MATT WHYMAN
 This is an edited version of a live web chat which took place on EnCompass on 19th October 2005 between young readers groups in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with novelist Matt Whyman. Members of the group had been reading Matt's book The Wild, set in Kazakhstan and Moscow. You can find out more about Matt and his work at www.mattwhyman.com or read the text of the full chat.
Susan Tranter: Welcome Matt.
MW: Hello everybody.
Mha: Are all your books fiction or do they have some connection to your life?
MW: Both The Wild and Boy Kills Man are fiction and yet, as you know, they concern real places and real events. So, they aren't really connected with my life as such. I prefer to write about places as disconnected from my own experience as possible.
AboutYou UzTEA: What made you write The Wild?
MW: Well, it's the follow up to Boy Kills Man – which is about young people living in an environment that offers little hope. This interests me, because at that age it doesn't matter what horrors life throws at you, you simply take what comes and do your very best – which brings out the human spirit, I think. The Aral Sea, to my mind, is such a place, and in the west our awareness of the region is not good. So, I thought it was high time we shone a light on the issue.
Center of Intellectual Youth: I thought you visited Central Asia, didn’t you?
MW: I confess that I didn't. I did try to get to Aral but ended up getting as far as an email conversation with an ostrich farmer called Proud Mary who wanted cash money to get me into the region and so my wife forbid me! I also chose not to go for artistic reasons. As with Boy Kills Man, my focus is on the characters and their story, and I worried that if I visited the region, I'd end up writing a travelogue. So, this way, I keep the location descriptions to a minimum and allow readers to fill in the gaps with their imagination. I do check my facts, however – and wouldn't publish a book if I thought I had misrepresented a place.
Bahit: Matt, it's amazing but your story looks very realistic and similar to what happens there – I means not environment matters, but the problems.
MW: I am very flattered and honoured that people who know the region feel it is accurate. I do spend a great deal of time, at home, getting a feel for the place. I was in Sweden on a book tour two weeks ago and was interviewed by a journalist who had lived there for a decade. He actually got quite cross when I told him I hadn't left England. He just assumed I had lived there.
Altynay: What did you know about Kazakhstan before you began to write The Wild?
MW: I knew very little about Aral before I began The Wild but I researched for months before putting pen to paper. I also used a little artistic licence with the siting of the Baikonur Cosmodrome and sort of compressed it in with Aral, simply because it served the story well.
Dmitriy: Matt was it difficult to you to write about places you have never been?
MW: Dmitriy - yes and no. It's horribly easy to make mistakes, and so it's a slow process. I spent a great deal of time hunting down images and facts online. Until I felt like I lived there in my mind!
Diana Zhadyra: do you think the Aral sea problem influences our region but the whole world too?
MW: I think what's happened to Aral sums up what could happen the world over. It is a man-made calamity but I'm afraid here in the west we are like ostriches – we just don't want to know. Which is wrong.
Diana Zhadyra: I agree with you.
Mha: From whom did you find out the word ‘Ket kirpai’? And what does it mean? Because we dunno this word in our language
MW: Oh dear! I found it very hard to find Kazakh words that had been Anglicized. I think I found it in an online dictionary of swearing!! I'll make sure it's amended for the reprints.
Diana Zhadyra: Matt, why Russian characters?
MW: Because I wasn't sure that I could get away with publishing a book in the UK that was set in a region that most young people have never heard about. I also felt somehow the characters have to be removed from their own environment and thrown into a different kind of wild – an urban wild.
Book Eaters World Languages University: Why was the end of your book so cruel?
MW: I don't think the ending is cruel. I always knew what was going to happen right from the start. Alexi may have lost everything but he leaves Moscow with his head held high, having put his heart and soul into trying to save his brother. Again, I wanted this story to be about the enduring strength of the human spirit. The Wild is also about place and identity, and how one influences the other. Aral might be portrayed by me as a grim and hostile place, but the boys know how to survive there. It's only when they venture elsewhere, to the city, that they find themselves faced with a different kind of wild. Hence the title, I should say.
Mha: Matt why are we (teenagers) the issue of your books?
MW: Teens are the focus of my books because teens never give up hope. Boy Kills Man also concerns itself with a 12 year old boy who is basically a multiple killer, but portrayed with great sympathy for his situation.
Readers Club British Council Uzbekistan: Matt, I personally couldn’t read Boy Kills Man - I tried several times - but it's just too hard. The Wild is a bit softer - I'm glad I finished reading it.
