REAL-WORLD INJUSTICES INSPIRE NOVEL OF SEARCH FOR FREEDOM FROM BONDAGE

When the Fireflies Dance   

By Aisha Hassanl

(Scout Press)

Interview by Diane Slocum

Lallloo’s family moves to a brickyard when he is a young boy in the hopes of making a better life for themselves, but as it turns out, no matter how hard the entire family, including little sister, Pinky, work, they can’t get out from under the debt owed to the company which, in effect, owns them. The older brother, Jugnu, rebels against this enslavement with tragic consequences and the parents slip seven-year-old Lalloo out of the bhatti to live with strangers to protect him from a similar fate. Even though he is now indentured to an auto mechanic, Lalloo’s life is a little freer and he makes friends with irrepressible Salman and charming Fatima. As he grows older, freeing his family from the bhatti becomes his goal. As fate batters him with hope and disappointments, offers of help that spring up and as readily vanish, he vows never to give up, even if he has to die for them to be freed.

AUTHORLINK: What was your first thought about this story?

HASSAN: The seed for When the Fireflies Dance was planted a long time before I wrote a single word. Many years ago, I visited a brick kiln on the outskirts of Lahore. The stark, barren landscape, the patient people resting after a long day’s work on their charpais, the brick-red dust that shrouded everything. That visit stayed with me long after I’d returned home.

AUTHORLINK: Where did you go from there?

HASSAN: Many years after that, I read a news article about an elderly man who worked at a brick kiln where his son had been killed. The man held a thick folder of papers which he carried from police station to police station, seeking justice for his son. He was poor and disadvantaged, and couldn’t get anybody to take notice. The accompanying photo showed an elderly man wiping away tears with worn hands as he held a passport-sized photograph of his dead son. That photo was the second seed. When I eventually started writing, this is the story that came.

AUTHORLINK: How did you work on your story? Did you know many details when you started writing? Did you know how it would end or how it would get there? Did you plan most of your characters or did some kind of just show up?

HASSAN: The story was written in stops and starts. Some of it was planned, some of it not. I knew how it would start and how it would end, but not how it would get there. The main characters were planned, and then some of them, like Billo, just showed up in the writing and refused to go away!

AUTHORLINK: What did you do to research your story?

HASSAN: I visited brick kilns, spoke to people who worked there and spoke to non-governmental organisations that work in this sector. I have previously lived in Lahore, so I also let the lived experience of the city seep into the story.

AUTHORLINK: Was there any concern about using Urdu words that English-speaking readers might not understand?

HASSAN: Yes, I used Urdu words very carefully, ensuring their meaning was always clear in the context of the story and the scene.

AUTHORLINK: Of all the things of importance in your story, why did you pick When the Fireflies Dance as your title? And what came first – the idea of using fireflies or naming Lalloo’s brother Jugnu (which means firefly)?

HASSAN: Jugnu was always called Jugnu first. The fireflies suddenly appeared in the story without planning, and the two came together to create a magical scene. The title followed on from there. The fireflies’ presence is also the representation of hope, which is a key theme, throughout the story,

AUTHORLINK: How can a fictional story about the enslavement of families making bricks in the bhatti do something for the real people trapped in that life?

HASSAN: At the very least it can raise awareness of families who live and work in such dire situations. It can also give a voice to people who don’t have one. I believe fiction can be more powerful than non-fiction in putting us in other people’s shoes, in encouraging empathy and understanding – qualities rather lacking in today’s world.

AUTHORLINK: What are you working on next?

HASSAN: I am working on another novel set in Pakistan, this time a love story set on the banks of the River Indus.

About the author: Aisha Hassan earned a Masters degree from the University of Oxford. When the Fireflies Dance is her debut novel. She lives in London.