Revolutionary

I’ve decided that I’m going to write more detailed blog posts about moments over these five days that really stand out to me, rather than writing a single post for an entire day and dedicating just a snippet to each event as I did last time. So, the focus of this post is Sunil Yapa in conversation with Richard Denniss, which took place on Thursday night.

Richard Denniss began the event by confessing that he judged Sunil Yapa’s novel, Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, by its cover, and his ruling was that it was chicklit. He then elaborated that what he found beyond the cover couldn’t be further from his presumption. The novel surrounds the World Trade Organisation protests in Seattle of 1999, and Richard, who is an economist by profession, revealed that reading it took him back to that time in his own history. Richard reflected that he was attending the rallies himself, a period of his life he had forgotten but which the novel helped to unearth. Given the focus with which I am observing the festival this time around, I was delighted to hear Richard’s unique experience reading Sunil’s book.

Richard then handed the floor to Sunil. Sunil Yapa is warm, intelligent and engaging. He spoke about the novel first, revealing that one of the challenges was developing empathy for all of his characters in the story. But empathy soon became the focus point of the conversation, throughout discussions on protests and social change and the state of the world. Sunil expressed concern about the idea of a revolution hinging upon violence and aggression. Instead, he proposed that caring about other people is a revolutionary act – kindness and compassion is a revolutionary act. Those words really struck a chord in me, and I realised that we were listening to the voice of a revolutionary.

I haven’t yet read Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, but I will say this: I am someone who spent the better part of three years believing that I was going to be an accountant for the rest of my life before unceremoniously launching that idea out of the window and exorcising the aftertaste with a university course that far more closely suits my interests. But after Thursday night I can confidently say that if anyone can persuade me to read a novel surrounding issues pertaining to the economy, it’s Sunil Yapa.