joke and you keep staring unaware if it’s finished or not - it simply wouldn’t have had the same effect on you. So what’s the difference? It’s not the what (because it’s the same joke), it’s a question of how.

“...many times art is all about how not what.”

We always witness this in the arts. A painting is of value not simply because of what is depicted - a great scene from a mythological story, a grand scene with the gods - but how. You can take Van Gogh who painted a room with a chair, a bed and flowers half-drooping in their vase. It’s a question of how you treat your subject that makes all the difference!

“Individually the stories are only mere glimpses onto the main themes. Then when you’ve read them all, it’s as if opening that door and walking in to see what those glimpses meant together.”

So what has the research, the creation, the writing of these short stories, or perhaps even better what has nature taught you?

You know, the thing I learn most is how much I have yet to learn. And I do not say this with any sense of humility, it is simply so true. The more I write, and the more I read - and I read a lot, for the writer it is very important to read, so that you always improve your style - you realise how much there is left to struggle through. And after all that is the beauty of it. Many authors like to refer to themselves as “established writers”, [established in Maltese is ‘stabbilit’, which somewhat interestingly hints towards the English stable, as Zahra here points out how the term leans towards fixedness] but what do they mean by established? There is nothing that is established, nothing that is fixed - and it’s a godsend that things are not! Being established means that you’ve stopped, as though you have nothing left to better - which cannot be.

What I learn from most (especially when I’m writing), is how there is always room for improvement and so I take the time to edit my text a lot; giving it to others to read and I weigh their feedback. There is always something to change, something to improve. It is so sad for me to look and read my previous publications and notice how much more I could have improved it. Obviously, I realise that I would have done my best in that moment, then in retrospect you start to see how you could change the piece. But again, that is the beauty of this adventure - there is nothing static - always something to improve on, arrange and discover.

I realised that you have some works that have been translated into French and Russian, will this be one of them?

Well of course I would like for this to be translated but you see the problem isn’t as such the translating but rather the publication. There isn’t much point in translating a piece which you cannot find a publisher for. I’m thrilled to have two short story books and a novella that have been translated and so who knows, now we’ll see!

So it doesn’t naturally follow that your own local publisher Merlin would take care of publishing the translation too?

Merlin always publishes my texts in Maltese and they have always been there to help me. In the case of Nanna Genoveffa, for example, which was translated into French, Russian and even Nowegian they found the translators for me. They’re also there for me and offer support with contacts and publishers abroad. You know sometimes though things just happen as though by coincidence, and that’s nice to experience.

And there we have ‘Sempreviva’!

For me this has been a lovely journey, one which reminds me, in many ways thanks to the symbol of the semprevivum, of our inherent opposites - our vulnerability and yet also our resilience - and what it means to trust in the natural cycles of our life.

With thanks and much love to Trevor and his pen and his mind

Enjoy !

Details

Trevor Zahra: For more details visit Trevor’s website trevorzahra.com/

Publishing House: Merlin Publishers

Publishing Date: out soon!!!

Images: For the beautiful images of the Semprevivum I have Steve Lupton to thank - you may find all his amazing shots taken in his garden @creeperandknotweed [which I highly recommend you follow for a dose of pure and simple happiness] as well as give your green-fingers and garden fresh meaning by visiting creeperandknotweed.co.uk/

Oh Sempreviva - an interview with Trevor Zahra