Prime
Books they read-Sneha Susan Shibu
Sneha Susan Shibu believes are given birth when thoughts are expressed.
What you need to know:
Sneha Susan Shibu loves writing and is trying to find a balance between writing and being a housewife. She talks to Beatrice Lamwaka about her love for books.
What do you like about books?
I believe books are given birth when thoughts are expressed. They open up your mind and make you think; they take you into another world, unfamiliar perhaps and make you see things which otherwise you would never have seen.
I started off reading with my older brother’s comic books - The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, then Enid Blyton’s books and later on more serious stuff.
As an artist, what have you benefitted from books?
The writers I have read definitely have an influence on me. They have taught me to think and write freely and boldly, not only subject wise, but in stylistic resources as well. Books help you by taking away that inner darkness from you.
What kind of stories appeal to you?
I believe a book has to have an interesting plot in order to keep me on the edge. For example C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy. A book need not necessarily be a mystery or thriller or horror or even an adult fiction. It can be comedy, children’s book or even a comic book.
It just has to be engaging. And ‘engaging’ means the language used, the theme and structure, the narration and treatment of plot. I like story techniques that deviate from the ordinary.
Which character do you admire?
Again, too many choices, but I would pick Hagar Currie/Shipley from The Stone Angel written by Margaret Laurence.
In spite of being at the tail end of her life, Hagar is a strong woman even though a bit adamant and unreasonable at times. Eventually she finds her inner peace as she moves towards the end. Hagar in this book is often compared to Hagar of the Scriptures as both of them wander in wilderness.
Which Ugandan books have you read?
Unfortunately nothing major. All I have read is Charles Onyango-Obbo’s dig on Ugandan’s culture. I wish to read more. In his treatment of the subject, I feel Obbo is very funnily truthful.
He is an insider with a perspective of an outsider. And that is an amazing quality in a writer.
Which are the most memorable books you have read?
I still remember what I read in college, but besides that, Emile Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is an all time favourite. Then comes A.J.Cronin’s The Citadel. J.M.Coetzee’s In The Heart Of The Country was an accidental discovery and that made me a huge fan of his novels.
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel and the graphic novel in two parts, titled Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and a play by Edward Albee titled The Zoo Story.
Which books are you reading?
Just reading Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy, set in apartheid South Africa, which tells of life in the slums and the hardships involved.
Before that I finished reading Mulk Raj Anand’s The Untouchable that tells the story of a young sweeper/scavenger boy in pre- independence India.
