Cecile Pin

Image Credit: Ariane Lebon

First, a very general question, what inspired you to start writing and how did the book come about?

I've always enjoyed writing, but it wasn't something I was doing very seriously – you know, I did a bit when I was at school for assignments. I was more interested in non-fiction writing in a way, because I wanted to do a PhD at first in philosophy, so that was my goal. But then I realised I didn't really want to be in academia, and then I wanted to be journalist and write features.

And then I think I had this story in the back of my mind because it's inspired by my family story. My mum is Vietnamese, but her family was stationed in Laos at the time and immigrated to France and like in the book, she lost her parents and almost half of her siblings while on the journey. So, I think I always wanted to write about that in some way. Then during lockdown, I had more free time and I started doing some research and just took the leap and started writing. I submitted my first 1000 words to Bad Form’s Young Writer’s Prize, and then I won the London Writers Award, which really gave me the structure to take my writing a bit more seriously and gave me more confidence. So that's really how it came about, and it all happened quite quickly in a way.

That's amazing. How did it feel to submit those first 1000 words? And were you awarded the London Writer's Award based on your piece of fiction writing?

Yeah, I got longlisted for the Bad Form prize, which was based on the first 1000 words. So, that gave me a little bit of encouragement for me to go for the London Writer’s Award - I only learned about it the day before the submission closed, so I think I bashed out a few more 100 words!

Sometimes that last-minute approach really works!

Yes, when you're not overthinking things, it kind of helps, doesn't it?

Definitely! So, did the award programme give you structure and motivation as well as the confidence to carry on writing?

Yes, for sure, because I think at first, I was just writing for myself and maybe it was beneficial to not feel too much pressure. But then I got into the programme, which did give me more of a goal because the aim was very much to submit a manuscript to an agent and hopefully get a book deal. So it definitely made me take my writing a bit more seriously because I had a full-time job at the time, and it was very easy for me to just not write in my extra time, but then all of a sudden, I had writing groups where people would give feedback on my work once a month or so, so I had to give myself deadlines, which was very useful.

In Wandering Souls, your family history is interwoven throughout the book, so I wanted to ask how you found the act of interweaving something that's very close to you with also something that's historical and factual? How did you approach that?

I think from the get-go, I knew I wanted it to be fiction, so I purposefully didn't ask my mum too many questions; I didn't want the character of Anh to be based on her. So, I only asked her a few questions about what it was like in the camp, but I set the book in Hong Kong and the UK instead of Thailand and France, which was her experience. It was helpful because it meant that their stories were automatically going to be quite different because the politics and the settings were just not the same. The other reason I wanted to change the setting was because, while I was doing research, I realised there wasn't much written about the Vietnamese diaspora in the UK; there's a bit more in the US about the US Vietnamese diaspora and a bit in France and Germany as well, because there's quite a big community there, but not so much in the UK. And I've been living here since I was 18, so I consider myself to be a part of the Vietnamese diaspora in the UK, so I really wanted to write about it. I think it's sometimes hard for people to imagine that I wrote this fictionally, but it actually wasn't too hard for me to dissociate from my family. I think I was just in the mindset of, ‘These are fictional characters; they’re not really based on my family’. But the research element was a bit difficult because there's not much written about the subject, and I had to read quite a lot of grim resources.

That must be so difficult to read.

It was, it was hard at times because it's very sad; for example, the Koh Kra Island chapter where you just read about the horrible stories of women getting sexually assaulted and killed. And I was writing the book at like 2am most days. But it was also really fascinating, and I did also find out a lot about other good things; I read a lot of testimonies from refugees who said that they felt English people had been very welcoming to them. I read this testimony of someone who said they had to keep their chicken outside, hanging from the window because they didn't have a fridge, and their neighbours came asking them why they did that, and then the next day the neighbour came by and gave them a fridge. I tried to add in stories like this into the book to balance out the sadder aspects and the racism they experienced.

It's definitely fascinating to think how many different diasporas there are in so many different countries, and there are certain stories or communities that haven't really been talked about that much. One of the last authors I spoke to was Yara Rodrigues Fowler, and she said something similar about there not being a lot of literature on the Brazilian diaspora in London. It's clearly a niche I enjoy! Again, just on the personal side of your book, I think I read somewhere that the actual act of writing the book was an attempt for you to find out a little bit more about your identity – to give you the space to think about your role in your family history? Does that still stand true?

I think so, and on a few different levels. I think that’s why I added in the character of the daughter in my book because I really wanted to show how an event doesn't affect just one generation but different generations, including the younger generation. So, it was definitely a cathartic experience to write the book as it helped me piece together my family history a bit more because, before, there was so much that I didn't know about the camps and the journey. And there’s still lots of stuff that I don't know, but I feel a bit more like I’ve started that process. And it also allowed me to reckon with my own place as an immigrant in the UK, especially post Brexit. Of course, it's a very different backdrop and situation to what the characters experience, but I’ve also find myself asking, ‘Do I belong here? Am I wanted here?’.

Totally, and I enjoyed that narrator figure, as it felt almost like an entry point into the story – the place where the fact and the fiction come together. Just to go back to our theme of resolution and the idea of characters finding strength in adverse situations, did you find it difficult to imagine the experience of a character in that much adversity?

