'The Fitful Sleep of Immigrants' began as a memoir about Orlando Ortega-Medina's exile from a homophobic U.S. How it became an immigration thriller instead:
From a bestselling migration memoir to an acclaimed novel of suburbia, political poetry and essays and on and on, Salvadoran writers are having a big moment.“The Fitful Sleep” began life 20 years ago as an intended memoir penned in exile. As I drafted the source material over the course of a long, dark Canadian winter, deeply bitter at having been effectively ejected from my country of birth, it became clear to me that a memoir forged in anger made for an unpleasant read.
Your novel is equal parts love story, legal thriller and social commentary. These three are perfectly balanced. How did you manage it? I wrote the first draft from start to finish without reading it back. No advance plotting; no character studies; no genre considerations. I just wrote from the top of my head, usually for a couple of hours each morning before going to work. Needless to say, it wasn’t very good at that stage. Although I had the broad outline, various elements didn’t mesh well, and a few of the characters needed to be completely redrawn.
got his hands on it, which led to a final revision. The fact it all holds together is credit in large part to everyone who collaborated on the project.No concrete plans at this point. But if I ever do write a memoir, it will chronicle not just the events leading up to our departure but also our life as expats, with all its attendant challenges.
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