Neelanjana Banerjee

Neelanjana Banerjee’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared widely in journals and anthologies like Prairie Schooner, PANK Magazine, World Literature Today, Nimrod and many more. She is the co-editor of the award-winning Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry and The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles. Neela is also the Managing Editor at Kaya Press.

How would you describe yourself as a creative? 

I have always thought of myself as a writer, and a communicator -- creating characters and writing poetry. I also have a long background in journalism, and teaching others to tell their own stories. And this work has deepened in the past eight years as I’ve worked with Kaya Press, an independent publishing house dedicated to Asian American and Asian Diasporic literature, both as someone actively looking for new work to publish, but also bringing light to forgotten work. For example, Kaya Press recently published I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara written by Lalbihari Sharma in British Guyana in the early 20th Century, and translated by Rajiv Mohabir for the first time. Possibly the first “coolie” literature in the Anglophone Caribbean.

Where do you find inspiration in your art form as a writer? And in your work as an editor?

Living with a musician for nearly 15 years is pretty inspiring, and it is fun to be around someone who practices a different craft -- though I am jealous of a musician’s ability to get out of their “thinking” brain and be more in their bodies and feel and collaborate. Otherwise, I am a voracious reader on top of my own work of reading (editorially) and teaching. Around this time of year I am always super lucky to participate in the Poetry-a-Day for Ramadan Facebook group that one of my best friend’s Taz Ahmed created several years ago. I am not Muslim, but as an ally of this group it is so lovely to be able to participate in this spiritual time through writing and reading other’s work. This year, and over the past few years -- and especially the past few months of horrible news from Modi’s India, I have been thinking a lot about Partition stories and how to tell one that might shine a light on some of the traumas of our present time, so been looking for Partition narratives from India, and in translation that I may have not come across before.

How do our current times affect you creatively and as a family?

When I first was responding to this question, I was deep in Covid quarantine mind, thinking about how hard it is to even know what day it is. We have an 8-month old baby, Kabir, and I had just started back to work in January after a fairly challenging year of pregnancy and an actually really inspiring maternity leave. I was continuing to feel inspired and had already taken three or four trips with Kabir for work and was working on a long-form journalism project, when quarantine happened. I had also just gotten a great patchwork of childcare in place to actually give myself consistent time to write, and that has been hard now as we are both working and trying to balance taking care of the kids, and a very shaggy dog named the Rani of Jhansi! 

It feels exhilarating to be in this moment when it seems like change is possible

In the past few weeks, the frustrations of Coronavirus and isolation and the fear of the future has morphed into this real moment of change and possibility. It feels exhilarating to be in this moment when it seems like change is possible and to try and share that with my five-year-old son and family. It is very hard work -- to be accountable for the ways I have benefitted from White Supremacy and privilege -- but also something I have been interested in doing for years. I am glad that so many people seem ready to do that work together. I have been trying to write about some of these issues in my novel-in-progress, some of which deals with the protagonist trying to come to terms with racism in her community, and it has been so hard, and I am glad that we can admit that and work towards something together. 

As an artist, I think the major shifts and protests -- even though we haven’t felt comfortable participating due to the baby, have made me feel connected to my work again. I was feeling disconnected from my writing last year at this time during my pregnancy, so I feel like I have more patience because I went through it and know that things will change and shift and allow me to have time, but it is tough.

In the meantime, being around the kids (and dog!) and Robin all day is beautiful and precious in its own way, and I know I’ll think back on it in the future as a special time. I try to remember that when it feels like I want to run away or lock myself in the bathroom for some alone time! At the beginning of quarantine, it was raining torrentially in Los Angeles for a few weeks, which is also rare, and that has made for a really beautiful late Spring, so again --trying to enjoy the walks and actually taking time to water the plants every day. Also, I have been playing Pokemon Go with my 5-year-old son Kailash, which has been pretty fun and addictive and a way to explore the neighborhood, and we’ve also gotten into TikTok a bit and we even did one dance as a family, so that’s been a creative (embarrassing) outlet of sorts!

Do you find it easier or harder to be creative in our current times?

