Love Lives - ‘Bellies’ author Nicola Dinan: ‘Trans characters should have the right to be fallible too’

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

This week, we’re thrilled to speak with author Nicola Dinan about her debut novel, Bellies.It follows the relationship between young graduates Tom and Ming and how their connection fluctuates in the wake of Ming’s transition, and is being adapted for TV by the studio behind the Normal People adaptation.We chat with Nicola about the expectation that transgender characters should be overly virtuous, and how marginalised characters should have “the freedom to be pieces of s*** too.”Catch Love Lives on Independent TV and YouTube, as well as all major social and podcast platforms.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. How do you feel about cisgendered writers creating trans characters? I just like don't say no to anything like this. I just don't think anything is off the table. Hello and welcome to Love Lives, a podcast from The Independent where I, Olivia Petter, speak to different people about the loves of their lives. Today I am so excited to be speaking to Nicola Dinan, author of one of the most highly anticipated novels of the year, Bellies.

There is already a TV adaptation in the works from the same production company who made Normal People. So it's safe to say this book is set to be a huge hit. So I can't wait to speak to Nicola about it. So let's begin. Hi, Nicola. How are you doing? Hi, I'm well.

How are you? I'm good. I'm good. So as I said in the intro, the book has had a lot of hype already. It's going to have this huge kind of glossy TV adaptation. Can you start us off by introducing the book, how it came to you, how you started writing it, when did you start writing it? So I started writing the book in August of 2020 so it started it was like as a lockdown project and uh I it's had started initially as a short story so you know I think earlier that year I'd written a short story was sending it to literary journals hoping it'd be published um with the view

of oh maybe if I publish that story and a few other stories and I get into some big name literary journals hopefully you know then I'll feel qualified enough to write a book um but sadly like no one wanted my short stories um and then I came to a point well okay well I do really want to write a book so what do I do now and so I started writing Bellies because you know I just thought you know I just should it's it's the book I want to write and you know I think there's that very rightly cliche of you know the first book you write is the book you have to write and the second book you write is the book you want to write but it very much has felt that way with writing bellies uh so I wrote

it then at the end of 2020 and you know got the book deal a year and a half later but I found that once I started writing it it was like the words were just coming out and it ended up being a much quicker process than I thought it would be which is really which was really nice and how did did you start with a kind of clear trajectory of how the plot was going to go or did you just kind of have these two characters in your mind and the plot kind of came out from there? Yeah I had the two characters in my mind I knew that Ming's transition was always going to be the centre of gravity of the book but as I moved on with the writing it became really evident that the book was much bigger than Ming's transition and its impact on her relationship with Tom.

And the book became much more expansive. You know, you have this whole cast of characters who are, you know, largely queer, largely people of colour, existing around Tom and Ming, each going through their individual struggles. And in that sense, this one event, Ming's transition and its impact on her relationship with Tom sends ripples. And it becomes a lot more about a novel about relationships and not just romantic relationships, but the relationships we have with our parents and our friends and so I didn't quite anticipate when I started Bellies that it would speak to so much more than being trans. Yeah no I think it really does and I think I'm so excited to see the conversations that it starts when it's on the big screen because I think with books like this it's on the big screen, because I think with books like this, it's so important that they have

that maximum visibility, I think, to start those really important conversations, because it's so, you know, we have nothing like this, really. And it's about time that we finally have stories like this on a kind of mainstream level. Talk to me a bit about what you said about the book not being about identity, because in an interview you kind of said that rather than being a book about identity and kind of, I guess, how you identify from a gender perspective, it's more about two young people struggling to find their place in the world, all while learning how to care for each other and for those around them. What do you mean when you say it's about that as opposed to being about identity?

