Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Back to Basics program / JUNE 2022
Faiza Hasan
UK
About
My novel, The Ties that Bind Us, examines relationships
through the lens of trauma. It looks at how the choices and
decisions you make regarding your own body can impact
your loved ones, so that the very love that should bind you
together, instead tears you apart.
The idea for this novel came to me as I was sitting in
a hospital waiting room, worrying that I was losing my
eyesight. I kept thinking about what it would mean to lose
something that was so precious, so essential to my mental
and physical wellbeing. This experience, on top of a chronic
pain condition, Fibromyalgia, has made me recognize how
suffering in all its myriad forms impacts relationships, and
how it fundamentally alters the way you think about yourself,
your quality of life and even the quality of your death.
I have an MA in Journalism from Stanford University, and
an MA in Creative Writing from Cambridge University, as
well as a degree from Cordon Bleu in French cuisine. I write
short stories, which have been shortlisted and longlisted for
awards internationally and am currently working on my first
book.
The Ties that Bind Us
I came into the residency with the very specific goal of
rewriting the last ten chapters and possibly even beginning
and finishing a second draft. I ended up writing three drafts
and burning the first one in a Midsommer fire.
I have been working on this novel on and off for the past
four years, chipping away at it a millimetre at a time, feeling
overwhelmed and unsure of the project and my own ability as
a writer. I’d been struggling with the book, with finding that
intangible something that would give it the poignancy and
depth that I knew was missing from it.
Each morning I’d wake up, make myself a carafe of excellent
Finnish coffee, sit down at my desk in the studio and
work. As the other artists would trickle in, I’d listen to their
conversations about life and art, the joys and struggles
of creating and began to understand that giving myself
permission to call myself an artist and enjoying the process
of creating rather than focussing on the end product, was
what was holding me back.
I am grateful to Arteles for giving me the gift of time without
distractions and demands, and to the group of amazingly
talented and generous artists, now friends, who inspired me
to let go and immerse myself in my work. My month at the
residency gave me the freedom to delve underneath the meat
and gristle and finally hold the beating heart of the novel.