Merlinda Bobis
Merlinda Bobis is a Filipino-Australian writer, performer and academic. Her work deals with transcultural themes, with her most recent novel ?Fish-Hair Woman? moving between the Philippines, Australia, Hawai?i and reminiscent of colonial Spain.
Renegotiating cultural boundaries, Merlinda has been published in three languages and has performed her own work in Australia, Philippines, US, Spain, France, China, and Canada. Her writing crosses multiple genres, from novels and short fiction to poetry and plays.
She has received the Prix Italia (Radio Fiction), the Australian Writers? Guild Award, the Steele Rudd Award for the Best Published Collection of Australian Short Stories, the Philippine National Book Award, the Philippine Pamana Presidential Award, and has been short-listed for ?The Age? Poetry Book Award and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Wollongong.
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An Interview with Merlinda
By Kimberly Cannon-Wilson
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You have published your work across a number of languages and cultures. Do you find it difficult to switch between cultures and languages?
Writing and performing between cultures and languages (Australia-Philippines; English-Pilipino-Bikol) is an exciting, enriching, and challenging ?schizophrenic dance.? I use ?dance? as a metaphor, because this shuttling across the border of very different physical, psychological, and emotional spaces involves both body and sensibility. Dancing is joyful, but the different spaces have their own ?codes/steps? and I?m infinitely being pulled apart by different dance partners, so to speak. There is some anxiety that I will not be able to ?perform? according to the cultural expectations of my different audiences, thus a novel or a play might not be understood, received well, or might not be published/produced at all. In the switching between cultures and languages, I?m crossing the border, and here it can be lonely and even scary without the familiar cultural signs of either side. So I invent. I create my own signs, my own steps. This is the most joyful gift of the border: the new dance!
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Do you find that the different cultural groups respond differently to your work?
Yes. I?ve published and performed my works in Australia, Philippines, Spain, US, Canada. My works have also been studied at universities in the first four countries that I mentioned. I find that the audience responses are so diverse. In Australia alone, the responses are just as diverse because of its multicultural sensibilities. Some find my works culturally alien, so they either reject or critique it as something lesser than the literature or art that they are culturally accustomed to. Others embrace the cultural difference with much enthusiasm, taking in the difference as a ?new taste? for their aesthetic palate. The best response is from those that appreciate the cultural difference but also connect with the human resonances between my different story and theirs. This way of responding is what?s wonderful in a multicultural region (and nation) like ours. Multicultural Illawarra (and Australia) is aesthetically diverse, and thus has multiple sources of pleasure. We have a rich cache of stories and modes of storytelling that, each time, offer a different angle on how we relate with each other. So we can keep telling new stories each time.
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How has working in a transcultural context influenced your writing and performance?
I?m always trying out and discovering new ways of telling stories on the page as writer, and with my body as performer. In a transcultural creative production, storytelling is always in transit, always in a rather difficult but joyful border. Above all, I?m always finding new ways of relating among different people: finding new conflicts, new compassions. All grist for the mill for this writer-performer. And more than anything, truly humanising.
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What kinds of obstacles do you face when writing and performing across different countries?
How to be heard and understood: this is less of an obstacle and more of a primary challenge. I am always wondering how my story and sensibility can be best ?translated? for the different country, and how they will be received, if they?re received at all. A story is completed only when it is received: storytelling is a relationship between the teller and the listener.
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Politicians have used the term ?Asian Century? of late to describe growing economic, political, and cultural ties with our neighbors. How does this exchange across and within continents inform the creative writing process in Australia?
When I arrived in 1991, Australia was just beginning to see itself as a possible ?partner? of Asia, given the economic and political implications of its geography. As a newcomer in Oz, I wondered about this rather ?late? interest, considering that, at that time, Australia already had a large population of Asian migrants. Now we invoke the ?Asian Century?, and I hope it?s more than for economic and political capital. So I answer this question with several ?hopes?: 1) That we appreciate the fact that listening to each other?s stories is one of the best investments ever, as it translates into so much cultural enrichment for both Australia and Asia. 2) That we think and write about Asia as not an alien entity out there that keeps buying our coal or coming in boats, but as our next-door neighbor celebrating Chinese New Year, or speaking Thai, or cooking Cambodian, or a Vietnamese doctor easing our flu ? Asia is here, at home in Australia and contributing to its culture. 3) That in the literary industry, we have more writers and critics dancing across the Asia-Australia border, and finding the joy in it!
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About the Interviewer:
Kimberly Cannon-Wilson has been an intern for the South Coast Writers? Centre since March 2012. She has completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Arts), and is currently completing a Bachelor of Communication and Media Studies majoring in Journalism and Professional Writing at the University of Wollongong. She aspires to work in media for an arts organisation after completion of her degrees in late 2013.
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Tags: Kimberly Cannon-Wilson, Merlinda Bobis, Writer of the Month
Source: http://southcoastwriters.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/writer-of-the-month-september/
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