Shira Nayman

Shira Naymana South African, Australian, and American novelist, short story writer and clinical psychologist. She is best known for her collection Awake in the Dark, published in 2006. Quotes Sometimes when we write, concepts we always took for granted are reconsidered. In that vein, do you think we have literary mothers—in other words, mothers we choose for ourselves vs. our real mothers? How do they influence us? How are they different and how are they the same? It’s interesting what you say about how we choose our literary mothers. But perhaps the characters we bring to life on the page also in some ways choose us. In your new book, Heart of Goodness, you have channeled the voice of Marguerite Bourgeoys, who lived from 1620 to 1700. Reading your book, it felt clear to me that there was some kind of mutuality, here—that in some ways, as you birthed her story in your own voice, you were also mothering her. How did it feel to be expressing her life experience in your own voice? And what drew you to her in the first place? How did her voice come to you? Talking to other women my age, we’re all flabbergasted by the courage and fortitude our mothers and grandmothers showed in the course of their lives—the obstacles they had to overcome, from childhood on throughout their lives, to manifest and actualize themselves. For many (most?) women of past eras, being a woman involved a certain amount of trauma, in and of itself. Add to that particularly toxic or difficult circumstances, often including emotional (and also physical) abuse from the men in their lives, and it’s no surprise that these traumatic experiences travel on down through the generations. In my literary explorations of intergenerational trauma, I always find myself coming to focus on the compassion and resiliency that emerges in my characters, women who are sometimes based on people I’ve known. External links Category: Living people