Tawhida Tanya Evanson explores the power of emotions in the Canada Reads longlisted-novel Book of Wings
CBC Books | | Posted: January 24, 2022 2:14 PM | Last Updated: February 28, 2022
Book of Wings is on the Canada Reads 2022 longlist
Tawhida Tanya Evanson is an Antiguan Québecois author, poet and multidisciplinary artist. In 2013, she was Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word and received the Golden Beret Award. She is the author of the poetry collections Nouveau Griot and Bothism.
Her debut novel, Book of Wings, is on the Canada Reads 2022 longlist. The panellists and the books they choose to champion will be revealed on Jan. 26, 2022. The debates will take place March 28-31, 2022.
Book of Wings follows an artist on a global journey with her lover, from Canada to the Caribbean to Paris, Morocco and beyond. Along the way, their relationship falls apart, but the artist finds herself on a path of personal and spiritual fulfillment that leads into the North African landscape.
Evanson spoke with CBC Books about writing her debut novel.
Cultural exchanges
"Book of Wings is a journey of travel in the outer world — and also in the inner world. It's about how we can learn from experiences in the world when we're out in other countries. When we're interacting with other cultures, it is about what we learn about ourselves — and who we are meant to become — whether we realize it or not at the time. We are taking what perhaps might appear to be negative experiences and seeing them transform into positive experiences.
Book of Wings is a journey of travel in the outer world — and also in the inner world.
"That's what art allows us to do — it gives us some distance — and that's what this book is doing. It's showing the transformation of things that may seem negative at first.
"But in fact, is there such a thing as negative and positive, particularly when the transformation that is there enriches not only that person, but the people around them."
Getting comfortable with getting personal
"The majority of the book was written, maybe 50 per cent, in 2001 and 2002. I'd been sitting on the manuscript for 20 years. It's one of those things where as a writer, you're always working on something at some level, either at the level of research, conception or editing or promotion.
So even though the novel is a fictional and a fictionalized version of true events, I sat on it for a long time.
"And so it was written, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. I couldn't see how the stories linked, why the stories even needed to be told and how they should be told. And a lot of the text was very personal and a bit embarrassing for me. It is based on true events that have been mythologized.
"So even though it's fictional and a fictionalized version of true events, I sat on it for a long time. I perhaps didn't have the maturity to kind of see it clearly for what it was or what it could be."
From poetry to fiction
"A lot of poetry is also very narrative and tells a story, sometimes. So this was just an elongation of that kind of style, which is how can you expand every single aspect, all of the senses, all the interactions that take place through dialogue and the actual action of moving around, which is what the main character does.
"The main character moves around continents, three continents. And who she interacts with, how she interacts with them and what those interactions mean as individual moments and also for the arc of the story.
"It took me 20 years to figure that out, said the poet!
Poets like concentrated language, but prose likes things to be explicit, not always implicit.
"Working with an editor who has a lot of experience in prose and fiction, to ask the right questions to get me to open up all the passages that stay more concentrated, helped me a lot. Poets like concentrated language, but prose likes things to be explicit, not always implicit. So working with an editor helped a lot."
LISTEN | Tawhida Tanya Evanson on All in a Weekend
Feeling the musical energy
"I'm a full-time artist, so I have an arts practice that I do every day. I have a dedicated room at home for work, for writing, for music and for spoken word practice. And I wrote every day from nine to nine — nine a.m. to nine p.m. Sometimes I didn't eat. I just went fully into it and I work on the computer. A lot of the original manuscript was written longhand and then transferred and then transformed on the machine.
I used music to help me focus and to also give rhythm and frequency and flow.
"And I listen to music. So in fact, the book has a soundtrack. It has three albums. The first section has one album, Amak-ı Hayal by Yakaza Ensemble. And the second part is Alice Coltrane, and the last part is Charlie Parker. So each section of the book I wrote while listening to those three albums on repeat. I think music helps us focus a lot, whether we're exercising or doing some kind of repetitive work.
"Music is really useful for us. So in this case, I used music to help me focus and to also give rhythm and frequency and flow. So the way the songs move, is how the text moves and how the text is read. So in fact, you should be able to listen to those albums while reading the book and the flow should be equal."
The power of emotion
"In the end, the lesson is not to get stuck. Grief, sorrow, sadness, even anger — these are all powerful emotions. But they lose their power if we get stuck in them or their power can be destructive for the person experiencing them or the people around them.
"But if they can be transformed, then it's just an energy transfer. I always think of something like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The acronym is MADD. Well yeah, they're mad. They're mad and they're angry and also sad. But they transform that energy into something that is useful for others.
I hope that the book shows that emotions are powerful, especially the ones that bring us down.
"I hope that the book shows that emotions are powerful, especially the ones that bring us down. But if we stay stuck there, then we're of use to no one. So finding ways to transform our grief or our anger, I'd like to think is what the artist will display, will offer the world.
"Here's what transformation looks like."
Tawhida Tanya Evanson comments have been edited for length and clarity.