A CONVERSATION: AMMAR KALIA

"I’m always drawn to the ways we fail to communicate with the people we know the best."

I first met Ammar when we did an event together at Waterstones Trafalgar Square last year. Based in London, he’s the Guardian’s Global Music Critic, and has also written for the Observer, Downbeat and Crack. He published a collection of poetry and an accompanying album, Kintsugi: Jazz Poems for Musicians Alive And Dead, in 2020, and his debut novel, A Person Is A Prayer (Oldcastle Books), was published in May 2024. In the first of a new series of conversations for Mutual Slump, we spoke about the bipolar nature of writing, music, writing as empathy, and difficult second album syndrome. ALSO, I asked Ammar to put together a mix of music conducive to creative flow, and he graciously agreed. You can listen to the mix on Mixcloud, or listen as a playlist on Spotify. The paperback edition of A Person Is A Prayer is published on 20th March - pre-order it now.

ALSO, if you feel inclined to and haven’t done so yet, you can get the new paperback edition of I’m New Here from your favourite local indie, or order online here.

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Ian Russell-Hsieh: How’s it being back in India?

Ammar Kalia: It’s always full-on. There’s the lingering homecoming sensation I feel every time I get off the plane and smell that sandalwood dust that seems to stick to your skin here, as well as feeling at home surrounded by brown faces – people I feel like I could know. I also immediately feel othered every time I arrive, thanks to my wealth in the face of much of the country’s poverty, my speech, my weak stomach and much more.

I was here last in 2019 to spread my grandmother’s ashes (a trip that formed the basis for much of my novel A Person Is A Prayer), and it’s been nice to come back now without a mission. I’m here for my step-brother’s wedding and for a little holiday. I’ve been trying to sink into the full-on-ness of it all, which mainly means not being afraid to step out into the busy traffic to cross the road, shedding my British need for “sorrys” and “thank yous”, and consuming vast quantities of Gaviscon. I think I’m starting to form my own relationship with the country, outside of my parents’ complex longing for it, and I’m looking forward to coming back and carrying on in the future.

I’m interested in you being a dad and sharing Taiwan with your kids – is that something you’ve done already?

IRH: The dichotomy of homecoming and otherness is intriguing. I used to go back to Taiwan every year until I was thirteen, and I never had that homecoming feeling, despite an always warm welcome by my family. Just a strong sense that I was a foreigner. A lot of that’s to do with growing up in a white town in the Midlands, but it's a language thing too; I only speak basic Taiwanese, and Mandarin is the official language there. So there was always this barrier, not being able to communicate how I wanted to.

My kids desperately want to visit Taiwan. It's not something we've been able to do yet. My wife's never been either, and I have this incredible excitement for not only them, but for me too; I've never experienced the country as an adult with independent interests, without being dragged around by aunties. I have this overwhelming memory of department stores and riding around on the backs of scooters and drinking bottles and bottles of Yakult. What ideas are preoccupying you right now, and how's the new novel going?

AK: My writing seems to be veering from exhilarating and fun to torturous and stressful. The first book came through me with its own force and this next one sometimes strays into difficult second album territory. On the positive side, it’s nice to try and explore my process further, as well as home in on new topics and settings that are totally unfamiliar to me, like duty free and care homes. It’s a book about the tension between duty and care. I’m also interested in the idea of people returning. My first book was preoccupied with death and the finality of loss but I suppose this next one is looking at what happens to people when someone they love leaves – and then decides (or is forced) to come back. Is something irretrievably lost in the process?

IRH: Exhilarating and fun to torturous and stressful – that encapsulates the act of writing so perfectly. Can you elaborate on “difficult second album territory”? You’re returning to familial relationships in your second book which I love – is there something about family that you find particularly compelling to write about? Do you feel like you're a writer of family stories in the way that, say, Jonathan Franzen is? Or is that a pigeonholing that you'd rather not engage with?

AK: I’m usually having the most fun when I’m in the freeflow of it all and most tortured when I’m second-guessing myself and my abilities. The difficult second album thing comes when I over-analyse the direction I’m going in with the writing or whether the reader will be entertained or interested. Those are moments where the why can get too loud and I need to learn to trust my own instincts better.

