Musicality, handmade books, a suitcase by the door, and bebita: Ruth Behar enjoys her dance with children's books
Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, revisit cultural anthropologist, poet, and children's book author, Ruth Behar.
We interviewed
four years ago. One of your memorable quotes (among many) still moves me
to this day: [On switching from recording the fact-based research of Cultural
Anthropology to writing middle grade fiction] “I had the power to embellish
reality and make it sweeter than it really had been. I had the power to invent
things that never happened and make them seem utterly true. Words I had wished
had been said to me could be said at last and make my heart so happy.”
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| Ruth in Havana, photo courtesy of May Reguera |
No question. Just,
wow!
When we last
communicated, you were contemplating an epistolary novel based on your
grandmother’s life of resettlement from Poland to Cuba. Since then, that book
has been published to much acclaim. Did you have some of your grandmother’s
letters to work from?
Yes, that book, Letters
from Cuba, was published in 2020 with Nancy Paulsen Books and in paperback
in 2021. I actually didn’t have any of my grandmother’s letters to work from. I
only had a few postcards from Cuba with her youthful photo on one side and a
brief message in Yiddish on the other side, but that was all. So I had to
imagine the letters she might have written. I did draw inspiration from
published letters by immigrants who found their way to the United States. I
hope one day the letters of immigrants to Cuba will be collected and published.
Lucky
Broken Girl and Letters From Cuba were
based on your life and heritage, but they are works of fiction. How do you know
when and where to leave the actual events and explore the essence of the thing?
With both Lucky
Broken Girl and Letters from Cuba, I turned from actual events to
fiction when there were gaps in the historical record or gaps in my memory, or
if I simply wanted to imagine what might have been. Writing dialogue for my
characters is another moment when I need to lean into my imagination. In
anthropological writing, I’m drawing on transcripts of recorded interviews. For
my novels, I work with the words I’m hearing in my head. I have to listen
closely to these words to arrive at what I think my characters would say if
they were real people.
Tia
Fortuna’s New Home: A Jewish Cuban Journey is
your first picture book. You’ve written scientific papers and novels for most
of your life. How did the constraints of the limited word count and vocabulary
of the picture book genre change your writing style?
It
definitely was a challenge to write a picture book! You have to make every word
sing, like in a poem, so that the story can come alive in unison with the
illustrations. Tía Fortuna’s New Home went through several revisions as
I added and trimmed, added and trimmed, over and over, until the story flowed
and I was able to compress all the action into a single day.
On this one day,
Tía and her niece, Estrella, are saying goodbye to Tía’s beloved seaside casita
and getting Tía settled into her new home at a retirement center where the sea
is far but there are banyan trees and butterflies. I read aloud everything I
write before letting it go, but with the picture book I realized the story had
to not only make sense when read aloud but it needed a strong sense of musicality.
Tía Fortuna’s New Home is a bilingual book; I incorporated the
repetition of words in Spanish, so that kids could enjoy saying them aloud and
learning those words if they’re not Spanish speakers.
When Tía
Fortuna is leaving her casita, she says goodbye to the palm trees that respond
with “adios, adios, adios.” In turn, when she arrives at her new home she
greets the banyan trees, and they respond with “hola, hola, hola.”
I hadn’t
used this kind of repetition in my novels, so this was an enjoyable departure
from my usual writing style. When I read the book aloud to groups of children,
we repeat the Spanish words together and they love that so much; it feels as if
we’re singing.
You have published a volume of poetry: Everything I Kept/
Todo lo que guardé in English and Spanish. (You are your own translator.)
But you also have a number of your poems bound in rare and valuable “homemade”
journals. Can you talk about those, and the amazing artist who creates them
with you?
I am
fortunate to have worked with Rolando Estévez, the amazing Cuban artist who crafted
handmade books, some in small editions and others completely unique and
one-of-a-kind. Estévez and I met when I began to travel to Cuba in the 1990s to
get to know my native land and engage in projects creating bridges between
Cubans who live abroad and Cubans who live on the island.
I dared to tell him I
was writing poems about the emotional experience of returning to Cuba after
growing up in the U.S. and he insisted I write them in Spanish as well as
English, which I did. He was an amazing reader and encouraged me to keep
writing poems. Many of those poems ended up in his beautiful handmade books.
These
books incorporated elements of the Cuban environment, such as seashells,
leaves, and rocks, as well as things like antique cigar labels, and bits and piece
of lace, and even a kiss from an author, imprinted with lipstick onto the page.
In the
book you mention, Everything I Kept/Todo lo que guardé, the original
handmade version has a three-dimensional suitcase on the cover. Inside, it is
lined with sand from Varadero Beach, where my parents honeymooned, and the
suitcase opens and closes with two little pieces of Velcro, which had to be
brought from the United States since it’s impossible to find in Cuba.
I owe so
much to Estévez and I am sorry to say that he passed away on January 17 of this
year. We were planning to travel together to the Library of Congress for an
upcoming exhibition of treasures from their collection that will include a
poetry dress that Estévez made to fit my measurements, an astonishing work
bringing together forty-five poems by Cuban and American women writers.
Sadly,
we won’t be able to go together, but I hope to be there to celebrate his memory
and the love of books that he shared with me and the world.
Readers
can learn more about Estévez’s books on my website: https://www.ruthbehar.com/writings/poetry-handmade-books/
To
experience the awe of the poetry dress, formally entitled Otra piel para
otra entraña/Another Skin for My Insides, have a look at this video:
https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-10510/
Your maternal grandparents
emigrated from Poland to Cuba, and your paternal grandparents from Turkey to
Cuba, where you were born. But after the Bay of Pigs incident, your family
moved to an Israeli kibbutz until ultimately moving to New York City. You said
that traveling was one of the allures to becoming a Cultural Anthropologist.
