Hope at the heart of loss

The internet throws up a million answers when you search for Christos Tsiolkas, but nothing comes close to your opinion of the man himself. He is unapologetically funny. He is an emotional sucker when it comes to family. However, when he begins writing, he is more of a storyteller with an incredible zest to incorporate answers to life lessons.

For this Australian author, who was also long listed for the Man Booker prize, writing began as a fantasy but it evolved into a quest for life over the years. His writing career that spans close to 23 years surprisingly kicked off with the idea that he would try his luck for five years and quit. “My mother was quite cross when I told her that I wanted to be a writer.

I guess, my parents imagined a life of poverty,” chuckles the author, who says that writing was something that was ingrained in him quite early on. “I was a voracious reader. Every pay day, my father would make it a point to get me two books. Apart from that, I had a school teacher who introduced me to classics early on,” shares the boy who grew up enjoying the works of Dickens, Blyton, Lewis and many others.

However, it was during his stint as a film archivist, that the dream of becoming a writer kept recurring. “I knew it would haunt me if I did not pursue it. It was an unfulfilled dream. So, I thought I would give myself five years to write but I ended up writing for the larger part of my life,” he adds.

Having won awards like the Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Melbourne Best Writing Award, authored an international best-seller, Christos has been highly regarded for his literary career by stalwarts. In one of the interviews, Martin Shaw opines “...there is not a more important writer working in Australia today.”

Even the topics around which his books revolve are thought-provoking. He says, “I began writing as a way to raise my voice, open up on my dark emotions, spill my anger and more. My first three novels revolved around the loss of spirituality, loss of political faith and loss in oneself. It is heartbreaking when you lose faith and I wanted to portray that. I was consciously picking up stories from my life, while also trying to drop the autobiographical elements.”

From his debut novel Loaded in 1995 till the recent Barracuda, every plot spins around sensitive issues of sexuality, child assault, family conflicts and glorification of sport and the hidden imagery behind it. There is so much negativity and anger when it comes to his style, but in Barracuda, Christos justifies that he was trying to bring in the message of hope. “As all my books had shades of black and grey, I wanted to explore other colours. I intentionally did not want to close the book with a horrific act,” he says.

Along with the awards, his books have been made into critically acclaimed movies. Prod him and he says, “You need to trust your director. Give him your book and walk away. I was lucky to find the best of directors. Of course books need to be rethought about when scripted into movies, it is not rewriting it — so they do differ.”

Christos cannot stop gushing about his trip to India. “I feel at home here. Greece and India go hand-in-hand, when it comes to traditions. As a person who is steeped in family values, India offers solace. I can feel the push of modernity and the pull of tradition here and how they beautifully entangle,” he shares.

On meeting fellow authors at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Christos says that it was an eye-opener. “I was astonished by how people were writing about subjects and topics which weren’t necessarily English. When we talk about multi-culturalism world over, we tend to take for granted this country which has practiced it for ages,” shares Christos.

He shares that his favourite author is Rushdie and that he enjoyed Midnight’s Children immensely and he thought it was “enormously influential.” We would think the same of an interview with Christos.