Celeste Mohammed, Trinidadian writer

We European people are quite European-centric on a cultural point of view, which, of course is a limit. For this reason, I enjoy reading literature from far countries, because it gets me in touch with different sensitivities. And this is what I experienced reading Pleasantview by Trinidadian writer Celeste Mohammed.

The first thing I learnt, in the introduction of the book, was that you Trinidadian are natural storyteller. I imagine this applies to you, as well…

Yes, it is true. I live in Trinidad and Tobago and we are natural storytellers, all of us. If a Trinidadian tries to tell you a story, it is going to be very entertaining because our language is so colorful, and the descriptions we use, even the rhythm of how we speak is so interesting to be heard by a foreigner. So, yes, we are natural storytellers.

And how about you? This is your first novel and you used to be a lawyer, so it is a big change. How did it happen?

Well, I always wanted to be a writer, since I was a little girl. But my parents wanted me to do something that would bring money. So, in terms of education, I did what they wanted me to do and I became a lawyer. I practiced for ten years as a lawyer and then one day I realized that I had done what everyone wanted me to do and I just decided to do what I wanted to do. So, I took a break from law and I did a master program in creative writing. My book Pleasantview is written during that time.

How would you introduce Pleasantview to someone that has not read it?

It is a collection of nine short stories. I call it “a novel in stories” because if you read them in the order I gave in the book, you are going to come with the feeling that you have read a novel. The point of the book for me was that non-Caribbean people tend to have a view of the Caribbean that is all about sun, sea, having a good time, which is a tourist point of view. I wanted to invite you off the resorts and to put you in the street and to take you to a normal town where I let you walk around and meet some people.

It definitely works because you really can meet these people, primarily thanks to the language that reflects the conditions and social status of the characters. I found this aspect really interesting because it gives you an immersive point of view.

Yes, I am glad to hear that because this was what I really wanted to achieve. You are so immerse in the places, in the language. I thought that maybe in the first story it would have been difficult, but as you follow with the other stories, it becomes so easy that you just flow.

Your book is a picture of Trinidadian society. But none of the characters is 100% positive, so the impression is that the whole situation looks quite hopeless. So, is this picture true or, being fiction, you wanted to focus more on these aspects that certainly work best on a narrative point of view?

I feel everybody in the world know the positives of Trinidad, which are the ones we just mentioned, the climate, the environment, these obvious things. Trinidad is a very beautiful place, we are very musical people, we do Carnival every year. But when you live here, I wanted to give a taste of what is like to wake up every day and hear news that reflect the reality of everyday life. So I always invite readers, if you do not believe me, go online and read the newspapers. The first audience that I had in my mind, at least when I was writing Pleasantview, was my fellow Trinis. It’s like writing to them and kind of asking the questions “Is this how we really want to continue living? Can we individually do something different?”. And then, wherever you live in the world, it is never all good or all bad, just like my characters, you love them or you hate them.

Regarding the characters, who is the one you love the most and why?

The character I love the most is Ivy. Ivy is a very typical sort of Trinidadian woman, we have a name for them, tanties, from the French word for aunt. Every village has at least one tantie. She is old enough that she can say what she really thinks and I actually can’t wait to become a tantie.

Coming back to storytelling, I have learnt from your book that calypso is a music that comes from storytelling.

As I said, we are very musical people. Calypso developed in the age of slavery. It wasn’t always danceable music, but it developed as a way for the slaves to communicate, to spread gossip, to make fun of their masters. I wanted to put it in the book, so in one of the stories you have that singing, in Santimanitay.

Pleasantview has won a lot of prizes, so I am really honored to be interviewing a rising star of the Caribbean literature panorama. You also travel a lot to promote your book. You have already said that you have taken a break from your job as a lawyer to be a full time writer. How has your life changed with your new occupation?

I am still licensed to practice law, if I want, and sometimes I do for friends and family, but mostly I write and I am a Mum. When I was doing my master in creative writing I had a baby, so now I have two new careers, writer and Mum. For a while it was very hard, for somebody who was always independent, financially and in other ways, to be somebody who is just at home and not so independent. This was last year. But this year, with the book coming out and getting all these prizes and getting all this attention and people appreciating it so much, it made all the previous year worthwhile. My life has changed, because, just to give you an example, yesterday I had some family here from the US, so we went to brunch to a nice hotel and, while I was there, two ladies came up to me and said “Hello. We are so sorry to be fan girls, but we wanted to come and say hello and to tell you how much we loved the book”. This happens sometimes because we are in an island and people can recognize you, so I have always to be on my best behavior.

And how do you manage your job as a Mum with all the travelling around?

I have been very blessed that my daughter is so comfortable with my husband and my Mum. If there are three people in her life that mean everything for her, these people are me, her father and her grandmother and as long as two of us are here, it doesn’t matter which who.

As a full time writer, I imagine that you are already working on some new stuff. Can you tell us something?

I have already written two children’s books. Being a Mum, you read a lot of children’s books, so I wrote two of those and they are supposed to be coming out maybe next year. As always, I tried to write about my country and aspects of my country that people may not know so much about. For example, everybody knows the steeldrums, but there is a story behind them. So, the first book is about the inventor of the steeldrums. The second book is about the fact that in Trinidad we have the largest or the second largest naturally occurring lake of asphalt. So our asphalt is dug out of the ground and shipped all over the world to pave the roads. How it was discovered dates back from the 1500 when a British pirate, sir Francis Drake, came here and his ships were leaking, so he used some of this asphalt to fix them. So this is the story of the second book.

And how about adult’s books?

I am trying to wrap up with my next adults’ book, which is similar to Pleasantview, in the sense that is a bunch of short stories that are connected, but it’s different because Pleasantview talks about a place, whereas this new book will be about a family through several generations, a sort of family saga.

Of course I can’t wait to read it and to enjoy it while learning a lot of new information about Trinidadian culture.