Interviewed by Cory de la Guardia
Joss Sheldon is the writer of five novels, including the acclaimed The Little Voice and Individutopia. In 2014 he wrote Involution & Evolution, an epic poem which talked on love, loss, humanity, and war. He is also the author of Occupied, a work of magical realism which frames a story around four different characters, and takes keys from the occupations of Palestine, Kurdistan and Tibet.
GROWING UP SCI-FI: CONCEPTUAL BUILDING BLOCKS
Your background before becoming an established writer is fascinating; attending The London School of Economics and then working for football clubs seems like odd mix of places to find a writer of such regard. I’ve got a crazy eclectic background because I was always looking for something new, another challenge – what drove you to such diverse places before landing in writing?
“I didn’t really want to go to university. I was pressured into it. My dad said he’s kick me out onto the streets, and essentially disown me if I didn’t go. All my friends went to university. My teachers bribed me with some fairy tale notion that if you just go to university, everything else will take care of itself, and you’ll have a great life.
I only ever had one dream when I was a youngster – to be a footballer! Having failed, by quite some distance, I decided to do what I thought might be the next best thing – work in the industry. Unfortunately, having an office job at a football club or two is no real substitute to walking out at Wembley.
The truth is, I’m not really subservient enough to do well in mainstream employment – being a yes-man to the boss. The great thing about being a writer is that you don’t have a boss. You set your own hours, write your own thing. It’s a risk; you don’t have a guaranteed income, most authors struggle, but you’re your own person. I didn’t have that at university or work, but I do now.”
Before we get into each of the individual works, the themes of connectedness and sort of universal humanity seem to be fairly obvious throughout. Would you care to comment on those concepts and ideas and why they inspire you so particularly?
Having left university, not sure what to do with my life, I spent a lot of my twenties travelling around. That had an effect, although Mark Twain sums it up better than I could:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
When you travel, and experience the kindness of people around the world, especially the poor, you realize that we all have the same struggles, and the same hopes; similar strengths and weaknesses. A peasant farmer in the Himalayas and a city type in London aren’t that different once you get talking to them. The trick is doing just that: getting out there and seeing different people.
REFLECTING ON THE PAST TO WRITE ABOUT THE FUTURE
Continuing discussing those topics: what about current times reflects back to your writing on those themes, and do you think if things were maybe “better,” you would have felt as motivated to discuss things like humanity and compassion?
I was motivated to write my first book, which celebrates conscientious objectors, because I was deeply uncomfortable with the way soldiers have been glorified and marked out as “heroes” in the years after the Iraq War. It even reached into my workplace, where footballers were supposed to wear red poppies on their shirts (but no-one would dare wear a white poppy). I wanted to shout out against that; to glorify those who refused to kill, not those who chose to.
Without that motivation, I might have never gotten started. But then again, I would have probably had another bee in my bonnet, and gone on to write about that. I decided I would write a book when I was a child; I just needed any old excuse to pull my finger out and actually do it.
Involution and Evolution was your breakout book; it’s an incredible epic poem that draws on the story of Jesus Christ, and places your Christ-like figure in a pre-WW1 period. First question is perhaps a little silly, but how did you decide to write the story as a poem? Rhyming becomes a big part of the story of this piece, was that deliberate?
I didn’t really set out to write an epic poem. The first draft was written in a normal fashion. One of the characters, a cabaret seductress, did speak in rhyme, and when I began editing that section I let her voice carry over into the rest of the text. I ended up with patches of rhyme, which didn’t sit right. I needed to make a decision: To make all of the book rhyme or none of it? I chose to make it all rhyme. Epic poems were a big thing back in the day, so I felt like bringing the concept into the 21st century. And I felt that I needed to do something big, unique and special, to launch my career and stand out from the crowd.
Is this how you think Jesus would be received were he to return during modern times?
There are loads of people who try to spread the gospel of peace and love. Most are ignored. Some are ridiculed. But those who go on to be a success are revered after their deaths.
That was the case with Jesus. It has also been the case with the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Some things never change.
Occupied followed in 2015, and then The Little Voice in 2016. Both are critically beloved and well regarded by pop culture influencers like Buzzfeed, and major media outlets like The Huffington Post. What was happening personally for you that was able to lend itself to these stories?
I didn’t have an income when I wrote Involution & Evolution, so to get by I went to live in one of the cheapest places in the world – India. I lived in a village called McLeod Ganj, which is home to the Dalai Lama and a large Tibetan community. Those guys really inspired me to write a book about people living under occupation. Then there’s the fact that, as a Jew, I hate what is being done by Zionists in my name – occupying Palestinian land. My past caught up with my present, which inspired me to put pen to paper.
The truth is, neither of those books sold that well at first. I thought about giving up, and only wrote The Little Voice out of desperation. My friends had let me stay in their empty flat in Granada, I smoked a load of weed, and ranted at my keyboard every once in a while. There was never much of a plan, it was based very much on my own experiences in childhood and angst at that stage of my life. But I got it edited, and apparently people liked it.
The Little Voice specifically was highly praised, and even called “one of the five most thought-provoking novels ever” by Buzzfeed (great thing to have in a Wikipedia by the way). How does it feel as a writer to contribute something to the zeitgeist that is so socially relevant and beloved that someone of critical import rates it that well? As a creator is it kind of like “mission over” after that?
