[00:01:29] Host: How was it introduced to you?

[00:01:36] Nawaaz: Oh, I was doing my graduate studies in computer science. I was also doing a minor in modern dance, which the department allowed me to do, of which I had very little experience. I did all my schooling, had been in the sciences even during my undergraduate. As part of the minor, I was asked to take this class called Experiments and Performance in Art. It was a very experimental class where you're supposed to come up with these experiments about art and be able to talk about them. That was not something I was trained to do at all. They had a textbook which was by Calvino, too, Six Memos for the New Millennium.The textbook had essays on what the faculty wanted us to focus on, these traits of art, like quickness, exactitude, multiplicity, and visibility, lightness. They had all these things and the lectures themselves were so-- They went over my head. They were not something that I was used to, and they referred to books. Calvino used references from Italian poetry, from folk tales, from French poetry. There's so much that just went over my head, and I wasn't sure what to do with that course. Somebody said that I need his Invisible Cities to get a sense of what he was talking about, and that's how I came across it, as part of this--

[00:03:38] Host: Right. How did it affect you when you read it?

[00:03:43] Nawaaz: The first thing was, I could finally make sense of his lectures with reference to the book. Now I had something to say, "Oh, this is what he means by lightness and quickness and multiplicity," so that was one thing. The other thing, I think, that I was blown away with is what a novel or book could be, because this was unlike any book I'd read. I'd grown up in India reading murder mysteries and suspense thrillers, and this was completely unlike any of that. Yet, I could read and read and get something from every little page of it. It was just amazing, so I was completely stunned.

[00:04:34] Host: How would you describe this book from your point of view, for people who haven't read it?

[00:04:41] Nawaaz: The book to me, even after 25 years, feels like a mystery. I can describe it in components. There are two components. One is, there is the Emperor, Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. These are the only two characters in the book. Marco Polo comes back with reports to the emperor about all these strange cities he's seen, and they discuss those cities. That's one component.

The other component are the cities themselves that Marco Polo describes. These are small, some half a page, some maybe a page long descriptions of the cities he will visit. I would now describe them like some kind of prose poems that are just exquisite and very surprising, filled with such details. There are these two components. These two, the Emperor and the traveler, talking about these cities they've seen, or cities Marco Polo has visited, and then the cities themselves. The cities are grouped up in various ways, like cities and memories, cities and desires, cities and the eyes. They seem to be talking about life. Not about the cities, but about life. That is how I would describe the book. What you get out of the book, I think, is what you bring to the book, and that's what is exciting to me about it.

[00:06:23] Host: Since it's a mystery still, do you find yourself revisiting it often, or no?

[00:06:30] Nawaaz: In various ways, yes. I have thought about creating a website based on it, I have thought about creating novels based on it. It's always there in various ways. I think I draw a lot of inspiration from it just because he breaks every kind of rule there is about what a book could be, of what we are trying to do as writers. It's like permission to be anything, to do anything.

[00:07:08] Host: Nice. So many of the authors that I interview talk about books that gave them permission, that were like, "Oh, wait, this is allowed? I can do this?" It was just eye-opening. Now, did you know that you wanted to write at this point when you read? I know you were studying computer science.

[00:07:29] Nawaaz: I've always wanted to write, but at that time, I wanted to be a dancer or a choreographer, which is why I was doing this minor in modern dance. Not instead of computer science, but in addition to computer science, I thought, on the side. I was thinking like writing maybe when I'm 50 or 60, when I can't dance, and I have all this life experience, that's when I would come to writing. At that time, no, it happened that my dance career lasted for four years after I quit Cornell, where I was doing my graduate studies. That's because dancing is a hard profession and it takes a lifetime to get good at it, and here I was trying to do it on the side.

[00:08:24] Host: When did you realize or start writing, and did this book have any inspiration for you in those first stages?