Because I think the word identity to some people, it carries connotation. Because I mean, I think that's sort of the same thing. But to some people, I think maybe that word identity scares people in a way. Or it makes them think it's about something that it's necessarily not, if you see what I mean. a way or it makes them think it's about something that it's necessarily not if you see what I mean yeah you know I think when I said that it's not it relates to what I just said about the book not just being about transness but you know you could substitute Ming's transition for so many other things I think what's been striking now you you know, speaking from this present moment where the book is sort of a week from being released and still having had the opportunity to speak to people who aren't trans, who aren't even queer and are quite far away from Tom and Ming's experiences, still finding the novel very relatable. the novel very relatable and I think you could substitute Ming's transition for a whole number of events you know you could just substitute it for any form of like bereavement you know and

particularly on Tom's end or any particular change in life like moving somewhere new you know there are all these uh events in life that cause a great sense of upheaval and so when I spoke about the novel not just being identity about identity that's sort of what I meant you know obviously a quest of for who you are and transition can cause big change but so can a lot of things and in all of those instances there's always this impetus to look around you and think, OK, well, how do I care for those going through this change or impacted by this change? I think that's what the novel speaks to in addition to being trans. That being said, I think it's really great that the novel has a trans character and that

I get to write from the perspective of a trans character who and I think you know on the one hand it's not about identity just about identity but people will read Ming's experience and relate relate to it and hopefully develop a more attuned sense of empathy for trans people and you know that's something that I think we need. There's such a almost quite devilish portrayal of trans people in the media. People think we're injecting testosterone into kids as like Capra Suns or something.

And that's so insane to me. And there's not much to counterbalance that. And I think so that there's you know we have wonderful writers like Sean Fay who wrote the transgender issue but I think fiction has an important role here too and I wrote the book just kind of realizing that no matter what the book was going to be political because of that reason, because trans people's existence, their existence is politicized. So, you know, naturally, I did want to make this experience, which felt so specific, you know, I think, for someone who isn't trans, the idea of some people who aren't trans, the idea of transitioning feels like so many worlds away.

It's like, how could I even imagine myself being in those shoes? But I think hopefully a book like Bellies just makes it feel a little bit more universal. Yeah. And I think what you said about popular culture is so important because it does have such a crucial role in terms of shaping perceptions and eliciting that empathy in a way that is just fundamentally much harder to do with nonfiction, I think. And so I think it will really kind of tap into, like you said, that kind of deeper level of understanding and relatability, like you said, and unexpected relatability for a cisgender person, I think, as well. Yeah, I think so. And, you you know one thing I've heard from some people who've read the book and this is tends to be as people who are maybe slightly older and maybe

haven't encountered a trans person before um you know I've been told that Betty's taught them a lot and that's a very surprising thing it's a very scary thing because I'm like I didn't write a book to suddenly be someone's teacher yeah you know I'm not like professor of trans studies at trans university um and yet suddenly I feel this burden from having this book that might have a meaningful impact on people but I do think it's something to embrace and also something to be cautious of you know just as well as like books can teach um can teach meaningfully about experiences they can also you know detract from a meaningful perspective on certain experiences and i think we've had a lot of the latter about trans people you know i just think of like buffalo bill from uh what's it called

silence of the lambs like that just like popping off head. And I just think we've had a lot of that. And yeah, I'm so excited to be part of like a wave of fiction that maybe tries to reverse that a little bit. Definitely. And you write the book both from Tom's perspective and from Ming's perspective. Why do you think it was important to you to have both of their voices in the book and have them kind of running alongside each other?

And how do you think that helps create the depth and the complexity of each of these characters? I think it's so necessary because if I think if you've read Tom's perspective or just Ming's perspective alone particularly because there's a lot of conflict between them throughout the novel you might read it all from Tom's perspective and be like wow like Ming's a lot of conflict between them throughout the novel you might read it all from Tom's perspective and be like wow like Ming's a dickhead or you might read it all from like Ming's perspective and be like Tom fucking sucks but there's this real importance for me as a writer to present a sense of judiciousness um and it is you know I think some writers love to write books with unreliable narrators and not have any form of like check and balance.

