This is an extraordinarily special episode of BOOKSPO with which to close out Season 4, and not just because it features parrots (!), but also because it offers a glimpse into the incredible workings of Shani Mootoo’s mind and her artistic process. It’s a process so entirely different from mine—Mootoo begins our conversation by explaining that she doesn’t really do “bookspo,” that her books have never been inspired by other books. But then upon thinking on it more (the depths of Mootoo’s thoughtfulness are one of my favourite things about her), she realized that Halldór Laxness’s 1934 novel Independent People might possibly qualify as a BOOKSPO pick, that in reading his story, she almost became its characters, its setting, which was the same kind of effect she aspired to achieve with her own work.
And oh, does Mootoo ever succeed at this. I read Starry Starry Night months ago, but I still have such a visceral sense of what it is to be her protagonist, Anju, to feel what she feels, to see what she sees as she grows up in 1960s’ Trinidad. Mootoo explains that this is the novel she has been training to write for her entire career, the one that she wasn’t ready to write or to share with the world until now.
From celebrated writer Shani Mootoo comes an innovative and revelatory work of autofiction about family secrets, trauma, race, class, and loss.
In Starry Starry Night, Mootoo gives us the singular voice of Anju Ghoshal, a young girl living in 1960s Trinidad. Through Anju’s innocent and clear-eyed observations, the reader becomes both a witness to and a participant in her negotiations of an unexpectedly new and complex life, spanning from the ages of four to twelve.
Set against the backdrop of a politically exciting time in Trinidad’s history, just before and after it gained independence, we meet Anju’s beloved Ma and Pa and her socially advancing family. While preoccupied with their own dramas, the adults around her often fail to recognize the needs of the children who depend on them.
Beautifully crafted and rich with sumptuous detail, this unique narrative coalesces into a portrait of a child who, despite her privileged appearance, must ultimately fend for herself because her safety depends on it.
SHANI MOOTOO is the author of six novels, three collections of poetry, and one short story collection. She is a four-time Giller Prize nominee, and her work has been long and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Lambda Literary Prize, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has been awarded the Doctor of Letters honoris causa degree from Western University, is a recipient of Lambda Literary's James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award, and Library and Archives Canada Scholar Award. Mootoo was born in Ireland, raised in Trinidad, and lives in Southern Ontario, Canada.
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