This wanderlust must affect your view of the world, and of “home.”
It is true that I
had a lot of wanderlust as a young woman and wanted to travel, especially to
Spanish-speaking countries. Cultural anthropology gave me the passport I
needed, allowing me to spend extended periods of time among strangers who
kindly took me in and shared their life stories with me.
Every place I went
became “home” for a while, and even after leaving, the memories of my
experiences stayed with me, and continue to do so to this day. So “home” for me
is in many places. I’ve lived with a suitcase by my door, awaiting the next
journey. Because I was an immigrant child, I think I’ll always have a nomadic
soul.
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| Photo by Gabriel Frye-Behar |
New York is where
your son Gabriel now lives. A celebrated filmmaker and writer, Gabriel is now
collaborating with you in writing some children’s stories. What is it like
working with your little-boy-turned-grown-man?
Curiously,
Gabriel now lives in New York where I grew up, while I still live in Michigan
where he grew up. I’ve loved being his mother and it’s been wonderful to enter
this new phase of our relationship where we’re writing children’s stories
together.
We’ve always enjoyed talking about books and watching and discussing movies,
so being a writing team is a natural outgrowth of those experiences. Gabriel
helped me make the book trailers for Lucky Broken Girl, Letters from
Cuba, and Tía Fortuna’s New Home, so we’ve been collaborating for
some time on projects relating to children’s literature, but now we’re writing
books.
He’s a terrific editor and has a great ear for dialogue, which come from
his filmmaking experience, and I learn a lot from him and feel immensely proud
that he is as passionate about storytelling as I am.
With Gabriel, you
co-wrote the upcoming (Fall 2023) picture book, Pepita Meets Bebita.
Please tell us a little about the story, and how you came to work with your
son.
We are both so
delighted about our upcoming picture book, Pepita Meets Bebita! The
story emerged from the big change that took place in our lives when Gabriel
became a dad and I became a grandmother in 2020, an event that brought light
and hope to our family in the midst of the pandemic. But it also brought some
confusion to the sweet little dog that Gabriel and his wife, Sasha, had treated
as their “bebita” before they had a human baby girl.
I noticed that Pepita
was looking rather sad once the baby arrived; they could no longer give her the
same attention she’d received before because the baby took up all their time
and energy.
It seemed there
was a story to tell about transitions and rites of passage as a family
integrates new members. I asked Gabriel if he wanted to write that story with
me from the point of view of the dog, Pepita, and fortunately he said yes, and
that’s how our collaboration came to be.
Here’s a blog
post we wrote together about the experience of writing the book:
https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2023/04/05/pepita-meets-bebita-how-this-mother-son-picture-book-came-to-be-by-ruth-behar-and-gabriel-frye-behar/
You also have a
WIP middle grade Sephardic novel. It sounds very ambitious: four different
characters from four different time periods, and from four different countries.
How goes this project?
I am happy to say
that this Sephardic novel, Across So Many Seas, is done! I feared I
wouldn’t be able to write it but somehow I did. As you note, it takes place in
four different time periods and in four different countries (Spain, Turkey,
Cuba, and the U.S.) and is told from the point of view of four twelve-year-old
characters, Benvenida, Reina, Alegra, and Paloma.
You need to read to the very last
page to see how it all comes together. My agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, says
it’s like Alan Gratz’s Refugee (a book I love) but told entirely from the
perspective of girls. The novel will be out in February 2024 with Nancy Paulsen
Books.
One big reason I
wished to reconnect was to examine your journey into children’s literature.
Back in 2019, you were an acclaimed and published poet and anthropologist
dabbling in middle grade fiction. Today, you have three titles published, with
more in the pipeline. You have fully embraced the kidlit world, and it has
embraced you back. What have you discovered since we last met?
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| Young Ruth 1996 |
I’ve discovered
that I still have so many kidlit stories to tell and feel immense gratitude
that I have been embraced by the kidlit world. Finding the child’s voice in my
fiction has been a gift, a totally unexpected, beautiful gift. I marvel that
children read the books I’ve written and find life lessons that uplift them.
There’s nothing more amazing than having a young reader ask for sequels to my
books because they want to continue being in the world of Ruthie in Lucky
Broken Girl or Esther in Letters from Cuba.
I’ve witnessed
firsthand how children experience the stories in books with such intensity,
with the fullness of their hearts. I guess that’s why some adults want to ban
books, because they can’t bear to see children engage with books so deeply. But
that experience is one of the sacred wonders of childhood. I hope as a society
we’ll find ways for children to read widely and diversely so they feel at home
in our big wide world.
As a certified
non-dancer, I am fascinated by those who lose themselves in the music. From
that traumatic car accident which left you in a body cast for a year (from
which arose Lucky Broken Girl), you worried that you might break your
leg again. But you found the cha-cha and tango to be exhilarating. What is
dancing to you?
Dancing is pure
joy. Moving to music that I love allows me to forget all my worries and fears.
In partner dancing, there is the beautiful trust that develops with another
person, where you agree to move together through space for the length of a
song. It’s magical when you and your partner understand each other and
communicate without saying a word; at most, you both sing aloud the words to
the song you’re dancing to. I am grateful for those moments. I feel I find that
girl I was before the car accident, the girl who’s still intact, the girl who
never broke a leg.
Please share any
social media links:
Twitter:
@ruthbehar
Instagram:
@ruthbeharauthor
FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100058128067412
[official author page]
FB: https://www.facebook.com/ruth.behar/ [personal account]
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