{"id":3418,"date":"2003-05-23T21:40:23","date_gmt":"2003-05-24T01:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=3418"},"modified":"2018-11-10T16:45:26","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T21:45:26","slug":"caprices-by-sabina-murray-author-interveiw-asianweek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/caprices-by-sabina-murray-author-interveiw-asianweek\/","title":{"rendered":"The Caprices by Sabina Murray + Author Interview [in AsianWeek]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Caprices\"<\/a>Living With War<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Sabina Murray<\/a> heard she had won the prestigious PEN\/Faulkner Award<\/a> for her short story collection The Caprices<\/em>, she was so surprised that she hardly believed it. Not until the house began to rapidly fill with flowers and e-mails arrived from around the world did she realize that \u201cthis was a big deal,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

Born in Lancaster, Penn., to a white father and Filipina mother, and raised in Australia and the Philippines, Murray returned to the United States to do her undergrad at Mt. Holyoke and get a master\u2019s at the University of Texas at Austin. When her school days were over, Murray \u201ctried a lot of crazy things,\u201d she says. She sold clothes, shoes, and greeting cards. She was a booking agent for a modeling agency, then tried cocktail waitressing which proved to be \u201cdisastrous,\u201d she\u00a0confesses.<\/p>\n

All along, Murray, 34, knew she wanted to be a writer. \u201cWriting is just a part of my personality,\u201d she says. Even as she was selling balloons at the Old Port Festival in Portland, she was gracing the pages of Vanity Fair<\/em> for writing her first novel, Slow Burn<\/em>, about the decadent youth of 1980s Manila, all before she turned 21.<\/p>\n

Six years later, she began what would become The Caprices<\/em>, which captures the brutal effects of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. In this case, the rest is literally literary history.<\/p>\n

How did The Caprices<\/em> come about?<\/strong>
\nIt was a long process. I wrote the first story, \u201cIntramuros,\u201d in 1996 and then \u201cWalkabout\u201d a year-and-a-half later. The third story came a year after that, followed by a fourth. I sold the book with those four stories, with the Pacific Campaign as the unifying concept. I wrote the last five after the book sold. It came out in January 2002 and until then, I felt like I was working on it all the time, even though I was doing other things.<\/p>\n

Tell us about the title.<\/strong>
\nThe artist Goya has a series of etchings that depict\u00a0the Spanish Civil War called The Caprices<\/em>. They capture the\u00a0brutality of war. I found it interesting that Goya was trying to\u00a0recreate the experience of war in an art form. So that was the\u00a0challenge I set for myself.<\/p>\n

During the writing of this book, you had two children. How did motherhood affect the book?<\/strong>
\nMy focus changed. Instead of creating individuals to\u00a0send off to war, after I became pregnant with our older son, I\u00a0began imagining my characters as someone\u2019s son rather than\u00a0some guy I knew. The picture was horrible before, but when I\u00a0began thinking of the characters in terms of my own child, the\u00a0picture became so much worse. In some weird way, that\u00a0helped me. I found an authenticity of voice from a general\u00a0emotional impulse because I was not physically there to\u00a0witness the horrors of war myself.<\/p>\n

Did your view of war change while writing this book?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve always been very anti-war. It\u2019s hard to come out of\u00a0my background without being that way. I have close family\u00a0members whom I have never met because of war. Knowing that\u00a0makes it harder to write about war. My grandfather and uncle\u00a0went off to camps in the Philippines and were never seen\u00a0again. My mother has horrible stories about the kids who went\u00a0missing and those that died.<\/p>\n

When people write memoirs they have a sense of conquering\u00a0their fears through their writing. But in writing Caprices<\/em>, I had\u00a0no sense of cathartic release. Instead, I felt like I unleashed\u00a0demons. World War II was a horrible time \u2013 all war is horrible \u2013 but that horror is something everyone needs to be aware of.\u00a0I tried to bring an emotional authenticity to a part of history that\u00a0is not explored enough. And fiction can be very effective in\u00a0capturing history.<\/p>\n

