Ingrid’s ‘happy-happy’ to write

Ingrid Persaud’s The Sweet Sop won the BBC National Short Story Award 2018 and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2017.

She chatted via the Internet with BC PIRES.

Where in Trinidad/Tobago do you come from?

I’m a “South girl.” Gulf View side.

Nowadays, sometimes I live in Barbados and sometimes I live in London. I am a Trini to de bone who hasn’t lived in Trinidad since I was small. Trinidad and Tobago is home. My navel string buried here.

Do you come from a large family?

My family’s small and getting smaller. I have no siblings although I would have liked at least one. At my father’s funeral I hoped a grieving outside child would show up. Nothing.

Do you have a family yourself?

They can’t deny me if I name them so here goes – Avinash (the husband), Anish (first born by two minutes), Ishan (so nice we did it twice).

Where'd you grow up and go to school?

I lived in South until I was 16, then moved to Petit Valley and, after high school, to London. Planned to return to Trinidad after my degree.

What I didn’t plan for was meeting the husband in the first week at uni. You know how it is. Before you turn around twice you married, you have mortgage, twins looking just like the husband living in the house.

I was the typical Presbyterian Indian. I started, aged five, at Grant Memorial then moved a quarter mile away to Naparima Girls’. Then I did A-Levels at St Joseph’s Convent, PoS. The little circle of friends I made in form one are still part of my posse. Convent also provided deep friendships.

And I never acquired a convent accent.

Were you raised in a religious faith?

I was maybe six when my cousins from England first visited Trinidad. Ma, my maternal grandmother, realised that none of her grandchildren had been christened.

“Man,” she say, “None of that!” She rounds up the seven of us and had a mass baptising in Marabella Presbyterian Church.

Do you reckon there’s an afterlife?

I don’t know about you, but I planning to live long after I dead. They have a way they could bury you now and, as you decompose, a tree grows. I want to be a yellow poui.

Do you have a favourite colour?

I have two. White and black. Nearly all my clothes start off in those colours. A good day is when I eat lunch and there is no evidence on my white T-shirt.

What do you do to relax?

Relax? You know any mother hustling to bring up two children, write a book and keep the husband sweet who have time to relax?

Do you listen to music?

Recently I tell myself I should play music rather than listen to call-in programmes and podcasts. If I’m driving long distances then is 80s hits whole road. Late evening is Abdullah Ibrahim or Miles Davis.

What would your ideal weekend be?

An ideal weekend is where I sleep hard, somebody else cook nice food and my posse call to say we bussing a beach lime. I’m an easy woman to please.

Do you read fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, biography, what?

Oh, luss. How you go ask me that when I done tell you I trying to make a career out of this writing thing? All I do is read fiction.

Okay, I lie. All I do is buy more and more fiction. My reading can’t keep up with my buying.

Only person I know who can buy plenty and read just as fast is my mother. She always complaining this or that thing hurting and she need to go in she bed. Is read she want to read.

Do you have a favourite book?

And don’t ask me about one best book. Too many to choose from.

I have several books on the go right now: Esi Edugyan’s Man Booker-shortlisted Washington Black; Sarah Hall’s new short stories, Madame Zero; Claire Adam’s novel out soon – Golden Child (she’s a Trini too); David Hajdu’s Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn; and Whatever Happened to Interracial Love by Kathleen Collins.

Do you have a favourite writer?

You want to get me in trouble? If I say (VS) Naipaul, people go bawl he’s a traitor and a misogynist. If I say (Sam) Selvon, people will want to know if I don’t read all the new talent around.

If I say Paul Auster, Don DeLillo and Colm Toibin they go say I does only read old white men.

Nah. I not answering this one.

Do you prefer going to the cinema or watching a movie at home?

I like a cinema lime with the popcorn and the big screen and listening to the audience reactions.

Blackkklansman was powerful but what stayed with me was the complete, horrified silence when the film ended.

I first saw my favourite film decades ago with a group of friends. Every man jack fell asleep during Babette’s Feast.

But me? I fell in love.

If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, health and weight considerations dismissed, what would it be?

True talk: if I am home alone writing, is cereal and milk for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

But in your fantasy scenario, my friend Elena would provide a constant supply of her warm, homemade bread which I would nyam down smothered in fresh salted butter.

What makes you miserable?

Writing.

What cheers you up?

Writing.

What keeps you awake at night?

My father never let anything worry him and everybody in Marabella thought that would mean he would live to 100. But he-man dead before he reach 75.

So now I’m worried that whether you worry or you don’t worry you might still not have a long life.

Did you ever hit anyone in anger?

When my boys were between 11 and 16, I am sure I tried to give them a lash or two in anger. What I am less clear about is if the blows landed, because I am a short woman and them children have height.

What is The Sweet Sop about?

It is about an estranged father and son getting to know each other through sharing chocolate. I’m not saying more than that. A Trini gone and win a big prize and all you want an executive summary? Man, go to https://granta.com/the-sweet-sop/ and read the thing. It will take you ten to 15 minutes.

Would you resent it if, either now or in the future, you were regarded as a short-story writer only?

Not at all. I am happy-happy simply to be a writer.

Did you, after reading the other contenders, feel you were in with a good chance for the final prize?

I was sure-sure I had a one-in-five chance of winning. You don’t get good odds like that with Play Whe.