1. | heritage
47ISSUE 1, 2006 • THE ISMAILI CANADA
Writing
Histories
Sikeena Karmali
What’s bred in the bone shall out in the flesh—Old English
proverb as quoted by Robertson Davies
THE QUESTION OF HISTORY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CRUCIAL FOR ME.
As a child in a multi-racial East Africa,I was taught the awareness
of the colour of my skin. When we migrated to a small, rural
town in the Muskokas of Ontario in the 1980s, that awareness
became acute.
My interest in history was born out of a basic, practical
need. Upon coming to Canada, I could never answer the
question,“Where are you from?”satisfactorily. Africa? Sort of.
India? Yes, but twice removed. Afro-Asian? Not quite. It was
then that I began digging up my roots.
At school, I was taught European history, and it awakened
in me a kinship for the tales of the earth which we had inherited.
While studying Latin and classical history at the University of
Bologna—at the ripe old age of 16—Umberto Eco,that Titan
of an historian, asked me, “Why are you studying our history
when yours is so much more pertinent?”After that,there was
no stopping me.
I started out in a purely academic pursuit, studying Middle
East Studies, Islam and South Asia at McGill University, but
then I began to understand politics. As I uncovered and tried
to come to terms with that huge and definitive phenomena
of the 19th and 20th centuries—Colonialism—I understood
power and hegemony. I was young, and I became enraged. I
was starving for justice, for something to redress the wrongs
suffered by “my people”. And those people were located not
only among migrant communities in Canada but also in East
Africa and South Asia. That is how I embarked upon interna-
tional development and human rights work.
There were times when I was living the quotidian reality of
“breaking news” political conflicts. What I read in the papers,
even what I read in political and academic journals did not
reflect the lived reality of people’s lives. How it feels, what it
does to one’s psychological make-up, as a human being, to
live during times of upheaval.
So, I decided to write a novel instead of a dissertation; his-
torical fiction. I had endless conversations with my maternal
grandmother and my father about the good old days back
home—except the days weren’t always so good. I began by
“interviewing”them.Later,I just let them talk.They came alive
during these times, spilling with their tales all the silenced
passion of their lives. The result was—A House by the Sea—a
rather unconventional novel. In it, I have taken the English
language and the European form of the novel and infused it
with otherness; with some of the frantic chaos and spinning
back and forth of the peoples of the colonies; of migrant
communities, with one foot here, another there and a hand
reaching up towards the heavens. F
Sikeena Karmali was born in Nairobi,Kenya and has been edu-
cated in Canada,the US,Italy and Egypt.She has worked for the
Institute of Ismaili Studies in London,The Aga Khan Foundation
and Trust for Culture in Tajikistan, The Swiss Development
Agency,The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International. She has written for The Village Voice, The Nation,
Aperture and EgyptToday.Her first novel A House By the Sea was
short-listed for the Books in Canada/Amazon First Novel Award.
She is currently Contributing Editor at Ascent Magazine and is
completing her second novel about the Silk Road for which she
has received a grant from The Canada Council for the Arts.
Photo: James Loewen
Photo: David Drummond