The Japanese do not come off well in your book \u2013 their\u00a0history during this time period is especially brutal.<\/strong>
\nI think it\u2019s impossible to write about the Pacific\u00a0Campaign without pointing out that the aggressor was the\u00a0Japanese war machine. At the same time, we need to be\u00a0sensitive about certain realities. People say \u2018Oh, you wrote\u00a0about the Pacific Campaign, then you must have written about\u00a0U.S. concentration camps.\u2019 But those were Americans with\u00a0Japanese ancestors \u2013 which means we were turning against\u00a0our own. So I make my three leaps: \u2018You\u2019re one of those\u00a0people who thinks the United States is only a white country.\u2019<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m writing about is a history of brutal occupation of\u00a0numerous Asian countries, and the atrocities committed there\u00a0by the Japanese. To overlook the fact the aggressors were\u00a0Japanese and spin that into some sort of Asian brotherhood\u00a0would be pandering to the idea that the Asian face is seen as\u00a0docile in the West. I\u2019m writing situation by situation, about\u00a0specific people who fill these roles. I\u2019m not writing about the\u00a0Japanese civilian. There\u2019s a story in the book about two\u00a0Japanese soldiers who try desperately to build a life in the\u00a0Philippines after the war. I also end the whole book looking at\u00a0the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki \u2013 that was intentional.\u00a0War is a tide: It goes one way and then the other. It must stop\u00a0somehow. People accept war as force of nature, but it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for you?<\/strong>
\nI have a new book out on submission right now:\u00a0A\u00a0Carnivore\u2019s Inquiry<\/em> is a novel that looks at cannibalism, art,\u00a0literature and exploration. I\u2019m also finishing up at Andover [the prep school where Murray has been writer-in-residence] and\u00a0will start teaching at the University of Massachusetts at\u00a0Andover this fall.<\/p>\n

Author interview<\/strong>: “Living with War: PEN\/Faulkner Winner Sabina Murray,” AsianWeek<\/em>, May 23, 2003<\/a><\/p>\n

Tidbit<\/strong>: The inventive Sabina Murray, together with the wonderful Jessica Hagedorn and Helen Zia, was a guest for the\u00a0Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0“Contemporary Asian American Writers”\u00a0public program on September 29, 2004.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adults<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2002<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"caprices\"Living With War<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Sabina Murray heard she had won the prestigious PEN\/Faulkner Award for her short story collection The Caprices<\/em>, she was so surprised that she hardly believed it. Not until the house began to rapidly fill with flowers and e-mails arrived from around the world did she realize that \u201cthis was a big deal,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

Born in Lancaster, Penn., to a white father and Filipina mother, and raised in Australia and the Philippines, Murray returned to the United States to do her undergrad at Mt. Holyoke and get a master\u2019s at the University of Texas at Austin. When her school days were over, Murray \u201ctried a lot of crazy things,\u201d she says. She sold clothes, shoes, and greeting cards. She was a booking agent for a modeling agency, then tried cocktail waitressing which proved to be \u201cdisastrous,\u201d she
\nconfesses.<\/p>\n

All along, Murray, 34, knew she wanted to be a writer. \u201cWriting is just a part of my personality,\u201d she says. Even as she was selling balloons at the Old Port Festival in Portland, she was gracing the pages of Vanity Fair<\/em> for writing her first novel, Slow Burn<\/em>, about the decadent youth of 1980s Manila, all before she turned 21.<\/p>\n

Six years later, she began what would become The Caprices<\/em>, which captures the brutal effects of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. In this case, the rest is literally literary history.<\/p>\n

