Award-winning author Rawi Hage is the new Writer in Residence in the English department at SFU. He recently finished a year-long residency with the Vancouver Public Library (VPL), which he says “was great because [he] was dealing with the public.
“It will be different [here], where it’s mostly graduates or students,” Hage says, “but because [the VPL is] open to the public, you get the whole spectrum. From the homeless guy who does some writing to the academic, the spectrum of people who aspire to writing is very very wide, so you get a broad view.”
These types of chance meetings seem to shape Hage’s writing — working as a taxi driver provided ample fodder for his latest novel, Carnival.
Having lived in several countries over the years, Hage has seen a broad array of people and events. Growing up in Beirut and Cyprus, he lived through the Lebanese civil war with his family, and his debut novel De Niro’s Game was deeply influenced by these experiences.
“[It] was inspired by living through the war,” says Hage, “I use experiential as a starting point usually. I find something that I have experienced, but then the book often takes different tangents.” Published in 2006, De Niro’s Game was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
His second book, Cockroach, was written from the perspective of an immigrant in Montreal, which is where Hage established his Canadian roots. After leaving Lebanon, he arrived in New York in the late 80s, and experienced loneliness, lousy jobs, and overt racism.
However, he did perfect his English and discovered he had a talent for photography. Hage moved to Canada in 1992 to study photography and visual art at Concordia and was encouraged to settle in Quebec because he is fluent in French (English is his third language after Arabic and French).
Although reading had always been a big part of his life — his Jesuit-trained father was well read and their home was full of books — he happened on writing in an unplanned manner, similar to his discovery of photography. While writing notes for a photography exhibit, the curator was impressed by his story telling, and encouraged Hage to explore writing fiction.
“I started writing short stories, and they kept growing, they became novels,” Hage explains. He submitted a manuscript to House of Anansi Press, “and it was picked up from the slush pile,” which is a rare occurrence.
Now living in Vancouver, Hage is working on his fourth novel. But don’t ask for any details: “I don’t talk about it,” he states bluntly. But he does say that being a full-time writer is frequently a question of finding time to write.
“I like to write in the morning. No conversation, a lot of coffee, and a laptop. That’s all. Geography is irrelevant,” Hage states. “I can’t write in cafes or with loud music or if someone is constantly opening the fridge. I require that [quiet], so the magical time is maybe 5 o’clock in the morning — I’m an early riser,” he laughs.
As the Writer in Residence at SFU, Hage will work on his secretive fourth book as well as mentor students.
“My priority is to work on my book, and that is part of the deal of the residency. About 70 to 75 per cent of my time should be concentrated on my own work. The rest of the time, I’m meeting with students. Eventually I will probably organize a public reading event, or something like that.”
Students can send Hage writing samples and make an appointment to meet him in person at SFU. For more details, see the Department of English website: sfu.ca/english/writer-in-residence