And that in itself is a really interesting literary trope. But because my book is like fundamentally about relationships and fundamentally about how, you know, you can feel like someone's done so much wrong to you. But often the reality is, is that they were just trying their best and that they weren't intending to cause harm or they were just doing what they needed to do at that moment with the tools that they had um and that is a very painful and you know unfair reality that you kind of have to come to terms with as you become an adult you know that there's not this conspiracy against you um and that often people are just trying their best and I think it would have been

really hard to communicate that yeah had it just been from one of their perspectives you know you would have looked at I'm just thinking of for example the play that Ming wrote you know so in the novel Ming writes a play called Thin Frames which is in part based on her and Tom's relationship and this sort of like there's almost a united view amongst Tom and his friends or the friends who are closer to him that the play was like wrong and exploitative but I do think from Ming's perspective you see okay well why is she you know such a careerist and why is she so ruthlessly ambitious I think through having insight into her own perspective you see she's incredibly afraid to be alone and she's thinking well if I'm going to be

alone well I might as well have a career and you know when you understand where someone's coming from it builds a sense of compassion for both the characters I think compassion is at the core of the novel and so it wouldn't have really made sense for me also to have written it in any other way. But also, you know, from writing the perspective of like transitioning, I think if it was just from Ming's perspective and I think a lot of people would just expect this book to be by a trans character or rather written from the perspective of a trans character if it involves transition but you know I was trying to make it feel a bit more universal to not just be

about the transition which is why by the way there aren't that many details about Ming's like physical transition although we're aware it happens we don't spend much time with her through that process and it's because I wanted to focus on the impact of transitional transition as a relational thing and having two having two perspectives both Tom and Ming's really helped to achieve that yeah it's so interesting because I think we have a very one-sided view of relationships in life don't we because even if it's obviously we only experience our own experiences in a relationship, but we also only experience a one-sided view from the

relationships of our friends because we only get their perspective. Unless we're friends with both people, but you know, generally if we're only friends with one person in a relationship, you do get a very biased view. And I think, like you said, you end up just, you know, thinking, oh, well, they're a dickhead, they're a dickhead. It's actually just not a helpful way to view humanity or romantic relationships. And it like really inhibits growth anyway. So I think it's a useful tool for life

to think about it from both sides. It sounds so simple, but I feel like none of us do that. It's like everyone talks about like political polarization like wow like the left is so political like polarized from the right but it's like have you examined the polarization with your boyfriend yeah it's like it's crazy romantic polarization or like even polarization with your friendship group that kind of polarization and siloing and echo chambering happens you know in every aspect of our day-to-day yeah I think what's so

fun for me as a writer as well as like you know having to write both sides of a relationship I almost like check myself it's like I'm being like forced to do that exercise of putting myself um in someone else's mind and you know at times in the book I feel more aligned with Tom and at other times in the book I feel more aligned with Ming um and feel like a sense of anger for the other person but then when I switch the perspectives it sort of levels me out of it I think it is something I can kind of take into my actual life yeah yeah it'd be useful for all of us to do that yeah um and do you think of this book as a love story or if you had to kind of categorize it in any genre, would you say it's a romance book? I think the like literary fiction author quote unquote in me is like any sense of like genre.

I sort of squirm because I'm like, oh, like what if that's like a reductive way to look at it? But, you know, I can't admit that there's a lot of love in the novel but I think it's you know there's a sense of subversion of that idea of a love story because I think the novel is looking at how does love transform um it's looking at the existence of multiple kinds of love you know I rarely see books about friendship being described as love stories, but I often think they should be. I think those are perhaps some of the most meaningful relationships and long-lasting relationships I will ever have in my life. And the love and care in those relationships are so rich. And maybe I would want those novels about friendship to be described as love story too.

