ANNIE ZAIDI

1. Have you ever felt ‘terrorized’ by something? Have you ever told / described it to someone? Has it found an expression in your work?

It is hard to draw the lines between ‘fear’ and ‘terror’ and ‘horror’. If it is sufficient to describe terror as a form of extreme fear – the fear of losing your life or dignity or both – then yes, I’ve felt terrorized pretty often. Blasts are terrifying. Riots are terrifying. War is terrifying. Gang-rape is terrifying. Not being able to get the government and the police to help you when you are the victim is terrifying. Sometimes this has been expressed in my poetry, more often non-fiction.

2. At a psychological / aesthetic / philosophical level, can terror be ‘represented’ in art? Would you like to name certain works (art/writing) in which it has been done effectively?

Most art actually does envelop terror of one kind or another. If it is not the terrors of poverty, it is the plague. And then, there are great upheavals in society that were terrible and horrific and have been written about, filmed, etc. Ranging from A Tale of Two Cities to Woyzeck, from Frankenstein to A Farewell to Arms, from Animal’s People to Disgrace, from The Color Purple to Bitter Chocolate.

3. Which would you consider to be the most terrorizing moment / event / ideology you have known?

Wouldn’t compare one ideology to the other. An event or ideology is only as terrifying as its proximity to your skin. Personally, have not been in very dangerous situations and the further I go into danger, the more terrifying things I see, hear of and learn to expect, the harder it becomes to classify or rate things on the terror scale.

4. How do you respond to the rhetoric of terror(ism) in mainstream media and politics?

With some curiosity and a great deal of exhaustion.

5. Have the (serial) blasts around made you feel insecure?

I suppose they must at a subconscious level. They’ve made me angry rather than insecure this last year. The first serial blasts were terrifying. The later ones both terrifying and confounding.