Lately I’ve taken a keen interest in fictional books set in distinctive cultural contexts such as India, Afghanistan, Africa and South America. Prior to such books about life in these far off lands I had a thirst for books that volleyed my attention from one page to the next insisting that the text be devoured in one sitting such as the many murder mysteries of Patricia Cornwell and Paul Carson. However, as Ireland’s arms have become open to an array of different nationalities I think the time has long past for the Irish to broaden their horizons and get in tune with the variety of cultures accepting others for who they are, their culture and traditions and not just as foreigners who must slip into the Irish way and conform to our norms. Diving into modern books by foreign authors has been my latest approach to opening my mind.
In my line of work interculturalism has a large impact on how we all relate to one another and in many cases the onus is on me to ensure that everyone’s nationality is supported within the workplace and that each person is given the opportunity to express themselves in light of their own heritage. For me it was one thing to be told “This is how it is” in the different countries and another to actually understand nations that hold beliefs entirely different to our own. In a bid to take off the hat of ignorance and truely understand where they were coming from I began to read books by authors from the respective countries.
As I began to read about lands I could barely pick out from a map of the world I began to witness stark similarities between the Irish, Asians, Africans and Afghans as each book was adrift with relationship issues, friendships and conflicts that are applicable to humanity on a whole. In discovering the links between each nationality it only highlighted the intense negativity transmitted at the hands of the media who continue to paint foul pictures of so many lands that house people just like us in every shape and form whose language, religion and skin tone become minute variables. It is unfortunate that the media’s power has forced many people to forget that the regular Joe Soap still exsists be he African, Asian or Irish.
It is in light of the media’s elaborate paintings that many authors have taken it upon themselves to account for the real people and real life in their homelands in order to portray a more accurrate image than the media has dealt them.
One such book is The Kite Runner which many may have heard of and possibly seen the movie adaptation in the cinema. Khaled Hosseini wrote this book before 9/11 and debated its publication at such a sensitive time in the U.S. It was his wife’s arguement that people needed to see the real Afghanistan that supported his decision to go ahead with the publication. It is this view that fuels the pens of many writers from countries of conflict and it is their words that will form the mortar for intercultural understanding and respect that is lacking still in many parts of Ireland today.
Watch out for future posts about the novels themselves.
