Here's How James Baldwin Changed How One a South Asian Author Reads Shakespeare (Exclusive)

I was 38 when I first read James Baldwin. Although I studied English in college and earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing, I had to wait until a social justice theory class in my PhD program before I encountered his essays. This was a failure of the American education system, but it also felt like a personal failure. If I had looked up Baldwin’s work earlier, I would have known exactly what to say whenever someone asked me in an interview:

Why are you writing Shakespeare adaptations as a South Asian woman?

Author Nisha Sharma in her ‘Made By Immigrants’ t-shirt.

Marco Calderon

From my first Shakespeare-inspired romance Date with Dr. Dil, released in 2022, I struggled to answer this question. I’ve usually said something about how there are similarities in the plays to my own experiences in the South Asian diaspora culture. Shakespeare adaptations from the 90s were also key to my millennial upbringing. And when my husband and I went to visit the largest private collection of Shakespeare folios in Washington, DC, I wondered what it would be like if Shakespeare was an Indian aunt ravaging unmarried 30-year-old Desi women.

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It turns out there is a clearer explanation for my complicated feelings about Shakespeare, and the answer lies in Baldwin.

James Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924 and is often described as one of the most influential black American authors. After a short career as a preacher, he continued to work as a freelance writer and his first novel, Go say it on the mountain, was published in 1953.

American writer and black visionary James Baldwin.

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Baldwin’s work explores identity, racial justice, and his experiences as a black man in America. This brief review does not do justice to his legacy—the profound impact Baldwin had on the black community—so I encourage you to explore Baldwin’s works and read about his impact from black voices.

My own entry into Baldwin’s oeuvre was through an essay he published in 1964 entitled Why I stopped hating Shakespeare. The essay is short, but each word was like a puzzle piece falling into place in my mind.

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In it, Baldwin explains that he first experienced Shakespeare as a symbol of the oppression imposed on the black student in a white-dominated educational system because the playwright and his work were never taught in a form that Baldwin could identify with. “I condemned him as one of the authors and architects of my oppression,” he wrote.

Baldwin could find no parallels to his own life in Shakespeare’s language and experiences until years later when he heard the murder scene in Julius Caesar. It was then that he first began to understand that Shakespeare’s characters felt emotions that mirrored his own and, more importantly, he was able to relate to the characters from the perspective of human experience.

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When Baldwin moved to Paris and had to learn a new language, he approached Shakespeare much like he did jazz or French, which was from a position of otherness. Here Baldwin found a truth that I find in my reading of Shakespeare: there is so much focus on how we communicate about Shakespeare in relation to what was actually said.

Instead of highlighting Shakespeare’s description of common human experiences as a way of bridging diverse identities, educational institutions hyperfix Shakespeare as a symbol of greatness. That approach can be isolating at best, especially for readers from marginalized identities. Shakespeare can to be great, as long as we can create a common bond with stories from our own communities.

And that’s exactly why I write Shakespeare adaptations: because for me it’s decolonization. Decolonizing literature is about reinterpreting language, rediscovering and reclaiming stories. It is about centering a marginalized identity. More importantly, it’s about dreaming up new possibilities for familiar narratives.

‘Marriage & Masti’ by Nisha Sharma.

Avon

Marriage and Fats to me he is an example of a decolonized Shakespeare. It is a reinterpretation of Shakespeare Twelfth night, a play that has scenes depicting transphobia and misogyny. Instead of translating it faithfully, I drew themes that resonated with me and my identity. The novel is layered with cultural references, conversations about the way society treats single women versus married ones, and the painful confusion that comes with falling in love with someone who may not love you back. These are the messages that I connect with in Shakespeare and that I also want to write about.

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In 2024, we celebrate Baldwin’s 100th birthday. I have since read most of his essays, and my own copies of his books are beginning to show signs of readership. This same year will see the publication of the last book in my series of Shakespeare adaptations. Although I began my journey with Shakespeare adaptations long before I was introduced to Baldwin’s perspective on them, his words give me a sense of peace and encouragement that I didn’t realize I needed as a daughter of the diaspora.

Fortunately, there are so many other authors who tackle their adaptations from different perspectives in the global majority. I am comforted to know that even though my journey with Shakespeare is coming to an end, it will never be just Baldwin, Shakespeare and me.

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Marriage and Fats is out on August 27th and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education