HOWZAT

What makes it even harder is that me being me – that is, me being supported by my own entire subjective infrastructure – I’ll always find my accounting of my own experience more compelling, more resonant, than readers who can only go by my words on the page. Writing from autobiography can tend to be a selfish enterprise that way. And as a writer, it was a challenge to make the words on the page as charged and suggestive as possible – for a set of readers bigger than just myself!

How did you come up with the story Cartagena?

Six years ago I went to Colombia (though not to Medellín, where the story takes place). I did go to Cartagena, where one of the things I saw turned into the story’s final image. Then, three years (and a lot of other stuff) later, I decided to write a story about a child assassin. It was one of those unaccountable things that you find squatting, then taking up more and more real estate, in your head. I was simply fascinated. At this point I didn’t know much else – that it would even take place in Colombia, for example. Part of the turn was technical: I’d just written “The Boat” (the last story in the book) which was a slow, drawn-out narrative, written classically, featuring a female protagonist in the third person. It felt good to bust out into a clean, raw, fast young tough’s first.

I’ve said elsewhere that this story started as a situation seeking a voice. The situation was clear: here was a fourteen-year-old who was no kid. He deserved more than our pity, our fascination, our shock. More, even, than an accurate description of his situation. He deserved to be heard. Different stories come into view through different portals: this one demanded, first and foremost, a voice.

So I dove into research. I read whatever I could get my hands on – books, legal transcripts, social studies papers, stuff on the narcotics trade and weaponry, travel blogs, NGO reports. I found photos in books, magazines, online. I auditioned different structures (at one point, the story alternated point of views between Ron, Hernando, and a Western NGO volunteer). I decided on a protagonist, an idiom, a voice. Then I laid out a plot. I wrote a draft. This was where feedback was invaluable; readers helped me poke holes in the plot. At some points plotting the story felt like taking a deposition: who knew what, when? Who had what motivations, why? I poked holes. Then I patched them up as best I could, then poked more holes, then patched again. I got it accepted by a magazine, revised it substantially, then got it accepted by a publishing house and revised it again. And then some more.

Do you have a favourite short story?

I don’t think so. But of late I’ve been blown away by Charles D’Ambrosio’s stories in his collection, The Dead Fish Museum

Find out more about Nam Le here

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