Ameera Patel is an award-winning playwright, poet and actor, well-known for her role as Dr Chetty in the TV series Generations. Her debut novel, Outside the Lines, has just been launched by Modjaji, so we asked her to share some of her thoughts on using colour, multiple characters and different creative pursuits to craft a tangled family drama.
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Outside the Lines features characters of different ages, racial groups, social classes and cultures. These disparities impair their relationships with each other, cause them to clash, and determine the outcomes of their stories. What inspired this multifaceted drama?
For me, Johannesburg, like many other big cities, is filled with multiple narratives that are continuous and overlapping. I wanted the novel to explore some of the different voices that speak to the city. When I started to write the novel, I had many more characters in mind but, as in life, only the strongest survived. The idea of sitting inside multiple characters, as an actress, also felt like a treat too delicious to pass up.
You’re an actress, a playwright and a poet; what have those creative pursuits brought to the novel? I noticed, for example, that the epigraphs form poems about the main characters …
I like to think that all my creative pursuits lead back to a common thread of storytelling. Each of the forms that I work within undoubtedly helped to feed the novel, as all of our pasts affect our present and future. As an actor, I enjoy putting myself into other people’s shoes and trying to feel their textures and possible journeys. I think that this allowed me to be fluid in the writing process, allowing characters to shift away from my initial intended structure and into new and often more interesting situations. The epigraphs are definitely little poetic clues into each character and their chapters. And I think that with writing in general, the more you do the better you become. Writing plays and television has helped me to better understand dialogue, while poetry helps with the unpacking of distilled moments.
As the title suggests, colour is a theme, and Runyararo, who starts the story as a painter, tells us that ‘Colour speaks of character, colour is imperative.’ This is certainly true in terms of skin colour: racial identity affects all the major characters. How else is colour imperative to them?
Colour is also probably most significant to Runyararo and Flora. They both see the world in bright colours. Flora’s chapters often detail her clothing choice, which is picked up on in Runyararo’s chapters where he notices her. I used this to show their compatibility. In opposition to them, there is Cathleen. She is often shown as drained in colour, with colour being a life source that she lacks.
The title and the cover art both suggest the idea of ‘painting’ or ‘colouring outside the lines’ but for me this is more about the characters shifting away from their stereotypes and spilling over the mould than colour in a literal sense.
The story shows parents – or parental figures – and their children struggling to find their way around each other. Where do they all go so wrong?
I think the biggest issue with the parents in the novel is that they don’t know their children and don’t seem to make an effort to know them either. There are different types of parents shown in the novel, from Frank who is Cathleen’s relatively absent father, to Farhana’s Uncle, who has more of a dictatorial style, to Flora who mothers her own son Zilindile quite differently to the way she mothers Cathleen and James. None of the situations provide a space where the children are empowered to speak freely and be heard.
The plot is driven by failure: the characters fail to communicate with each other, deal with their problems, make the lives they want for themselves or be the people they want to be. Nevertheless, it’s an easy, engaging read. As an author, what’s your approach for dealing with heavy issues in such a disarming way?
I think that I’m lucky in that I have quite a dark sense of humour, which I use to cut through some of the heaviness. Multiple characters also meant that I could move swiftly from a weighted moment to one of lightness in a matter of pages.
Thank you for your time Ameera!
Interview by Lauren Smith
Book details
- Outside the Lines by Ameera Patel
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EAN: 9781928215127
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