So in actual fact, like maybe I will claim love story for this. Yeah, I think we just have a very, we have a very reductive view of love stories, as you said. And I think we, when we socially think about love, we do tend to think about romantic love. Yeah, well, I think we have, yeah, I think, you know, it's not just that we have a reductive view about love stories I think we have like quite a reductive view about love and you know I've been to like a few weddings and I really enjoy them it's so fun to like celebrate you know like friends coming together like family coming together but I suppose the one thing I've always found odd about weddings and I suppose because there's such a huge expense in order to like kind of justify the expense and

the whole you know charade um I maybe shouldn't say charade but you know the whole event there's this need to say well a romantic partner is the most important thing because why else would we be here you know if that wasn't the most important thing like why have I dropped a bomb on this marquee um if you know this isn't the most important thing in your life but there's a you know there's a sense of okay well that's all that's there um and sometimes I felt that I can go to a wedding and leave almost feeling like, oh, but there are so many other things to life and there are so many other things to love. And my friends mean so much to me. And maybe a wedding isn't a place to express that.

But I think, you know, almost when there's someone you haven't seen in a really long time or there's family members that are very interested in who you're dating and you know that that tends to be um the litmus test whether you're happy or someone like asks if you're in a relationship and they and you say yes and they immediately say oh i'm so happy for you drives me mad yeah i was like what like you're like you're not gonna ask more questions because also if you say oh no i'm not dating anyone in the room and i oh oh i can i'm, they're like, oh, I'm sure I can find someone to say. Have you tried the apps? Yeah, oh, I'm sure I can find someone to say. I was like, no, I'm happily single.

Leave me the fuck alone. Yeah, so it's like, you know, there's this weird expectation that romantic love equals happiness. I do think that's just, like, symptomatic of that, like, reductive act. Yeah. We take towards love. It's this idea that romantic love is going to save you from something it's like no no you're going to save yourself the only person that can save you from anything is you yeah um there are so many lines that stand out to me in

the book that I want to ask you about but one that I wanted to bring up was when Tom tells Ming that he came out late and then adds nobody wants to admit that people leave the closet, but not the room. That really struck me. What do you think Tom means when he says that to Ming? So I think there's a sense of lingering shame that a lot of queer people deal with. And also, with and also you know I think with stories of queer people generally they often exist in extremes like we have these stories of like queer misery but then we have these like unrelenting stories of queer joy and it's like well in reality does like something more in the middle exist you know that you have maybe this very liberating act and if you're lucky to have people around you who love and accept you for who you are um then that can be like extremely liberating but at the same time you still harbor all of those things that you've heard when you

were younger and all of those little things that make you feel less worthy that have a cumulative effect and how you relate to others in the present so I think that's what I was trying to say when you know I wrote you know people leave the closet but not the room um and in the book like Ming and Tom with regards to Tom's sexuality you know his identity as a gay man and Ming's life as a trans woman both of them haven't faced many barriers Tom is this you know middle-class white boy who grows up in South London with like very well-meaning very white parents um and who are very open and accepting even though they often occasionally you know not even occasionally often make blund, you know. And Ming comes from a

relatively financially privileged position, you know, she's able to afford hormone replacement therapy. And that means jumping through a very long NHS queue that's like very inhumane and a huge problem for trans people in the UK today. But despite those things, and despite those barriers, they still face difficulties with respect to their own identities. And I think in that way, we almost underestimate those little things we pick up as children and as teenagers um you know before we have a real sense of ourselves or um before we've formed a fully actualized version of ourselves um and I really want to examine in the absence of all those barriers what's left behind and how does

it affect us yeah I think that's really interesting because those barriers you mentioned are things that you know when we do read about trans issues in the news, those are the things that are going to come up. And I feel like it's those nuanced kind of things once we get past that, because maybe there's this sense that, oh, once you overcome all of those barriers, you're fine. And it's like, no, there's still there's still like internal psychological difficulties because because of the way, because of transphobia and how rampant it is today. So I think it's interesting to actually put there is just so much media focus on the physical aspects of transitioning and supporting trans people through that. And I think even really well-meaning allies will be like, okay, well, we really need to reduce the NHS times.

