I’m keeping my 2024 Stella Prize reviews brief, otherwise I simply won’t get through them before the shortlist is announced on April 4.
I read Hospital by Sanya Rushdi in one afternoon. It’s a novella (124pp), and although the cover clearly states that it’s fiction, the main character has the same name as the author, and it’s written in the first person… so… autofiction? I don’t want to assume but I have read that it’s based on true events. And that’s important to note because the story focuses on Sanya’s third admission into a psychiatric ward.
Thoughts:
- Impressive that Sanya manages to blur the line (or make nano-second switches) between sanity and paranoia. For example –
I go to the music and relaxation room with Leonie. It seems to me that she might be associated with a criminal gang.
I see Glen going into the TV lounge with a bottle of water. I follow him in there, and sit down next to him. When I ask him why everyone went into the courtyard, he shows me the bottom of the water in his bottle, where I see some white grains. ‘Arsenic,’ I think to myself in bewilderment.
- There’s a relentlessness to Sanya’s obsessive thoughts that is palpable. And exhausting.
And on choosing a seat on the train – Oh, but why am I sitting on the right? Do I support right-wing politics by any chance? No, I don’t. I shift to the seat on the left-hand side of the three-seater that the boy’s sitting on. He shuffles the pages of his book, perhaps to indicate his disapproval. That’s true, I’m not an extreme left-winger either. You could say I’m centre-left. Now I take the middle seat in the empty three-seater… I go back to the seat on the right. I notice that if I move two-and-a-half seats to the left on the seat opposite me, I can occupy the boy’s position.
Imagine being that boy on an almost empty train carriage. What would you think of Sanya?
- I was reminded of a discussion with my clinical supervisor about the idea that ‘sanity’ might be a case of ‘majority rules’.
- Wasn’t mad on some of the editorial/ stylistic choices e.g. rather than dialogue in some parts, character names and speech is bulleted like a play script. The result is flat (maybe that was intentional).
- The writing is spare – lots of pressure on the translator, Arunava Sinha. For example, after looking at an acquaintance’s artwork on Facebook Sanya says –
One of his later paintings suggested he was proposing to me. I took two days to think it over. When I felt I was willing, I hit a like on his painting.
- A significant part of the story is Sanya’s withdrawal from her PhD in psychology. This is used to give context to interactions with her doctors. Sort of. But not fully. As a result, we skirt around the edges of some big ideas about linking the brain and body, and the medicalised approach to treating mental health. These are topics that I’m very, very interested in but I didn’t get what I was hoping for.
Will it win? No – not sure it will engage enough readers.
3/5
Sanya’s mother brings her food when she visits the hospital –
Pulling a bowl out of her bag, Amma saya, “There’s some rice, your favourite prawn with long melon and fried pumpkin. Eat.”