At the moment I’m a writer who is interested in ideas of identity, community and family – I’m always drawn to the ways we fail to communicate with the people we know the best, and I’m fascinated by how we can bridge that gap. Aside from any genre or writer comparisons (although I’ll take Franzen as a touchstone all day), I just see the act of writing as one of empathy, and I’m constantly trying to pursue feeling in stories. How can I make the reader feel something is a question I ask a lot more than how can I experiment with form or technical ability. What ideas are you exploring for the second book, or what is interesting you most right now?

I’m a writer who is interested in ideas of identity, community and family – I’m always drawn to the ways we fail to communicate with the people we know the best, and I’m fascinated by how we can bridge that gap. - Ammar Kalia

IRH: It's hard, trying to get into that free state of mind that's not critical or burdened with anxiety. I've heard it described as “the monkey mind”. There's an unconscious at play when writing fiction, something that I'm always chasing because the work always feels more raw, and true, and fearless. I suppose these things we’re talking about are one and the same. How do you enter that state of mind?

I guess by necessity we have to think about technique, form and structure as well as feeling, but some of those invariably take on more importance depending on the writer. I'm fascinated by form, rhythm too, and how a particular form – even from the aesthetics of it before you start reading, to experiencing how a sentence is constructed – can do so much heavy lifting. What would you say is influencing and inspiring your second novel?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about masculinity and loneliness and money and marriage and family. What constitutes a good person? What makes one person better than another?

AK: Accessing the unconscious is definitely an important skill when it comes to my writing. I think music is the best thing that can get me there and I’m a big fan of picking tracks and artists that might fit the mood or character I’m writing about to get me into the right headspace. The mix I’ve made to go along with this interview is full of choice tracks that I’ve been using for book two.

When it comes to inspirations for the second book, I’ve been drawing on books like Alan Hollinghurst’s Line of Beauty, Zadie Smith’s NW and most recently Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, as well as Kelly Moran’s Moves in the Field record. They all move and inspire me in different ways.

Are you someone who believes they have to draw on elements of personal experience to write? Do you have to go out into the world and live in order to put it on the page? Or do you think a good writer should be able to make it all up?

IRH: I wondered how long it would take for us to start talking about music. You're a drummer – does music performance feed into your writing?

I was struggling with the sophomore slump a few weeks ago. To a crippling extent, actually. When you feel yourself over-analysing your work, how do you pull it back? Can you pull it back?

Writing is intensely personal for me. For better or worse, I think I am one of those writers who draws on personal experience to write. Maybe that's reductive – I think I need to engage certain aspects of my experience, or things that scare me or make me feel shame or anger or ecstasy, for the writing to be honest. That's what I'm always hunting for. Someone like Knausgård pushes that to the extremes. But I think good fiction writers should have a strong imagination and be able to make incredible worlds come to life. How about you?

AK: When I’m playing the drums, either alone while practising or with a group, I’m always amazed by how easy it is to make a sound. I lower my arm or foot, hit the skin of the drum and I’m suddenly making music. Yet when it comes to writing, I sometimes find myself staring at the blank page for what feels like hours, writing words and then deleting them, stopping and stalling. There is no deleting in live music, it’s all forward motion, which can be incredibly liberating and instinctive. I’d like to channel more of that feeling in my writing, to be more free and open rather than willing to look back and correct myself. There is beauty in honing and crafting a single sentence, but there is also joy in smashing out a five-minute song on the drums, mistakes and all.

To be honest, I’m in a bit of a slump right now, over-analysing pieces and feeling pressure to produce when nothing is coming at all. In these moments I think it’s best to just honour that feeling and step away for as long as it takes – go for a walk, do something else, find a little space and then come back to it when it feels less laden.

When I was writing my first book there was a period where I just couldn’t look at it for six months, which felt crazy at the time but actually helped give me a lot of clarity when I managed to come back to it. The more I write, the more I see it as an act of empathy – the ability of sitting in someone’s feelings and stepping into their world – and I don’t know how I can understand these feelings without having lived them myself in some capacity. So I definitely draw on my own experiences when I’m writing, as well as using imagination to push it further into the characterisations I need. It’s important to live, otherwise the writing will have no life in it. ☯︎