We really need to make surgical intervention available on the nhs um again without really long wait times but and we do and that is so important but we also need to focus on well how do we actually like support people who have grown up in hostile wider environments of or who have like suffered um due to the impact of shame on their psyche and I do think that sort of we need to peel that back a bit uh but you know for me as a writer I think there was some fear of okay well what if my book doesn't draw enough attention uh to these bigger issues and there's a lot of fear that like I haven't discharged my responsibility as a writer to focus on things like long wait times on the NHS even though for example Ming does kind of reflect on

it briefly in the book it's not at its center and there's almost like the worry of like am I representing the trans experience fully or appropriately. But also what's interesting about that is like you're a writer you're not an activist just because of your identity and I think that's something that is often misplaced culturally like that's not necessarily your responsibility unless you want to make it your responsibility but maybe that's something that is thrust upon you but I do think writers maybe some have some responsibility and you know I've been thinking a lot about this recently that there maybe is, you know, some, you know, maybe it is incumbent on some writers to kind of like, if it's set in the reality that we live in, if the book is set in the reality that we live in, then maybe it is incumbent on writers to you know situate their work in a broader context and I have tried to do that with Bellies and you know I hope that by doing that

I've kind of discharged that responsibility of you know expressing that Ming's experience isn't necessarily representative although you know I also hope a reader will be able to do some of the work and realize that that will obviously not be the case um but i do think writers have a little bit of responsibility even if they're not activists because you know your work will engage with the broader world world and you know as i said earlier there's something about bellies even though it is so far from being like a work of you know a political work there's something about it which will always be inherently political because of the context in which it is published yeah um in one interview this kind of

goes back to what we were saying before but you said that you know when we do have trans characters in popular culture there's this impetus to create them as like completely virtuous yeah um why why do you think that is and and how do we move away from that you know is it does that come from a place of of guilt or what what do you think that is i think it comes from a place of playing into people's unfair judgments on that group of people you know if I take trans women as an example like some unfair like insults levied against trans women is often like narcissism or superficiality or cruelty. And there's a level to which in the book, Ming is kind of at times all of those things. And I think, you know, there's a fear of, okay, well, what if someone reads my book and thinks all trans women are narcissists, cruel, superficial.

But, you know, in my view, firstly, you kind of have to accept that that can happen you know I think I've been I was reflecting on when Tori Peters was nominated for the women's prize for detransition baby and there was this open letter written um against you know the the her being on the long list and it was like the most incendiary letter it was like actually in some ways I was talking to a trans friend of mine and we were like this is kind of a gift because it's so horrible and like so awful that I don't think anyone could read this letter and think that that was okay except that those people who signed it you know it's kind of um those moments in life where

you experience a microaggression and you feel unable to say anything about it. And you almost wish that they just said what they meant and that letter said what it meant. And it was so awful. And it made me realize that people will read a book like Detransition Baby, which is so nuanced and so clever and still take what they want from it like if they want to make a delusional take or they have a delusional sense of what a trans person is that that will be you know what they take away from the book and there's only so much you can do with that yeah because they're not open to having their interpretation changed anyway so there's a sense of like okay well people are just going to take

from it what they want to and that's like completely out of my hands and so when I wrote a character like Ming who is at times these things that are led these terms that are levied against trans women I was like well what I'm doing is actually giving context to why she might be a little narcissistic at times because she's in a world that is constantly judging her appearance and she constantly feels like if she appears to be the wrong thing she might be in danger so of course that breeds a sense of narcissism and superficiality and she's also cruel because she's very hurt and she's in pain and she feels very lonely. And, you know, I think rather than looking at, OK, well, this is just something she inherently is.

