Interview with Manil Suri, Author of The Age of Shiva

JMF: Was there something that sparked your interest in math as you went through these other sciences?

MS: Part of it was probably the worst advice my mother gave me which was don't become a mathematician. You'll hate math; it is very difficult. The flip side of that is that everyone in my family wanted me to go into medicine because my grandfather was a doctor. I was the great white hope of my family; I would be the doctor. I was determined to thwart that so I gave up biology the first chance I had.

JMF: I know that in university politics there is this urge to publish or perish, to be with your own kind. How do you juggle your time between the math and class preparation, your writing time, and keeping your colleagues happy?

MS: The colleagues have been doing some other things now, like the school outreach program and the general adult outreach program. I think I am still doing a little bit of research, but it is not at the same level that I was doing before. I think they recognize that if I want to do something in the literary field there has to be some compromise. The nice thing is that the university has been very supportive, and I have been trying to help the university too. For example, the first reading for The Age of Shiva was held at my university and we got a lot of press and a lot of publicity. Senator Sarbanes came and it was a bit deal, so I think that kind of balances out.

JMF: Do you feel that your work as a mathematician somehow enhances your work as a literary person?

MS: I think it helps me really look through many different things. Every time you write you really have to plan ahead and see where your characters, what possible paths your characters can follow and just to track them and see all the possibilities that lie and find that path which will best optimize in some sense. That is a very mathematical way of looking at it. I think there is something like that goes on so maybe the math does help a little bit.

JMF: Conversely, has your writing ability helped in your outreach with kids in the math area?

MS: I think a little bit. I'm more relaxed now. The first time I gave a reading in Baltimore, it was very nice, very funny. Some of my students came and they were asked is he this funny in class. They all looked at each other and said no! So since then I've tried to be funnier.

JMF: Is there a difference in the creative process in writing and working through math?

MS: Hmm. Yes, it is quite different. In math it is all in your head. In writing you come up with something, you turn it, and you slowly see something develop. There is some inspiration that comes but afterwards it is really working at it, fitting the right words in and manipulating the prose. In math, it is much more inspiration; you have to get the theorem in a flash so it is more quantum almost.

JMF: How did you get out of your comfort zone to come up with something that is so epic?

MS: I made a big effort; I am not going there again. I used a crowbar and caught myself scratching and kicking out of that comfort zone.

JMF: Which writers formed you as a youth, and whom do you read now?

MS: I think the one writer that still sticks in my mind is R.K. Narayan. I did read a lot of him. I remember reading Gods, Demons, and Others, which was probably my first taste of mythology, Hindu mythology. That was in the 7th grade or something. Right now I read a very eclectic mix, mostly international writers. The last book I read was The Elephanta Suite by Paul Theroux. That was very good, three novellas about India. The middle one especially just took my breath away. What else? I've been reading all the big names, including Salmon Rushdie.

JMF: Final question. Going back to Rushdie. I did not like The Satanic Verses. I didn't think it was well written. It seems to me that if no fuss had been made over it, it would have died a very quiet death. Is there any legitimacy to that argument?

MS: What you say is probably true, if no fuss had been made about it, there wouldn't have been any of this happening. I did think, however, that out of the parts that I read, the one that stands out is the one that got him into trouble. I think that part was really brilliantly done where he talks about Mahound instead of Muhammed. That one part was amazing. The rest of the book didn't measure up to that part for me so I wasn't able to finish it. That part was brilliant. I think the reason it caused so much furor is because it was so brilliant. In some sense they were recognizing the brilliance and therefore almost a perverse homage to that. It is sad that it worked out that way.