AsianWeek<\/strong><\/em>: How did The Caprices<\/em> come about?
\nSabina Murray<\/strong>: It was a long process. I wrote the first story, \u201cIntramuros,\u201d in 1996 and then \u201cWalkabout\u201d a year-and-a-half later. The third story came a year after that, followed by a fourth. I sold the book with those four stories, with the Pacific Campaign as the unifying concept. I wrote the last five after the book sold. It came out in January 2002 and until then, I felt like I was working on it all the time, even though I was doing other things. …[click here for more<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Author interview<\/strong>: “Living with War: PEN\/Faulkner Winner Sabina Murray,” AsianWeek<\/em>, May 23, 2003<\/a><\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adults<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2002<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,6,1511,1326,6535,7,136,137],"tags":[3598,6608,4250,341,24,25,3296,45],"class_list":["post-3418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-author-interview-profile","category-fiction","category-filipinao","category-filipinao-american","category-repost","category-short-stories","category-southeast-asian","category-southeast-asian-american","tag-asianweek","tag-bookdragon","tag-caprices","tag-colonialism","tag-historical","tag-immigration","tag-sabina-murray","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Caprices by Sabina Murray + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/caprices-by-sabina-murray-author-interveiw-asianweek\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Caprices by Sabina Murray + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Living With War When Sabina Murray heard she had won the prestigious PEN\/Faulkner Award for her short story collection The Caprices, she was so surprised that she hardly believed it. Not until the house began to rapidly fill with flowers and e-mails arrived from around the world did she realize that \u201cthis was a big deal,\u201d she laughs. Born in Lancaster, Penn., to a white father and Filipina mother, and raised in Australia and the Philippines, Murray returned to the United States to do her undergrad at Mt. Holyoke and get a master\u2019s at the University of Texas at Austin. When her school days were over, Murray \u201ctried a lot of crazy things,\u201d she says. She sold clothes, shoes, and greeting cards. She was a booking agent for a modeling agency, then tried cocktail waitressing which proved to be \u201cdisastrous,\u201d she confesses. All along, Murray, 34, knew she wanted to be a writer. \u201cWriting is just a part of my personality,\u201d she says. Even as she was selling balloons at the Old Port Festival in Portland, she was gracing the pages of Vanity Fair for writing her first novel, Slow Burn, about the decadent youth of 1980s Manila, all before she turned 21. Six years later, she began what would become The Caprices, which captures the brutal effects of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. In this case, the rest is literally literary history. AsianWeek: How did The Caprices come about? Sabina Murray: It was a long process. I wrote the first story, \u201cIntramuros,\u201d in 1996 and then \u201cWalkabout\u201d a year-and-a-half later. The third story came a year after that, followed by a fourth. I sold the book with those four stories, with the Pacific Campaign as the unifying concept. I wrote the last five after the book sold. It came out in January 2002 and until then, I felt like I was working on it all the time, even though I was doing other things. ...[click here for more] Author interview: "Living with War: PEN\/Faulkner Winner Sabina Murray," AsianWeek, May 23, 2003 Readers: Adults Published: 2002\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/caprices-by-sabina-murray-author-interveiw-asianweek\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2003-05-24T01:40:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-11-10T21:45:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2003\/05\/Caprices.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"316\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"475\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Caprices by Sabina Murray + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/caprices-by-sabina-murray-author-interveiw-asianweek\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Caprices by Sabina Murray + Author Interview [in AsianWeek] - BookDragon","og_description":"Living With War When Sabina Murray heard she had won the prestigious PEN\/Faulkner Award for her short story collection The Caprices, she was so surprised that she hardly believed it. Not until the house began to rapidly fill with flowers and e-mails arrived from around the world did she realize that \u201cthis was a big deal,\u201d she laughs. Born in Lancaster, Penn., to a white father and Filipina mother, and raised in Australia and the Philippines, Murray returned to the United States to do her undergrad at Mt. Holyoke and get a master\u2019s at the University of Texas at Austin. When her school days were over, Murray \u201ctried a lot of crazy things,\u201d she says. She sold clothes, shoes, and greeting cards. She was a booking agent for a modeling agency, then tried cocktail waitressing which proved to be \u201cdisastrous,\u201d she confesses. All along, Murray, 34, knew she wanted to be a writer. \u201cWriting is just a part of my personality,\u201d she says. Even as she was selling balloons at the Old Port Festival in Portland, she was gracing the pages of Vanity Fair for writing her first novel, Slow Burn, about the decadent youth of 1980s Manila, all before she turned 21. Six years later, she began what would become The Caprices, which captures the brutal effects of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. In this case, the rest is literally literary history. AsianWeek: How did The Caprices come about? Sabina Murray: It was a long process. I wrote the first story, \u201cIntramuros,\u201d in 1996 and then \u201cWalkabout\u201d a year-and-a-half later. The third story came a year after that, followed by a fourth. I sold the book with those four stories, with the Pacific Campaign as the unifying concept. I wrote the last five after the book sold. 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