Sharada Keats: “I'm forced to think about things that fade into the background for others”
The author on trying harder, understanding Guyanese culture and getting on with her own life
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week’s guest is author Sharada Keats, who is of mixed Guyanese and white British heritage. Her debut YA novel, These Stolen Lives, was released last year, a dystopian thriller set in a world divided by race where you must pay the government for the right to survive. With a sequel arriving in August, Sharada is once again diving into themes of colonialism, greed, injustice and equality. Intrigued? Read Sharada’s story below.
How do you define your identity?
My mum is from Georgetown, Guyana, with South Asian ancestry. She’s descended from indentured labourers brought over by the UK colonial administration to work sugar plantations. We don’t know much about the history, but I guess her ancestors were Hindus who converted to Christianity after they moved to Guyana.
My dad is from Yorkshire, he’s white. They met in the ‘70s when he went to Guyana to work for the Geological Survey. They married, then moved back to the UK years later where my brother was born. My dad then got a job in Australia, where I was born. We emigrated to Canada when I was about 10.
As children, my brother and I used to say we were half-breeds. I now prefer the terminology ‘mixed,’ which is more prevalent than it was in the ‘90s.
What was your cultural upbringing like?
My mum’s culture has retained some Indian stuff, but it’s very minor – Guyanese culture is very separate. There’s such Caribbean influence there too, so Guyanese curry is not like Indian curry, it’s its own dish. A lot of my culture comes back to food – my mum was such a good cook. She’d make dahl, chicken curry, biryani and roti. She used to make lamb curry for every special occasion – we never had North American Thanksgiving with turkey, it was always some kind of curry.
My dad would sometimes make Yorkshire puddings and toad in the hole, or things that weren’t particularly Yorkshire, like spaghetti sauce and corned beef hash. I now try to cook things my mum taught me and make roti with my oldest son.
Even though I felt very Australian (it’s a very insular and self-promoting culture,) I also felt British because I had that citizenship. My dad would be nostalgic about British things – he’d call sandwiches ‘butties’ and want English sweets like humbugs. My parents never really adopted Australian culture other than an occasional barbecue, they didn't have the same patriotism that perhaps I did.
How did your mixed heritage change as you moved around the world?
My Australian patriotism faded as I got older. As for being mixed, there were microaggressions I didn’t really notice when I was a child. I thought my mum was being paranoid or oversensitive.
Australia has this reputation for being super racist, which I think is well earned in lots of ways. But as a child, the suburb we lived in was quite diverse. I didn't really experience racism against myself, or if I did, I didn’t notice it. Then I went to Canada and everyone was super racist, it was a total shock to the system. I’ve come to terms with it. I don’t want to spend my time helping assholes get their shit in order, I gotta get on with my own.
Do you feel like being mixed has impacted your personality?
It forces you to think about things that maybe just fade into the background for other people. It’s a conscious part of my reading and writing in a way that I know it isn’t for other people. I’ll read a book and wonder why there are no brown people in a setting where there naturally would be – the author obviously hadn't thought of it.
Another thing about being mixed that’s really cool is knowing more than one language. My mum never spoke another language, Guyanese culture got very Anglified – even my name is a bastardisation of an Indian name.
Did you ever speak to your family about being mixed?
It was definitely something that was on the table, but not in-depth. My mum was especially keen to talk about whether we felt like we belonged, but it didn’t go much further. My dad’s quite a bottled up guy, so it wasn’t something we spoke about with him. I just absorbed everything non-critically when I was a kid.
Have you noticed any stereotypes about mixed people?
We learned about ‘hybrid vigour’ in biology at high school, about how if you have more genetic diversity, you might be more healthy. I wondered if that was a good thing to have genetic diversity, or did I just inherit weaknesses from both sides?
There's also that stereotype that mixed is white and something else. I’d like to see the same attention be paid to bits of the world that are non-white so we can start to have more interesting insights to our brown sides too.
In your book, how do characters see race?
It’s a fake historical world, and it’s for teenagers so the notions of segregation and racism aren’t too subtle. When we’re writing, we’re working through things. I wasn’t ready to go into the mixed-race experience in this book, but I’m going to tackle it in book two. It’s not a cosy situation for any of the three races in book one, I wanted clean delineations.
What’s the best thing about being mixed for you?
It broadened my perspective. I can’t write something without thinking about it. I can’t read uncritically like I did when I was a child. It forces you to not fall into those big elephant traps. Ultimately, it’s the benefit of experience. I think it makes you try harder to do better yourself and to encourage other people to do better.
I think being able to speak another language is really cool, it can alter the way you think. A lot of writing is working through your thoughts and communicating what you want to say very precisely. That must be a really rich way to live your life.
Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word?
Normal. It’s so prevalent now. In this generation, especially in London, it’s totally normal.
Next week, I’ll be speaking to hairstylist Jennie Roberts. Subscribe to get Mixed Messages in your inbox on Monday. Shop Mixed Messages tote bags and bookmarks on Etsy now.
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Mixed Messages is a weekly exploration of the mixed-race experience, from me, Isabella Silvers. My mom is Punjabi (by way of East Africa) and my dad is white British, but finding my place between these two cultures hasn’t always been easy. That’s why I started Mixed Messages, where each week I’ll speak to a prominent mixed voice to delve into what it really feels like to be mixed.