BY JORDAN LILLIS
There's nothing quite like experiencing the world as a teenager. All those fraught feelings and heightened emotions work together to deliver a saturated picture of our surroundings and experiences. It can be intense! That's part of the reason the books and movies we consume during those years are so formative, so vividly real.
Clara Kiyoko Kumagai, who has had work published in the likes of The Stinging Fly, The Irish Times and Banshee, has just written her debut YA novel, Catfish Rolling (Zephyr, 2023 ). The book, which blends magical realism with Japanese myth, is an original story about grief and memory.
We had a chat with the Galway born author ahead of her appearance at Cúirt Festival later this month.
What is it about writing YA fiction that interests you, and what were your own favourites growing up?
I think when you're younger, you're not necessarily thinking about the books you're writing in terms of categories, like YA etc. You're just reading whatever interests you. When I was growing up, I read whatever was at hand, but that definitely included a lot of kids books and young adult books. Some of my favorite authors were Philip Pullman trilogy and Ursula K. Le Guin. I still read their books now. They have a lot in them for adult audiences. They are the best books - the ones you can keep reading and re-reading.
I think also it's valid to mention the likes of The Babysitter's Club and Goosebumps series - they might not be the most 'literary', but they are still important because they get young people reading. I feel quite passionately about writing for young people because I feel like what we read at that age can be very affecting.
Did you study writing?
I did an Undergrad in Drama and English, and as part of that I did some playwriting. as part of that. After I graduated, I spent time reviewing theatre and children's books as well, for Children's Books Ireland. Then I went to Vancouver and did an MFA in Creative Writing.
I was born in Canada, so was interested in going back. When I was young, my godfather lived there. He was very formative for me because he was a Professor of Library Studies and he edited a lot of academic books about children's literature, so when I was growing up, I would receive these books signed by the authors - a really great mix of books with representations of diversity that I might not otherwise have gotten at the time. I would receive stories about young people who were indigenous Canadians or second generation Canadian-Chinese people. It was it was nice to go back to Canada, because I felt like I had some of those people that I remember from my childhood and Vancouver is very interesting - it is about 50% Asian. I found that I sort of blended in on the street, but then people were pretty interested and they heard my Irish accent!
How would you compare playwriting with fiction writing?
I think playwriting is one of the hardest things to do. It's very collaborative, which is brilliant, but it's such a condensed form and you've got lots of these interesting restrictions like place and time, so it can be challenging in a different way to other forms. Something I think I learned from playwriting was around dialogue - how to develop it and use it together with action.
Could you tell me more about your new book?
The book is set in the northeast of Japan, and its events take place seven years after a huge earthquake that was so big, it broke time in different places. There are these areas where time runs faster or slower than normal, and it's so dangerous that people in surrounding areas have been evacuated. My main character, Sora, is Canadian-Japanese, but her mother, who is Japanese, was lost in this earthquake (when the earthquake happened, a lot of people went missing because of how time was broken ).
There's mythology and folklore in the book, and I guess you could call it magical realism.
I started the book in Vancouver, but then I wrote the vast majority of it when I was in Japan. It was interesting because details changed as I was living there longer and learning more about the country.
Can you tell me a little more about the influence Japanese folklore had on the book?
The book's title is Catfish Rolling. This comes from an old story that says there is a giant catfish under Japan. When the catfish moved, this is what causes the earthquakes. In order to stop this, there was a God who got a huge stone and and put it on the head of the catfish to try and pin it down. Still, every now and then it tries to get away, so that's what causes the earthquakes.
It's quite an old story which would have appeared in a lot of art and woodblock prints, and now, you still see it as the little icon of earthquake warnings on certain roads. I have an earthquake app and the little icon is a catfish.
As a writer today, do you feel a pressure to use social media in a particular way?
Yeah, I do find that a little difficult at times. There are positives - I like the way I can connect with readers on Twitter - it's very nice to see people reading the work or getting excited about the book. It can also be a great way to connect with other writers, in Ireland and elsewhere.
It can be distracting though, and I need to remind myself that my job is writing. I feel like I'm trying not to go too far into the social media space and I just want to keep focusing on my own writing and what I'm doing next.
Clara is currently developing an essay collection centered around multiracial identity, hybridity and belonging.
She will be speaking as part of a panel on The wonderful world of YA, with Caroline O’Donoghue and Adiba Jaigrdar on Saturday April 22 at 3pm. Tickets available from cuirt.ie
