Parker Bilal is the pen name of Jamal Mahjoub, who has published seven critically acclaimed novels. Dogstar Rising is the most recent in his internationally acclaimed Detective Makana series. Along with Shamini Flint, Jamal gave us an insight into writing crime during this spot at the 2013 Perth Writers Festival. Below are five of these insights.
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Shamini Flint and Jamal Mahjoub © The Ponder Room
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The setting
Born in London, Jamal originally trained as a geologist, he’s lived in Sudan, Cairo, Denmark and now Barcelona. Considering this upbringing it’s hardly surprising that ‘place’ is important in his novels, and often gets treated as a character in it’s own right. For example in The Golden Scales he set about exploring another side of Cairo.
Social issues
Social issues also play a big part in his novels. Jamal explained that they ‘help define the shape of the plot’. For example seeing a scarce resource like water, being used abundantly on golf courses.
‘Each book looks at a different issue …. you can show the absurdities of the situation … show from the poorest to the highest levels of society.’
Maintaining balance
While social issues are a key driver Jamal warned that the issues must serve the plot. They can also be used to ‘feed into the state of mind of the character.’ Having said this, he was quick to add that the novel still has to be an entertaining read, where people can learn things about the place along the way.
‘You want to take the reader on a journey to the place, and the issues happening in the place … the social injustices.’
Detective Makana
The main character in Jamals novels, Detective Makana, is a former police inspector who has few friends, and has become a reluctant private investigator. Similar to Shamini Flints character [see earlier post], Detective Makana is an outsider, a sentiment echoed in his description of being a crime writer.
‘Being a crime author gives you an alibi to put your thoughts and experiences somewhere. It keeps you at bay of reality.’
Writing a series
When creating Detective Makana Jamal did set out to write a series. Interestingly however ‘new ideas keep getting slotted in before the end one’ can be written. Added to this he says he still ‘doesn’t know all about the character yet’.
This last comment left me pondering … if you are going to create a character you’d better like him or her, because you never know how long they’ll be with you.
For more information about Jamal’s work go to www.jamalmahjoub.com
If you have any tips for crime writing please share them with us.
1 Comment
Thanks very interesting blog!|