I did find it challenging and I think something I really had to work on throughout different edits of the book was just to give more life to the characters. I remember one of the first bits of feedback that my writing group gave me was that they felt quite distant to Anh, Thanh, and Minh; they didn’t really get a good sense of them. And even later on, with my agent and editor, the recurring feedback was to add more dialogue, more scenes with the characters that would help readers, and me, feel closer to them.

I think that’s because, at first, I dealt with the challenges by keeping some distance and not really getting to the grit of their emotions and feelings, but then I think there was a point, I don’t know how the switch happened, when the characters started taking on their own lives and I started really understanding them more. And then I think at one point, I also got a little bit numb by the sadness of the story, which made it easier for me to write about it in some way.

That makes sense. Authors often say that they gradually get to know their characters – is that how you felt?

It's weird because you get to know them, but also, they're so separate from you, so there’s that moment when you think, ‘Oh, Anh wouldn't do this; this is how she would act in this situation’. It's really fun when they start becoming their own person, and you start thinking about them in the same way you think about your friends or something. That was that clicking moment when it became more pleasurable for me to write the narrative parts.

I've just got a couple of more general questions about writing – you wrote this book during lockdown, is that right?

Yes, most of it.

And do you have any writing rituals or anything that you did specifically that helped you? Or reading rituals while you were writing?

I was quite chaotic when I was writing this book because, like I said, I had a full-time job, so I was usually working 9am until 6/7pm, and then I would take a break and write from about 10pm to 3am. What I would say is that I was very conscious about trying to keep a good lifestyle in a way, so going to the gym, eating healthily, trying to have seven hours of sleep and, once lockdown was over, seeing friends a few times per week. Because I think when I had done my masters, I ended up burning out because I was just not seeing anyone and just staying home and writing, and I think that wasn't good, so at least I learned from that experience. I also listened to a lot of disco music because sometimes I was writing and reading about really sad things, I just kind of had to balance that with some ABBA!

Sounds like a great idea! Did you carry on reading as much as you normally would read while you were writing?

What I do is I usually have a binge reading period where I'll read ten/fifteen books a month, and I'm not really picky about what I'm reading, it can be whatever, just to get a lot of inspiration and get in the creative mindset. And then I'll start writing, and when I write I don't read as much because I find it hard to do both. But I do love that kind of reading binge because, by the time I'm done with it, I just feel really excited to get started on the writing.

That makes sense. On that topic, do you have any specific authors that have really inspired you, maybe thematically or stylistically?

Yes, so I was really interested in writers who play with form, so Max Porter, Jenny Offill, Maggie Nelson. I used The Red Parts in the epigraph actually. And Human Acts by Han Kang. Both those books deal with a traumatic event at the beginning; with Human Acts, it's about a boy who dies during an upheaval in South Korea in the 80s and The Red Parts is about the trial of the murder of Maggie’s aunt, Jane. So, both of these books helped me because they also start with a traumatic event and then they use a fragmented narration to put the story together.

And then Ocean Vuong and Cathy Park Hong gave me more confidence in knowing the story I wanted to write, and I think they helped me understand being an Asian writer, if that makes sense. And then Girl, Women, Other by Bernardine Evaristo – I think because when I read that book, I was really interested in how she was trying to show black women living in Great Britain, and I think that's really something I wanted to do with my book; just showing those three characters living in this country and reclaiming their presence in the UK's history.

Definitely, that makes total sense. Do you think the fact that you had experience working in the publishing industry changed your experience as an author? Did you feel like you got to see the other side of the coin?

Yeah, I think in some ways. I was just so aware of how the publishing process worked, so I think when my book first got acquired, I was probably a little bit too aware of everything that goes into creating a book and I was worried about all of the different elements.

You knew too much…

I knew too much! But I've been lucky because my publishers have been really good. At one point, I think quite early on, I realised that you just have to let go and trust the process. And also, when I was first starting my story and I didn't have a lot of confidence in what I was doing, I just kept thinking, ‘Well, I know that there’s a gap in the market’, because I would never see stories about Southeast Asian people in the UK. So, I was trying to focus on the fact that there was a need for more books like that.

Our last question very quickly is something we ask every author we speak to; do you judge a book by its cover?

Someone else asked me that the other day! I probably do subconsciously, and I have such a deep appreciation for cover designers. So much work and creativity go into cover design. I think it's hard not to judge the cover because they make it so that you judge the book by its cover: they're partly based on what we call ‘comp titles’ (comparative titles, so for example, how thrillers will often have similar cover designs). So, I probably do, against my own will.

Was your experience with your book cover an enjoyable one?

Yeah! At the beginning, when I was still a bit over-aware of the publishing industry, I gave them a ten-page PDF of book covers that I liked and didn't like…

Very helpful!

Well, I can't tell if it was really annoying or helpful, but the designers were really great. I told them that I didn't want the book to feel like a cliché Asian cover, because sometimes you kind of see that – they all have flowers on them or half the face of an Asian lady. So, they got a Vietnamese artist to do the cover art, and the final version was actually the first cover they showed me!