[00:08:37] Nawaaz: Inspiration, definitely, I think. As I said previously, I wanted to write murder mysteries. If there is a reason why I'm writing more literary stuff now, I would have to credit this book. It showed me what I really value, which is these passages that suddenly seem to open up the world for you. That's what I really value about writing the stories I love, but I also like to come across these passages where it seems like some distant truth to them. That's what I read towards and what I write towards still. Since I think you mentioned reading, I could read--

[00:09:33] Host: I was just going to ask, please read a passage.

[00:09:37] Nawaaz: Yes. I'll read one of the shorter cities, because some of the cities can get long. This is Cities & Eyes 3. "After a seven days' march through Woodland, the traveler directed towards Baucis cannot see the city and yet he has arrived. The slender stilts that rise from the ground at a great distance from one another and are lost above the clouds support the city. You climb them with the ladders. On the ground, the inhabitants rarely show themselves. Having already everything they need up there, they prefer not to come down. Nothing of the city touches the earth except those long flamingo legs on which it rests. When the days are sunny, a pierced, angular shadow that falls on the foliage.

There are three hypotheses about the inhabitants of Baucis. That they hate the earth, that they respect it so much they avoid all contact, that they love it as it was before they existed, and with spyglasses and telescopes aimed downward, they never tire of examining it, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, ant by ant, contemplating with fascination their own absence." That is Baucis.

[00:10:55] Host: Oh, that's beautiful.

[00:10:57] Nawaaz: So much contained in those lines, it's like the description, the flamingo legs, and you immediately see the city.

[00:11:04] Host: Totally.

[00:11:06] Nawaaz: Yes.

[00:11:08] Host: Besides opening up your world, what do you think this taught you about writing or storytelling?

[00:11:21] Nawaaz: In my own way, some things of the book, I think, have gotten into my novel. I think these would come down to things, like those traits that I spoke about, quickness, lightness. There are those aspects like, how quick can you move? In my own novel, for example, I have short sections very much like this. My novel also tries to bring in various disparate sources into it, like poetry from Keats and Quran and Obama's speeches. There's a sense of multiplicity in that.

Lightness, my novel is on the heavier side, because that's not something that I have, I think, managed to get in the book, but that's something I'm always fascinated with. How quickly, how light can we make something? Those are the aspects I think that are there in the book, but you can just study like, how does he do it? How does he make this description move so quickly, and yet come to this profound statement? I've tried in my book. I still think this book is genius.

[00:12:43] Host: What would your world be like if you hadn't read this book?

[00:12:48] Nawaaz: Oh, wow. [laughs] I don't know that I'd be writing the kind of works I do now, or thinking about writing the way I do now, or even if I'd come to writing. As I said, I wanted to be a dancer and a choreographer on the side. I think I probably wouldn't have come to writing as quickly as I did if it hadn't been for the permission that this book gave, to think about writing in other ways, and not just like, "A novel has to be like this. This is how stories are told."

[00:13:39] Host: Oh, go ahead.

[00:13:42] Nawaaz: Definitely. I think I may have come to writing just later, and more traditionally.

[00:13:49] Host: Right. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention about this book that I didn't get a chance to ask before we end?

[00:13:57] Nawaaz: I think some of my favorite things, the description of the cities are great, but there's this wonderful description of how Marco Polo and the Emperor communicate that talks about language and about writing itself. For example, they start off with different languages. They don't even speak the same language. They start off pointing and mimicking, and then it moves on from there to words. Then Calvino says that words themselves felt like a step backwards, so they then move on to thoughts, and then they're communicating with these strange thoughts. That, I think, is magical, this way where words are all we have, but we also have to try to move beyond them. How do we try to get to that place? That's a lifelong--

[00:15:08] Host: Oh, of course. You said magic. That's all we could hope to find, is just that little bit of magic. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:15:19] Nawaaz: Thank you, Alison, for having me. This is wonderful.

[music]

[00:15:46] Host: Join the conversation at withoutbooks.org.