In 2022, Sheena Patel’s debut novel I’m A Fan took the literary world by storm. Ahead of her appearance at the Laugharne Festival in March, Hari Berrow speaks to her about the novel, being creative, and the difficult job of writing authentically.
For such a creative powerhouse, Sheena Patel does not like admitting to her ability. “I wrote a book,” she tells me simply, “I wouldn’t say I’m a writer because that sounds too official.” Patel did not write just any book, however. Written in small, sharp, cutting bites, I’m A Fan explores toxic relationships through the lens of an equally toxic protagonist.
Described as a “whirring TikTok slideshow of skits” about an ugly world of sex and seduction, the novel’s ability to reflect modern life in both form and content made Patel one of the up-and-coming stars of the British literary scene. The book’s success is a surprise to no one more than Patel herself: “No-one knew who I was, so I didn’t think anyone would read it, and if they did I thought I’d get cancelled because it’s so nasty.”
An assistant director for television drama by trade, Patel began her writing career with her self-formed collective 4 Brown Girls Who Write. “I got a bunch of my friends together and we all read together, and four of us became a collective out of it. I think there’s a lot of energy in groups, and creatively you can achieve more together than you can on your own. It was very DIY – we didn’t really do proposals or get agents or anything, we just published our own books and put on events. It was a lot of us approaching people and asking if they wanted to collaborate on an event, or help us make a book, and then pushing our books to bookshops.”
This approach has been integral to Patel’s work. “Nina from Rough Trade Books – who we’d published pamphlets with – said ‘write something!’ so I thought, OK. Her husband became my editor. I sort of sucked up the world and cooked it into a word document, and it seemed like a load of nonsense at the beginning.
“It was a slow process of uncovering what it was going to be. It was more through the editing process that I found it – there was no real lightbulb moment, it was more like a series of many decisions that led to that thing. It found its form through the process. I found what it was through the making of it. It felt like it was an accident.”
There is, however, nothing accidental to Patel’s approach to writing – slow and deliberate, the young writer wanted to craft work in a voice she felt was missing from modern literature. “I did it my way. I thought – this is acceptable to me: I read a lot, I’m using poetry, I’m using scripts. I’m going to use a form that I know and make a novel which I love, but I’m going to do it my way.
“I’m going to break this thing, break it open, not the way they want me to do it, I’m going to do it the way I want to do it. I think that’s the way you have to come to anything. Sheila Heti writes in a circle. It’s a stunning way of writing, it’s so interesting what she does with the written word – to queer it in that way. To be more open, to give it more space, it doesn’t have to be just this three-part thing. It can be anything you want it to be, and still call it a novel.
“Traditionally, mine shouldn’t really be a novel – it’s a bunch of fragments – but you don’t have to do what people expect you to do. More interesting things happen if you do that.”
While Patel wasn’t explicitly aiming to write about her South Asian background, she was absolutely determined to challenge stereotypes with her work. “I was like, I’m not going to be a victim. No-one is going to feel sorry for this character, and she is going to be an absolute menace. She had to be unforgiving and terrifying, because there’s so much about that fear of making the mistake, about being perfect, about being good. I was thinking about how to get out of that victim mentality and getting away from the thing that you are supposed to be.
“I was going to write explicitly about sex – that’s not in brown people’s novels. When you’re writing or making any art, you want your parents involved and your culture, so you sort of censor yourself. I thought, what it would be like if I didn’t give a shit about any of that, and just wrote what I wanted to and be as explicit as I could?
Patel laughs. “I’ve got my family now saying, ‘I’m going to buy your book,’ and I’m like ‘Please do not buy the book! Do not open that book please!’ In a wider sense I just wanted to make a character that wasn’t pathetic; that wasn’t a victim. ‘Oh, this man is doing things to her’ – no. He has to be scared of her; everyone has to be scared of her.
“Politically, she has to be unforgiveable, because white women are forgiven for things that black and brown women aren’t. So, I wanted to push the limits of things that even I think are unforgiveable. I felt like, if I get cancelled for saying these things, I have to stand by everything that I’ve said. This is my one shot.”
In terms of advice for new writers? Patel has three pieces: “Go where you’re scared, always lean into what terrifies you. I think that’s where you have to go because that’s where the story is. I don’t know what I’m scared of at the moment, and I think that’s why I don’t know what to write.
“I would also say, use your friends. Create a community if you can. If you’re being encouraged by other people, it will encourage you. It won’t be so lonely. And actually: just write it. Share it with people you trust. Don’t see what you share as the finished thing, but part of the process of the thing. Just start, start in some way, because the way it starts isn’t the way it will be at the end.”
In terms of what Patel wants you to take away from her slot at the Laugharne Festival? “That I’m funny. I hope that’s what they all come away from the talk thinking.”
Sheena Patel is at the Laugharne Weekend, various venues, Laugharne, Fri 15-Sun 17 Mar (exact schedule TBC).
Tickets: £135 full pass (sold out); £10 full livestream pass.
Info: thelaugharneweekend.com
words HARI BERROW