I think for myself -- for many writers -- we need the space to be isolated and alone and have large swaths of time to access that creative space, and I can’t really escape my family right now. Robin and I try our best to give each other time, but it is tough since we are both working, and I am also teaching in the Asian American Studies Department at UCLA, and also was finishing up a high school journalism workshop funded by PEN America. So I haven’t quite found that space to write over the past months, which has been frustrating, but I also have been trying to breathe through it, and be observant, and read and not be too hard on myself. I think that will be one of those things that I will want to reflect on coming out of this experience, and what I think I am interested in with experiences of shared trauma, that it doesn’t matter if you are home with a house full of kids or home alone writing and processing and making bread, we probably all have these moments of grief when making a sandwich or anxiety in the middle of the night about what is to come, and in that way, we are all having the same experience and that is powerful to me, both as an artist who is interested in humanity, and as a person just trying to get by.

…we probably all have these moments of grief when making a sandwich or anxiety in the middle of the night about what is to come, and in that way, we are all having the same experience and that is powerful to me…

But beyond the quarantine and the insecurity of America opening up even though there is no vaccine or proper guidance, the protests for Black Lives inspired by the murder of George Floyd by Minnesota Police has been an amazing moment of inspiration and revitalization for me personally, and being able to have the discussions about this work and see the protests and join in conversations about allyship and Defunding the Police and talking through these issues with Robin and our families and our children and our friends is shifting not only this country -- hopefully -- but also myself and had reinvigorated my passion to tell stories both through journalism projects and to rededicate to my novel.

Are there artists and creatives from the South Asian diaspora that are inspiring you right now?

I mentioned the amazing poets and members of the Ramadan Poetry group, one of whom is Faisal Mohyuddin, who I first met when I anthologized his work in Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry back in 2009! His poetry has been especially inspiring to me from that group, and from his recent book: The Displaced Children of Displaced Children (Eyewear Publishing).

I just held an online book club to celebrate Vivek Shraya’s new novel The Subtweet, which is just what I needed in these times, it is about two South Asian women musicians in Toronto who become friends when one covers the other’s song. It was so fun because it fully revolved around these women and all the references were about other South Asian artists, in one scene the characters go to a Swetshop Boys show, and yet there is no rehashing of identity or trauma or drama with parents. NO WEDDING! It was so inspiring. Also, the book comes with an album that Vivek recorded, including the two songs and other songs referenced. She is absolutely inspiring, and one of the characters (whose name is Neela!!) makes her whole album in her home, just like Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters, which has been on repeat for me.

Fatimah Asgargh’s short “Got Game” recently gave me a lot of joy, as did Leena Pendharker’s “Awaken”, which I got to see in a shorts program online as part of Visual Communications Film Festival, which made me realize how much Asian American and South Asian film spaces have been a huge part of my social space over the past 20 years and I feel like being able to access those films on-line has been really amazing.

What are you looking forward to in 6 months time?

Oooh, I love this question. Honestly, because I have been scared to think too far into the future, so it is nice to take a moment to do so. In six months, it will be December, and I really hope, though I have doubts, that we will be able to see our families. We were going to have both my mother and Robin’s parents and sister come visit right when quarantine happened for our son Kabir’s first rice ceremony. At the time, I was stressed out about all the family coming to visit because I was really focused on getting back to work and writing and didn’t want to get distracted. But I was also excited to be able to have everyone come for this Hindu ceremony that I really have come to appreciate as one that makes sense, because it is the first time that the baby is celebrated. I think in a lot of traditions it is bad luck to buy presents for the baby before they arrive, and in that first six months, so this is -- especially in Bengali culture -- this moment of time to finally celebrate and give back to those who have supported you, so we were going to have a big party. Instead, we had my uncle Skype in from Houston to conduct the ceremony and the rest of my family on a zoom call, watching as my older son fed his brother his first bites of rice pudding.

Now, we Facetime my mom every day during Kabir’s dinner so she can see him grow and mash broccoli into his face. The reality that we may not be able to see any of our family for some time and that our elderly parents are vulnerable is suddenly heartbreaking, but I would love for us all to get together then, in six months time, to celebrate the next stages of all of our lives and just be together.

I really hope in six months time that we see the results of the shift we are seeing culturally, that we are continuing to say no to police violence and that the structural changes we are all talking about come true.

And hopefully I’ll have been able to have gotten back to my desk in a regular way and that all these emotions and joys will carry through to the page and shift my work in the best way. Again, now with everything that has happened in the last few weeks, I really hope in six months time that we see the results of the shift we are seeing culturally, that we are continuing to say no to police violence and that the structural changes we are all talking about come true.