MW: I'm glad you gave it a try. In Sweden, I made headlines as THE CHILD SCARER!
Mha: So, Matt, what is your favourite book you have written?
MW: I am genuinely fond of The Wild and Boy Kills Man. I think of them more as paintings than stories. There is a movie in production for Boy Kills Man but I have nothing to do with it – deliberately. Because with the books I have feel I have done my level best.
Center of Intellectual Youth: What did you feel when creating this story?
MW: Good question. I felt very sombre, and listened to music that matched. Strangely, I enjoyed feeling that way, because it suited the mood of the book. But on finishing I did feel the need to lighten up a bit!
Book Eaters World Languages University: Why do you think that only teenagers don’t give up?
MW: Kids don't give up because of that strange mix of optimism / naivety. At that age, you want to make your mark on the world. In your 20s/30s, I think cynicism kicks in. Earlier this year I visited Uganda, as part of the Make Poverty History campaign. I met a 13 year old refugee girl who had witnessed the murder of her parents, had been raped herself and then shot in the stomach and left for dead. She lay in a ditch for a week, too scared to move. She eventually found her way to safety, and had lived for three years in a refugee camp. She was HIV positive. I asked her what she wanted to do. She said, quite certainly 'I'm going to be a doctor'. And I thought 'but you'll be dead in a few years, that just won't happen'. And yet despite the hell she had been through she remained utterly focused on the idea that things would be OK. That is exactly the kind of spirit I hope to address in The Wild and Boy Kills Man.
Book Eaters World Languages University: Have you ever want to write romantic stories?
MW: My first two novels, for adults, are romantic comedies: Man or Mouse and Columbia Road.
Book Eaters World Languages University: Why did you decide to write such stories instead of comedies?
MW: Good question. When I was writing the second romantic comedy my mother and sister both died of cancer within months of one another. It was a strange, unsettling experience – having to press on with a book packed with jokes. I didn't want to then write about death, but somehow it seemed right for me to address more serious issues and shine a light on courage in the face of adversity. That sounds hideously depressing! But I think probably that's when I made the switch. I'm not that sombre at all in real life.
Bahit: I think that the value of your book is that it reminds adults once again what a cruel world they have created for kids and also show obviously how better and stronger they, I mean teenagers, are. It sounds sad but hopeful.
MW: I'm glad you see it like that. I agree! Even so, it can come as a surprise to readers expecting a more conventional happy ending.
Tamara: Matt, do you have much to do with 12/13/14 year olds?
MW: I am an 'agony uncle' or advice columnist for a teen girls magazine. Every week, I get around 700 problems from teen girls and boys. So in that respect, I have a good idea what concerns young people today.
Center of Intellectual Youth: The members of our readers’ club felt that you indeed showed the strength of teens in their lives!!
Altynay: Do you like process of writing, finishing the book or chatting with your readers?
MW: I like starting books and hate the middle bits. I love the sound of my printer reeling off the last few pages and then hate the bit before publication. But I love this bit – and travelling to meet readers overseas – which I do a lot now.
Center of Intellectual Youth: Matt, whose picture is on the book cover and what is the place?
MW: I must confess I'm not totally happy with the UK jacket for The Wild. The boy is a model, but the most un-Kazhak-looking boy ever! I tried to explain this, but it seemed at the time there was no alternative. I think it looks like Prince William fallen on hard times!
Diana Zhadyra: lol
Readers Club British Council Uzbekistan: :-) Prince William...
Diana Zhadyra: When will your next book be published?
MW: My next book to follow The Wild should be published next year (I just need to write it first). It's set in Hiroshima. Hiroshima is well known as being a scene of utter devastation – but a new city has arisen – which is often forgotten. The book is about terrorism, however – in terms of the gray area between legitimate protest and terrorist acts.
Diana Zhadyra: Matt, do you have a gun? Just curious...
MW: No. I'm clean!
Tamara: It was great to meet our friends from Tashkent, though on line, and to talk to you Matt. Many thanks to our colleagues from HQ for organising this chat for us.
PippaV: Thanks so much everyone, Matt especially – it has been a fascinating chat
MW: But thank you everyone for this opportunity to talk to you all. It's been emotional!
Bahit: Matt, it was great to talk to you and all success in everything. Inspiration! We are looking forward to seeing you in Almaty one day to talk more.
|
