Hamilton alumna Kamila Shamsie '94 read excerpts from her award-winning book, Kartography, as well as some passages from her forthcoming novel, currently titled Echo, to a large, attentive crowd in the Fillius Events Barn on September 24. The lecture was sponsored by the Hamilton College English Department.
Both Professor Tina Hall, as well as English department chair and Professor Nat Strout introduced Shamsie, describing her writing as having particular emphasis on language and poetry; Strout added that she went above and beyond in her writing as a student at Hamilton College.
Beginning with excerpts from her novel, Kartography, Shamsie briefly explained the plot of the novel, a story of two friends whose parents were in love with one another. At first, this brings the two friends together; eventually, this leads to feelings of animosity between the two characters. She began by describing the two characters, the narrator and his friend, a young boy who hates geography but ironically plans to become a map-maker, and moved on to a point in the novel where the narrator's friend moves away because of the massive ethnic violence occurring in Pakistan during this era, the late 1980's.
Shamsie then explained that the last time she read at Hamilton, Kartography was still a work in progress. However, she read excerpts of it, and this time read passages from her upcoming novel. It is the story of a 31-year-old woman, finally out on her own, trying to make it in the world of television in Pakistan, the country recently undergoing a cable television revolution where private companies and not the government control television stations and programs.
After presenting a passionate reading of her work, emphasizing both the great wit and humor in her writing as well as the politically and socially charged drama, Shamsie then opened the room up to questions. She admitted that although her writing focuses on vocabulary and word-choice, she does not formally write much poetry. However, the author claimed to only read poetry while writing her own fiction. Similar questions were asked regarding how she deals with the leniency an occupation such as writing has, as well as how she disciplines herself while writing a novel. Shamsie also addressed how she deals with writing to two different cultural audiences in her native Pakistan and the United States. Her answer: she simply does not think about it; she articulated that one cannot think about different cultures while writing, and must think simply about the novel itself, because although a book may take place in one specific area, it will be published in many countries and in many languages. Therefore, according to Shamsie, one cannot consider culture while writing.
She was born in 1973 in Pakistan. Her first novel, In the City by the Sea, was shortlisted for the John Llewelyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize, and her second, Salt and Saffron, won her a place on the Orange Prize Futures list of "21 writers for the 21st century." In 1999 she received the Award for Literature in Pakistan. She has an undergraduate degree in creative writing from Hamilton, and a MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She lives in London and Karachi, and serves as Visiting Professor of English at Hamilton College.
This story was written by Emily Lemanczyk '05
