Tania Hershman‘s short story collection, The White Road, is a book I was very much looking forward to and even more excited by once I read it.  Tania is a very gifted writer.  These stories capture entire lives in just a few strokes.  They are generous of spirit and keen of insight.  I can’t recommend them highly enough, which is why I was so thrilled to be asked to host this leg of her virtual book tour.  Here we discuss just one small aspect of her work.  For some other interesting dialogues about her writing, do check out the other blogs listed below.  But first, take five minutes to read what she has to say below.  I know it looks like a lot, but it’s fascinating — just like all her writing is.

1. You live in Israel and some people then would make the assumption that you are a very religious person. Is that true?

That’s an interesting question. “Very religious” is not a phrase I feel would apply to me, but in some ways “very religious” sounds to me a little like being “very pregnant” – either you are or you aren’t! Hmm, let me start by tackling this another way. When I moved to Israel from London in 1994 at the age of 24 I wasn’t an observant Jew by anyone’s measure: I ate non-kosher food, I didn’t observe Shabbat. But I felt a strong sense of being Jewish, and that drew me to Israel, to Jerusalem, a place I felt very at home in for reasons that are not clear to me, having been brought up in London. It wasn’t a “rational” decision, it came from another place.

Ten years or so ago I did become more “observant”, now I eat only kosher food, I keep meat and milk separate, and I observe Shabbat – which means I switch off my computer, my telephone, the television, I don’t cook, write, do any work. For me, this is wondrous and indispensable, a complete recharging of the batteries, and it most definitely stimulates my creativity; there is nothing like saying “You cannot write today” for kick-starting the writing mechanisms! I would rather describe myself a spiritual person, and Shabbat, for me, is something I do to nourish my spirit, and also to be part of a community, my community.

2.We know science is a motivating force in your work, but do you feel religion is as well? Do you see an overlap between the two, and if you do, does that ever get explored in your fiction?

Well, there is one story in my collection involving a rabbi and an angel who meet in a car park. That’s really the only piece of fiction I have consciously written about anything to do with religion. But I do think that the concept of higher forces at work does come into my writing. Following up on the discussion on Vanessa’s blog about magical realism, I do believe there is more to life than meets the eye, there is so much unexplained and, with magical realism especially, we are trying to fill in gaps, answer questions. For me personally this definitely has to do with God, or whatever others may choose to call the idea of a higher power. For example, my story Rainstiffness, where the main character is almost completely paralysed whenever it rains, hints that this is being “done” to her, for a certain purpose, perhaps, by someone or some thing. She talks to the rain, she talks to the elements, to nature, which is, to me, tied up with spirituality. I am loathe to say more, to explain my writing in any way. It is whatever a reader takes from it. I am sure you feel the same way: having just read your wonderful novel, Tangled Roots, which skilfully merges physics, Judaism and so much more, it touched me personally because of this combination of science, religion and family relationships, but I am sure each reader takes something slightly different from it.

I have to say, though, that the writing process, for me, is a spiritual or religious experience. There is something deeply mystical about being in that place where a character speaks through you, where you feel that you are a vessel, not controlling but channelling a story, a story that needs to be told. It is not, for me, a “logical” process, I don’t decide on a story, plot it out, and then set down the words. It feels more like opening myself up to a story, and letting it come with forcing it. I do believe that each one of us tells the stories only we can tell, that no-one else could write.

Giving up journalism to be a full-time fiction writer was a leap of faith, a sense that this is the path I am “meant” to be on, with all the religious connotations that accompany this. And while being a writer is what I have always wanted to do, a calling of sorts, that doesn’t mean that it comes easily. It is constantly challenging, as I believe religion and spirituality should always be, too. It’s a very Jewish idea that we should always be asking questions, of ourselves and the world, and never be satisfied simply to follow. In a way, the fiction writer’s “What if…?” that he or she asks himself is similar to the Talmudic rabbis, who discussed and pondered every possible permutation that occurred to them, every possible behaviour or situation that someone might come up against, in order to formulate a Jewish answer – or more than one! I have studied a little bit of Talmud and find it fascinating, the rabbis were often highly imaginative in the scenarios they thought up and in the ways they formulated solutions to problems.

3. Because you are Jewish, do you feel you get branded as a Jewish writer? And what is a “Jewish writer”?

This is a new thing for me and I haven’t yet come up with an answer to this. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz asked me the same question. If a Jewish writer is someone who is Jewish and who writes, regardless of the subject matter and genre, then yes. If some overtly Jewish content is required to be included in this group, I don’t feel that I qualify. For me, a “Jewish writer” is someone like Nathan Englander, whose astonishing short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, is filled with Jewish characters, or Chaim Potok, author of one of my favourite books, My Name is Asher Lev. Jews and Judaism, religious rituals, all feature prominently in these books. However, is Israeli writer Etgar Keret, whose bizarre and surreal short stories I adore, also a “Jewish” writer? His characters are Israeli and so this means, by default, they are mostly Jewish, but his themes don’t seem to be overtly religious, to me they are more universal; the setting for the stories just happens to be Israel because he is Israeli.

However, I am not sure this is up to me to define where my writing sits – or anyone else’s, for that matter. I am loathe to put myself into any category other than writer of fictional short stories. I don’t like labels of any sort, because then they result in books being shelved in particular sections and being overlooked by those who don’t generally scan those shelves. As I mentioned in previous interviews, after being sent several books described as “science fiction” to review in my capacity as editor of The Short Review, I discovered that modern science fiction was not at all what I had imagined (my father was a great reader of Isaac Asimov and the classic sci fi writers.) I discovered wonderful writing, poignant, imaginative, tackling all the issues that so-called non-genre fiction grapples with. And this made me deeply sad that I had
so nearly missed out on a whole section of literature, simply because I don’t consider myself a reader of genre fiction. So, what I am saying is, it should be about the writing and not the writer, not the shelf, not the genre, not the blurbs on the back saying that this book is “like” all these other books. Great writing, that’s what moves me, not labels, categories, pigeon-holes.

What I will say is that words, texts and books have always played vital roles in Judaism, in the religion and the cultural life of the Jewish people. The Bible contains some of the most wonderful stories ever written, with compelling plots and characters dealing with issues that face all of us every day, issues of identity, family, love and relationships. This, together with the midrashic tradition of commentary on the Bible, reading between the lines and providing “back story” to attempt to explain a character’s actions, is surely a great inspiration for any writer! I feel very proud to be part of that tradition and to be continuing it, in my own way, in the way that feels right to me.

Thank you, Sue, for having me and for asking such thought-provoking questions!

Next stop on Tania Hershman‘s  Walking the White Road virtual book tour: Nov 26th, Tim Jones’ Books in the Trees

Previous stops: Chatting about science and fiction with the Keeper of the Snails 
Discussing the beauty of short stories with Literary Minded 
Talking about magical realism on Vanessa Gebbie’s News