{"id":764,"date":"2018-07-01T10:21:05","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T15:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/?p=764"},"modified":"2018-07-01T10:21:05","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T15:21:05","slug":"my-interview-with-kevin-jared-hosein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/?p=764","title":{"rendered":"My interview with Kevin Jared Hosein"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kevin Jared Hosein, the TT writer who has won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Caribbean Region for the second time in 2018. Photo courtesy Trinidad & Tobago Newsday\/ Xavier Sylvester<\/p><\/div>\n

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I didn’t get to use these bits of my interview with TT writer Kevin Jared Hosein<\/a>, which was published in the T&T Newsday<\/a> today. I thought other people might be as taken with them as I was, so here they are.<\/p>\n

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On being a young writer:<\/strong> “I remember when I was about 13, 14, me and my parents was driving. I was in the back seat. I get this idea. I say I want to be like Mark Twain. I don’t even like Mark Twain. I was like, I think I could do this \u2013 not really knowing the actual work that would go into it, or what the Caribbean literary scene was like.<\/p>\n

“You know those little Illustrated Classics? I thought they were cool, so I think I did ask my dad to bring some paper from work. I take a scissors and I cutting up all… I had to Scotch tape it together to make my own. I never finish it. I just know I wanted a book.”<\/p>\n

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On how Portia Subran<\/a>, his fiancee, was the first to push him to publish the novel he wrote in spite of himself:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cShe said, ‘You’re a writer?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ She’s like, ‘Well, send me something.’ So I sent her The Repenters<\/a><\/em>. She’s like, \u201cYou’s a real writer! This real good! What you going to do with it?’ She said, ‘You have to do something with this.’<\/p>\n

“As a teen you have real ambition but I think once you turn 18 you just kind of stop caring: ‘You’s a big man now. Go and get a real job.’ I kinda believe it for a time; I stopped writing for a time. Throughout much of UWI I didn’t really write, only coming towards the end when I realise, ‘You know, I ent really remember anything from the degree.’ I just randomly start back writing because of the VS Naipaul thing<\/a>. I was like, ‘Well, VS Naipaul full of shit.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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On being an angry teen:<\/strong> “When I was 11, 12, I got very angry. I don’t know it was hormones; all of a sudden I just start getting vex with everything. Going to an all-boys school is…aargh… escpecially when you want to be a writer… is this girly thing, writing poetry, make fun of you for doing that… just a lot of things make me vex, on the whole, that included.”<\/p>\n

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On the work of writing while being a teacher:<\/strong> “It’s a hobby-job. I don’t see it as a full-time job. I try to treat it like one. I do try to write almost every single day. I am my own boss, which can be kind of tough because you have to have a lot of discipline. After I publish a work, I don’t write anything. I take two months’, three months’ break. I don’t want to see it like a job because to me job is negative. I make money from it, I love doing it. I don’t know if I could make a living off it. I think if I had a mentor it would be different.<\/p>\n

“My actual teaching job, they never hold back. My school understand my situation; I need a lot of time to myself.\u00a0 Now is when I do most of my stuff, the summer. If I have to go anywhere they don’t make any fuss. The support helps.”<\/p>\n

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My selfie with Kevin at the Adult Literacy Tutors Association Readings Under the Trees in March, 2018<\/p><\/div>\n

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

  I didn’t get to use these bits of my interview with TT writer Kevin Jared Hosein, which was published in the T&T Newsday today. I thought other people might be as taken with them as I was, so here they are.   On being a young writer: “I remember when I was about 13, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-column"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisaallen-agostini.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}