Inspiration for a story can come from anywhere — even sitting at an empty dining room table in Rome.
Looking at the empty chairs where his family once sat, Randy Boyagoda came up with the idea for a story which later became his first young adult novel, Little Sanctuary.
Published in June, Little Sanctuary is a dystopian tale set in a fictional country in the Global South that is ravaged by conflict and disease. A wealthy family, doctors of the country’s ousted leaders in fact, send their children to a special camp on a remote island for safekeeping alongside other children of the elite.
However, the children discover the camp isn’t what it appears to be and become suspicious of their so-called guardians. The main character, Sabel, along with her siblings, decide to conceive a plan to escape.
“I don't think I started out with the intention of writing a young adult novel,” says Boyagoda, a professor with the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Department of English and vice dean, undergraduate. “I wrote a short story for The Walrus that was published in 2021 during the pandemic.”
After the story was published, Boyagoda and his wife organized a family book club meeting in their backyard where they talked about the story, which was left open-ended.
Not entirely satisfied, his youngest daughter asked, ‘So what happened next?’
“And it struck me as a question worth pursuing,” says Boyagoda. “So I began writing it out — what would happen next to these kids? Where would they go? What would happen to them wherever they were going?”
The story’s original idea came to Boyagoda in 2018 in Italy.
In years past he taught a class in Rome and initially, his family was able to join him. Together, they enjoyed lively dinners in their guest apartment. As time passed the kids got older and the family couldn’t join Boyagoda, who found himself back in Rome in the same house but eating at the dining room table alone.
Said Boyagoda in a recent interview on CBC’s Radio’s The Next Chapter: “I really missed my family, because of the memory of when we had all been together there. I started imagining a table full of family, and then just being there by yourself. What could have changed? Why did this family disappear? That got to me, and I thought, ‘what would you do if you knew your family was going to disappear?’ You would have a final meal together, before sending your kids off for safekeeping. That's how the story started.”
Creating a privileged family from the Global South was done intentionally and bucks the trend of most dystopian novels.
“The popularity of dystopian fiction over the last few years in television and in books has been marked by a consistent white protagonist,” he says. “Think about The Hunger Games, or Station Eleven. They tend to be privileged white people who are suddenly faced with a world that’s falling apart. And so we follow these heroes as they figure out how to survive.”
Meanwhile, other stories set in the Global South tend to involve characters who live in worlds of extreme poverty and risk.
“The Global South is also full of ridiculously wealthy people,” says Boyagoda. “So what would happen if the main characters in a dystopic novel weren't upper middle class white people? What if a young adult novel about the Global South wasn't about extremely poor brown people?”
The book begins with a quote from Franz Kafka: “Children simply don’t have any time in which they might be children.” That resonated with Boyagoda, touching on the idea that though children are often thrust into very adult situations and are forced to act and behave like adults, their child-like behaviour still shines through.
“Sabel and her four siblings have to figure out what they're going to do when they realize things aren't as they seemed. And as a result, they don't have time to be children.
“They can't just be kids about it, they can't take for granted that they're going to be kept safe. And yet, they're still children, they still bicker. There's still sibling rivalry, even in situations where the stakes could be mortal. There's still crushes, there's still competition for attention.”
Boyagoda also believes the book also offers an opportunity for young readers and their parents to discuss some of the challenges the world currently faces.
“One of the ways that dystopia generally works is that we’re meant to imagine a version of contemporary life taken to its negative extremes,” he says. “These are books in which civil war, disease, inequality, pressures of climate have been taken to such an extreme point that things have broken in this world.
“So what happens to our humanity, to our prospects as individuals, family members and friends when current challenges and sources of division and decline are taken to their extremes? It would be my hope that a novel like this would be an occasion for parents and children together to talk these things through.”
Boyagoda also hopes young readers will enjoy the book more than once, as a second or third reading could bring added enjoyment.
“I've always felt this as a reader myself,” he says. “Whenever I want to re-read something, that's an indicator that something significant has happened in the story that will sustain my imagination a second time through.
“Sometimes it's the beauty of the writing. Sometimes it's the intensity of the story. And this might be the case with Little Sanctuary. It might be to figure out the mystery in retrospect. In other words, there's lots of Easter eggs, but you don't see them the first time through.”
Boyagoda and his family are planning another family book club meeting later this summer, with a discussion of Little Sanctuary topping the agenda. He hopes his youngest daughter will give her stamp of approval.