Not really.
The Little Voice launched me, but I felt like a bit of a fraud. I put far less time, effort and research into that book than anything else I’ve ever written. Its success gave me the confidence to continue, and try to write the next masterpiece, but I always felt I could do better.
TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANITY
In 2017 you release Money Power Love, and then in 2018 you release Individutopia; while still well-regarded, they obviously didn’t have the same impact or reception that got. As a creative, I know I’m always plagued by self doubt and concern that the next thing I do may be the last, when you’re working from a place of success was that ever a concern? Every ride ends right? How much thought have you given to where does your ride end?
Life is a journey that ends in death. Up until that point, the ride goes on.
I’m happy with those two books myself, I think they’re way better than The Little Voice, and that gives me satisfaction. I’m always trying to improve.
For me, I’m trying to set up a little homestead, getting back to nature, so that I don’t have to rely on my writing if I don’t want to. But I’m still writing. The next challenge for me is entering the world of non-fiction. I’m working on a book about democracy right now. It’s hard! It’s doing my head in. But it’s a new leg on the journey.
Technology isn’t a big piece of your work, but humanity is, and those are two main ingredients in cyberpunk. What do you see are the key elements of the humanity side of that equation? What are the things you think a society would need to take into a future where technology becomes the next expression of individualism and power?
I’d say technology and individualism are the two key themes of Individutopia.
I don’t think our humanity changes. We all want food, air, water, health, shelter, love, fun, good company, happiness. We all get distracted; taking wrong turns, dedicating ourselves to things we don’t really want or need.
Technology is a mixed blessing. It can help us to connect, to communicate with people from all over the world, but we can lose ourselves in our machines and ignore the people sat beside us. We have all this wealth, all these gadgets, but they’re no good if we destroy the environment, work ourselves to death or forget to live. We need balance.
I hope technology doesn’t become an expression of “Individualism and power”. I’d rather live in a world where people didn’t have power over other people, through technology or anything else. But I do hope it liberates us. I’d love to see a world where machines produce everything we need, we have Universal Basic Income to survive, and we can be free to choose how to live. I like the freedom of the internet, of knowledge sharing and file sharing. That side of technology is great.
Overall are you hopeful for the future? Where do you see this crazy ride we call life going next?
We’re at a crossroads. People are waking up, and I think we’ll turn a corner. We’ll be less selfish, less materialistic. We’ll start to care of other and the environment. But I guess I’m a hopeless optimist.
It’s not really like we have a choice. If we don’t change, we’re done for. That’s the moral of the story in Individutopia.
FURTHER READING
The Little Voice by Joss Sheldon
Dear Reader,
My character has been shaped by two opposing forces; the pressure to conform to social norms, and the pressure to be true to myself. To be honest with you, these forces have really torn me apart. They’ve pulled me one way and then the other. At times, they’ve left me questioning my whole entire existence.
But please don’t think that I’m angry or morose. I’m not. Because through adversity comes knowledge. I’ve suffered, it’s true. But I’ve learnt from my pain. I’ve become a better person.
Now, for the first time, I’m ready to tell my story. Perhaps it will inspire you. Perhaps it will encourage you to think in a whole new way. Perhaps it won’t. There’s only one way to find out…
Individutopia by Joss Sheldon
The year is 2084, and that famous Margaret Thatcher quote has become a reality: There really is no such thing as society. No one speaks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else. People don’t collaborate, they only compete.
I hate to admit it, but this has had tragic consequences. Unable to satisfy their social urges, the population has fallen into a pit of depression and anxiety. Suicide has become the norm.
It all sounds rather morbid, does it not? But please don’t despair, there is hope, and it comes in the form of our hero: Renee Ann Blanca. Wishing to fill the society-shaped hole in her life, our Renee does the unthinkable: She goes in search of human company! It’s a radical act and an enormous challenge. But that, I suppose, is why her tale’s worth recounting. It’s as gripping as it is touching, and I think you’re going to love it…
Involution and Evolution by Joss Sheldon
The year is 2084, and that famous Margaret Thatcher quote has become a reality: There really is no such thing as society. No one speaks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else. People don’t collaborate, they only compete.
I hate to admit it, but this has had tragic consequences. Unable to satisfy their social urges, the population has fallen into a pit of depression and anxiety. Suicide has become the norm.
It all sounds rather morbid, does it not? But please don’t despair, there is hope, and it comes in the form of our hero: Renee Ann Blanca. Wishing to fill the society-shaped hole in her life, our Renee does the unthinkable: She goes in search of human company! It’s a radical act and an enormous challenge. But that, I suppose, is why her tale’s worth recounting. It’s as gripping as it is touching, and I think you’re going to love it…
Occupied by Joss Sheldon
SOME PEOPLE LIVE UNDER OCCUPATION.
SOME PEOPLE OCCUPY THEMSELVES.
NO ONE IS FREE.
Step into a world which is both magically fictitious and shockingly real. Walk side-by-side with a refugee, native, occupier and economic migrant. And watch on as the world around you transforms from a halcyon past into a dystopian future.
Inspired by the occupations of Palestine, Kurdistan and Tibet, and by the corporate occupation of the west, ‘Occupied’ is a haunting glance into a society which is a little too familiar for comfort. It truly is a unique piece of literary fiction…