If you give context to those experiences, they suddenly become a bit more meaningful. But they also lose their power in terms of being used against her as like she is this way because there's like something inherently wrong with her you know so but I think it's kind of necessary you know to in order to create empathy for a character to make them a little fallible but that's very scary to do you know and I think it's so much in the novel is like centered around vulnerability like the title as well is basically a novel it's essentially about vulnerability you know it's about showing your belly to someone where all your organs are in the fear that they're just going to gut you and walk away so but at the same time as a writer and as a trans writer, it's also kind of a vulnerable act to put out a character who might just be received to other people and to have people understand you and empathise with you and for you to empathise with them. I think it's important to be vulnerable

too and put characters out there without quite knowing how a public will respond. But at the same time you kind of have to take that risk to create meaningful characters that people find relatable. How do you feel about cisgendered writers creating trans characters? So you know I just like don't say no to anything like this I just don't think anything is off the table right off the bat you know then we have to kind of look at okay well how do I write these experiences well right I think a cisgender person writing something to which like about something about trans people when they've never even spoken or met a trans person done no reading

about what it means to be trans, very strange. But I think what we'll find is that it probably won't be a very good book. It probably won't be a book that will stand the test of time. And I think a lot of writers, I think particularly of an older generation, though that is like a very blanket statement, I think and I think too often these cultural issues are just painted as generational divides when it's much more complicated but I think um for some writers who have maybe written a time where there's been like fewer checks and balances with regards to what they want to write the idea that there could be any curb on creativity is kind of unfathomable they're like well I'd rather not

write then but it's like you kind of have to take some care when writing um I've said this a lot you know in other talks and things where I think there is like a fine line between care and censorship um and it might be a fine line and it like difficult to navigate, but the line is there. And I think it's important to take care regardless. And the more further you write away from your own experience, the more care you have to take, the more research you have to do and I think there's a greater responsibility on that writer to do that work um but and but you know I think some trans cis people have really close relationships with trans people that are worth writing about you know The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson I always say is such a good example of you know a cisgender woman writing so meaningfully on like a queer family which involving a trans parent you know her partner Harry Dodge and it's such a beautiful book and to offhand say that she can't write that um is a bit silly but I also

haven't ever heard anyone say that cisgender people can't write trans is a bit silly. But I also haven't ever heard anyone say that cisgender people can't write trans characters or that people can't write outside of their own experiences. Like I've never actually heard anyone say this. But I think a lot of people who resist that idea like to say that that's what people are saying. when really it's saying do but also do research yeah yeah yeah that's so true it's just one of those things that like actually isn't a problem yeah like who is actually saying this like when when have I like when has anyone said this to you yeah um let's talk about the tv adaptation quickly because this is so exciting and I know that you're involved in the screenwriting process how how have you found that and when you were writing Bellies did you imagine it being on the

screen? It's been so surreal like I think the manuscript for my book got leaked to TV production companies before I even had a book deal so right after we signed the book deal, suddenly we had this really busy auction for selling the rights to the TV show. And it was so strange. And there wasn't almost enough time to process things. I think I'm a very visual person. I've grown up watching a lot of TV and film. grown up watching a lot of TV and film. So, you know, I couldn't help but fantasize when I was writing the book being like, oh, it'd be so cool if one day this was a TV show. But I didn't write it to be made into a screenplay because I think the quality, and by quality, I mean nature of screenwriting versus writing prose is so different. And I think you have so much less freedom with screenwriting and, you know, you can't use literary devices and you're limited in the way you describe things.

When you're writing prose, you have so much at your disposal in terms of how you craft. And you're also in complete control of the entire world. Like you want to add a dragon, do it. Like you want to do anything, just do it in your prose. But with TV, there is something you know suddenly you're bringing in okay well the director might need to interpret this this way and we need to leave space for the actors to interpret certain things and we also don't want to get bogged down in you know descriptions of set and so there's almost this relinquishing of control and suddenly this very private exercise of writing a novel becomes something so much more open and collaborative.

It's been kind of refreshing to actually be able to work with other people. It's like, oh, I have colleagues again. Yeah. But the process is very different. This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessie Cruikshank. I host the number one comedy podcast called Phone a Friend. I also have three kids.

I need help making every day easier. So I switched to Google Pixel. It's a phone powered by Gemini, your personal AI assistant. Gemini can help you summarize your unread emails, suggest what to make with the food in your fridge, and it helped me achieve a family photo where everyone is smiling at the camera. I didn't think it was possible, but it is with Google Pixel 9. Learn more at store.google.com.

Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who strength program. They've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push, find your power. Peloton, visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Okay, let's move on to the loves of your life that you've chosen so the first one is an item of food that reminds you of home so tell us what you've chosen so i've chosen roti canai uh you know

malaysians will know it's like basically this delicious flat like kind of prata but very very buttery oily you see the dough before it's cooked on the griddle and it's just this like white ball or slipped up ball um and then it's like flattened and rolled into a spiral and it's just cooked and when you pull it apart it's like doughy and delicious and you dip it in fish curry chicken curry um and you know it just coats this coats it in this red wash and it's so delicious and whenever i go back home to malaysia you know we go straight from the airport and we'll go stop in a mamak store which is you know um derived from like tamil muslims who cook these like traditional tamil Tamil Muslim recipes including

roti canai and we'll just eat it and then go home and it just feels like homecoming to me and whenever I miss home I stop by Roti King in Houston pay an obscene amount for two pieces of roti canai just to feel a little bit closer to home you know I sort of mention it because it reminds me of family Malaysia where I grew up and all of my friends from home as well do you go back to Malaysia very much so I go back about once a year which never feels like quite enough and I haven't really lived there since I left school when I was 18 to move here um but that's what's so nice about writing Bellies and getting to write about Malaysian food you know Ming is Malaysian and Tom and Ming go back to Malaysia in one chapter and I think that's probably one of my favorite chapters in the novel and they're sort

of exploring Kuala Lumpur together they're going round eating all the food that Ming wants Tom to try and you know that whole chapter to me just feels very beautiful and I always sort of dip into it when I'm missing home you mentioned Roti King what what do you make of the food in London otherwise do you find you know what because comparatively I feel like it's just not on the same scale it's different like I say I think like there's sort of like a running joke between me and my friends that I'm like a weirdly staunch defender of British food yeah I think you know when I think about it a lot of like aversion to British food is boiled down to an extent I know it's kind of

like season like seasonless but um or like completely lacking seasoning but a lot of that aversion to British food is kind of rooted in some form of like classism that I've really noticed in the UK um but you know in Malaysia we fucking love fish and chips like it's like a real like people really love British food and I think that there's almost this like unwillingness to enjoy British food for what it is which is often like quite hearty um but I also think food in London is really great like so many good Chinese restaurants and very good like regional Chinese restaurants as well piano but obviously the Malaysian food um isn't you know there's we

don't have the same range here but Norma's in Queensway is like my number one. Oh, really? Yeah, I die for them. They're amazing. Do you cook much? I cook a lot of Chinese food. I cook Malaysian food occasionally. I love to make a rendang, which is this like very, very slow cooked Malaysian curry. You basically have this paste, which whenever I go back to Malaysia, we go, me and my mum go to like this wet market and we pick up the curry paste I like and then I bring it home and you fry it a bit off a bit in some oil you put your meat in and then

you pour the coconut milk in and simmer it until the coconut milk completely evaporates so over like more than three hours and then it just becomes this sticky fatty rich mess of a curry that's like sort of perfect with some like sticky rice or roti chana oh that sounds amazing now i'm getting really hungry um your second love is complicated characters yeah i think it's very apt because of the characters you've obviously written about in bellies but tell us why you've chosen this and what you mean when you say complicated characters i think like we said earlier just characters who which are fallible um because I've always found those characters more relatable

I actually think like a seminal moment in like my creative awakening was watching girls when I was a teenager and you know obviously watching that show with a 2023 lens it feels much more problematic than it did at the time it has its problems that's clear but I feel like as a young person as a teenager it was my first exposure to really shitty characters like really like I was like oh my god like these girls are awful but I also really relate to them I think there's so much power in having these complicated characters who are like sometimes more good sometimes more banned um and there's just so much reality you know in that kind of portrayal of people and it's why it's so nice to write a trans character like Ming who also is that you know I want to fight for the right for trans people to be pieces of shit too yeah it's interesting

