Anthony Permal shares a remarkable collection of memories
Anthony Permal left us in August this year, just shy of the launch of his memoir Hot Cross Buns. His passing was acutely felt by family, friends, and colleagues because he was a force, a presence.
His book launch went ahead at the end of August and I learned that the last interview he gave was for Unfiltered. We did it over email in July, with plans to align publishing it with its launch.
After grappling with how to write the feature, I’ve decided not to.
I’m keeping the Q&A in its unedited format because Tony wrote with the same cadence as when he spoke, and by keeping the interview as-is, I feel like I’m keeping a little piece of him. They are his words, and they are as follows:
Tell us about when you thought, “This is a story I want to tell.”
A few years ago, my father was quite ill and had to be admitted into the hospital. This was a year before he passed away. During that time, I flew back home to be with him and would spend the nights at the hospital. There were times when, usually around 2 or 3 am in the morning, he’d wake up, see me there and start talking about the good old days. He’d tell me stories of his youth, his glory days as an athlete and more, and I remember thinking to myself that the day he passes away, whenever that would be, so would all his stories. They’d only stay alive in my head.
Similarly, I thought to myself, I have so many wonderful stories of growing up as a Christian in a heavily Muslim country, stories no one would believe. Once I’m gone, those stories would disappear too, and I didn’t want that to happen. Pakistan, for all its faults with minorities, does have a beautiful legacy of hidden memories, occasions and moments that many of us share growing up there. They deserve to be shared, and so, Hot Cross Buns was born.
Hot Cross Buns is a great title. What does it mean?
I don’t want to give too much away by explaining it, as there is a key chapter where this will make more sense once people have read it. However, I can say that the term Hot Cross Buns hold a special meaning for every Christian who’s ever lived in Karachi, Pakistan, for more than a year, and for the community at large who lived there during the 80s. It has something to do with a legendary bakery, a glorious Christian procession and a story of unity.
Can you describe your writing process? Did you have moments where you just wanted to pack it in?Honestly, no. I wrote this over many years, with a lot of guidance and mentorship by incredible people from around the world, and I always knew this needs to get out there. While I never felt the urge to pack it in, I did have periods of silence, contemplation and just plain dryness. I began to understand why authors like George R. R. Martin take so long to write a single chapter.
What are some of your influences as a writer?
Memories. I treasure them, not just my own but others’ memories too. I love storytelling when I’m with people, and so that naturally influenced my writing as well. I write in a narrative voice, usually in first person, which really becomes an extension of what’s in my head. Another aspect of life that seeps into my writing is the lived experience of my senses. Whenever I smell a great aroma or eat something incredible, my mind starts to find words to describe it. It’s automatic, like a stenographer firing away in my neurons. If I touch something that feels good to my fingers, words like velvety, leathery, leafy, cloudy, woody start flying about in my head. Life, daily life as I live it, tends to push itself into the pages in my mind, waiting to be written down in some form.
You could say my muse is my day. Every day. If you count tangible factors, then I’d say my influences also include a variety of writers but I want to give a shout out to the classic heroes like H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne and Charles Dickens, but also to contemporary icons today like James Rollins, Matthew Riley and Blake Crouch.
What were the biggest challenges you faced during the self-publishing process?
While there is a lot of information and guidance available online to help with the self-publishing process, I realised there is a serious lack of easily available insight for the Middle East and GCC process in this area.
When one tries to search for such insight, they’re inundated with ads upon ads by local publishing houses that are mediocre or just out for your money. There are great resources if one keeps searching but it’s easy to give up along the way as they’re not easy to find. The authorities in the UAE very helpful for budding authors, in fact they want to help you throughout, but finding that help has been difficult as a first step.
Secondly, there are very, very few guides, stories or insights by local authors who have navigated this journey. The most comprehensive one I’ve seen was by Alexander McNabb, a prolific Dubai-based author, but that blog post is over a decade old. I think I should write one now, considering I’ve successfully navigated the process in 2024.
Another major issue is the difficulty in finding a good editor. In the region, it’s difficult to know who does this sort of work, and so you spend ages trying to source such information from your network. You can, obviously, look for editors worldwide, but then you lose context and nuance depending on your writing.
How did you approach editing and designing your book?
Based on my mentors’ suggestions, I started reading and also studying the great memoirs and autobiographies of the 20th and 21st centuries, seeing how they crafted their memories into books. Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes was the first place I went.
Additionally, I asked. Twitter/X has a very prolific author, editor and literary agent community, which loves to answer questions by budding authors. I took a lot of advice and insight from them on things like chapter length, dos and don’ts, tone and more. It’s where I learned, for example, that sometimes a chapter can be as short as 500 words if the content is powerful enough.
The cover was more of a collaboration between sketches by me, turned into prompts for the Dall-E artificial intelligence engine and a stretched out back-and-forth between me and the tool. It took at least three or four months to create that cover. I wanted it to encapsulate my own memories of walking with my father as well as the cultural context of the book’s setting.
What marketing strategies have you found most effective?
Networking. Spreading the word among my friends both in person and on social media has resulted in an enormous interest in actual purchases of the book once it gets launched. It helps that I’m a marketer by profession, so I have insight into book marketing more than most authors.
Additionally, the topic of my book resonates strongly in the Pakistani Christian diaspora, given the strong memories of the Christian minorities in Pakistan who have moved to other countries, so harnessing that resonation using different channels has helped in creating a strong buzz.
What are you currently working on? Do you have any plans for future books?
Yes, indeed. Hot Cross Buns only chronicles memories up to the time I hit age 13. There’s so much more to share, which I intend to write about, but that would be a much longer book, as I intend to go from age 14 to age 40.
Three separate decades spent in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Singapore and the UAE. It’ll take time. I’m also writing a humour-led book of Dubai-based stories. A mix of first and third person fictional narratives about daily life in this wonderful city. I’ve called it Please Do The Needful, after the much-derided colloquialism this city is popular for.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
Just write, don’t wait for the right words and memories and stories. Once you start putting pen to paper, or keyboard to screen, it’ll become easier. I’ve been there where people stare at a blank MS-Word document, wondering how to start. They always want a punchy opening. Sure, but start.
However the most powerful piece of advice I can give is this: Writing a book is NOT like writing anything else. Sure, you may have great experience in writing blogs, articles, newspaper pieces, anything such. But a book is different. It’s not an essay or a series of essays. It’s not a set of blog posts. A book has a different kind of audience, they’re not the type who skim websites, who rush their eyes over keywords.
A book’s reader is invested, they’ve spent money to sit and read for hours. The tone, style and intent is very different. Learn that. Figure out what the difference is. This is the mistake I made at the start of Hot Cross Buns many years ago, and good advice is what got me thinking of the above. It completely changed the way I approach book writing now.
As a published author, what are you most proud of achieving?
The day my brother read the final draft and told me he missed Dad for first time since he passed. That was the moment I felt the proudest for writing this. Even if I never sell any copy, I’m happy with that sentiment alone.
Hot Cross Buns is available on Amazon.