about girls because I think like you said it was one of those be pieces of shit too yeah it's interesting about girls because I think like you said it was one of those first pieces of popular culture where there weren't really any likable women in the main as the main women yeah I know the show is like was compared a lot to Sex and City and it's it wasn't because Sex and City all those characters were fundamentally pretty likable yeah and in girls they were all quite easy to hate no exactly but you know I think that that that's life yeah I think like all of us are probably at times easy to hate particularly when we're around those closest to us yeah yeah it's interesting because I I agree with you like watching that show now it is obviously quite problematic but it was also quite ahead of its time in

certain other ways I think like there's that one episode I think it's called American Bitch where she goes to the house of an older writer. Yes. And it's sort of like a pre-Me Too kind of story. Yeah. And I thought that was really really well done and there's certain things that you watch and you're like oh damn they really they like they were really clever and on it but it was obviously kind of kind of taken down with other things that were a bit backward yeah and I guess sometimes

with bellies I'm like oh will this be in any way viewed as like problematic further down the line but I think as a writer that's something you have to accept that you're writing at a particular moment in time with the tools you have and when that criticism does come you just have to listen graciously yeah I agree with you it's interesting mentioning Sex and City as well because I was just thinking about the representation of trans characters and that was absolutely dreadful yeah um but but then have you seen the reboot I have seen the reboot and I think oh god it's like okay like what's happened you know those 20 years since sex and the city ended okay well like um blm happened and you know trans people exist now that's literally it feels like that's literally what

they're trying to tell us and i was like okay we're just gonna stuff this in and i was like okay well it just feels like so ham-fisted and not like very smart no um like I do think Che is like potentially like the worst character I've ever seen I know I'm like not in that like fallible I want complex character kind of way I was like this is just not a good character yeah I I agree with you because it's it's funny because I like it's like yes we need to move forward and be more representative, but not like that. That's not helpful. The way they've done it doesn't feel meaningful.

No, I agree with you. Okay, finally, you have chosen group chats, which is such an interesting one because I personally hate group chats. So I want to know why you have chosen this and what you love about them. Yeah, so I chose group chats because, you know, there's this sense of when you leave university, you know, you're at university, you're surrounded by all of your friends all of the time, and then you're thrown into the big wide world. Suddenly you're all living in different areas of London or not even in London at all and you're suddenly feeling very atomized and I found that one thing that has always made me feel that sensation of being surrounded by friends is group chats um just being able to be in touch with people

and yeah I don't want to sound like one of those like, like middle aged people from 10 years ago who like downloaded Facebook and they're like, wow, it's just so nice to be in contact with people I went to school with. But like at the same time, it's actually really nice to kind of have a piece of that again. And, you know, they've sustained, my group chats have like lasted years and years. And I think that's such a wonderful thing to just be able to be in contact with people and you know kind of have a technological antidote to um you know the sense of loneliness that can come sometimes with living in a big city and working a really hard job I quite like that group chats can start from the most like inane kind of reason yeah like dinner on Thursday yeah and those are the ones that last for years yeah what are some of your like main group chats

that have been around for ages did they start as like a kind of innocuous yeah I remember one like my big one now started because like we were gonna buy my friend a birthday present when we were like in second year of uni yeah and so that group has like expanded it's like moved across different apps like it was on facebook messenger and now it's on whatsapp i just that's amazing it's like it's like kind of like um yeah it's like people have come and gone but um but it's like it's nice it's just stand it stood the test of time and it's just like a catch-up group what kind of things do you talk about will you talk about your day or something you've seen in the news or yeah it's like everything from someone just saw like a famous person or there's a funny

meme or something interesting has just happened in someone's day or sometimes really long discussions um but often about silly things often like really light-hearted um and it's a perfect example of what we were talking about about like maybe sometimes an unhealthy echo chamber um but sometimes those echo chambers are comforting and necessary yeah well i think with dating group chats are particularly comforting and necessary because you can be like this person is an arsehole yeah also lots of screenshots from dating apps go into the chat as well. I can imagine.

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