A Conversation with Ingrid Rojas Contreras By Swetha Amit

What inspired The Man Who Could Move Clouds? When did you decide to tell this story?

I grew up hearing my grandfather's stories, which I loved. I always wanted to tell that story. When I decided I wanted to write it, I didn't know enough about craft or writing to write this story. It wasn't until I lost my memory, recovered, and while recollecting those stories of my family that it all came together. I could finally visualize the tone, structure, and way the story should be written.

How long did it take you to write this memoir?

I started to take notes in 2012 as the events in the book happened that year. When traveling back then, I would type everything that happened at the end of each day on my computer. I consider this the research stage, and I was developing a foundation for my writing. I spent six years trying to rewrite the first chapter and discovering the best way to begin the story. If I didn't have the beginning, I couldn't write the rest of the book. It was only in 2018 I finally wrote the first chapter, and the rest of the book took me two years, and I finished writing it in 2020. With a memoir, it takes time as you catch up to the knowledge of what happened in your life. So, it does take a lot of time for things to sink for you to understand what happened, even though you lived it.

You talk about history and family in your memoir. Please tell us more about the research process.

I read many anthropology books by Colombians about Colombia to try and get a sense of what happened in villages and what my mother's and grandfather's time was like. I visited libraries in Colombia and in the US, reading newspapers. I also did a lot of interviews with family members and people treated by my grandfather or who had known my mother when she was young.

There is a part in the story where you mention that your mother didn't want you to write this memoir. How did you handle that?

In the end, we discovered there were specific things she didn't want me to write about. And, of course, I respected that. It also took a lot of conversation and patience. When writing a memoir, you experience a certain amount of hesitation about telling your story. You have these questions about what everyone will think after they read it or whether you want your life to be known this way. Similarly, the people you are writing about will experience the same feelings of hesitation. I told her about my intentions to tell the story, how important it was to the community, and how it would make a difference to them. Once she was convinced, she was on board.

The structure in your book goes back and forth, which lends well to how memory works. Did you plan out this structure from the beginning?

Initially, I had a skeleton structure that was guiding me. From the skeleton structure, I knew the book would begin with our travel to Colombia and how the story would end. There was an arc I could lean on. While writing this memoir, I discovered another arc was happening within the book, which was much more abstract and had to do with a sequence of ideas that led to some conclusions. I would let myself wander and write subsequent drafts. Then I'd re-read those drafts and start seeing some connections. It was all very intuitive, and I was writing more from the gut than being calculative about the process.

You said memory is a burden, and memory loss gives you freedom. Yet you also possessed certain powers to heal people, which stems from memory? What is your take on this juxtaposition of memory?

Being without memory doesn't feel like it can last unless you are at the end of your life battling Alzheimer's. I used to think it would feel scary. But when it was happening, I felt joyful. While writing this book, I couldn't explain why memory loss was a joyful experience because most people haven't experienced amnesia. It was challenging to get across but trying to put that into language was one of my most exciting creative challenges. Memory loss felt like being disconnected from the good and bad things that happened to me. It meant you were open and available for the present. It feels amazing because you are seeing things for the first time and living in a constant state of wonder. It's extremely contradicting, but I miss having amnesia. On the other hand, I feel there is the power to keep memories of people and the place you come from.

Since you have authored fiction and nonfiction, what is your approach to both forms of writing?

With fiction, I tend to collage things I have seen, things that have happened, and something I have felt, and imagination. I always start with a real place, and it slowly begins to morph into a fictional setting. The character ultimately starts to become someone else. When I am writing a memoir, it's a problem of limitation where you are limited to things that have happened. With fiction, I am more interested in possibilities, and with nonfiction, I must actively recreate meaning from different elements in my life. I enjoy writing both and pushing boundaries. There is fun in that too. I like a lot of play while writing.

Has writing this memoir changed you in any way?

I do feel different. Even when I finished writing my novel Fruit of a Drunken Tree, I felt changed in a way that is hard to define. When you live alongside the narrative, you spend enough time with it and start to live certain things inside it. And when you come out, you are different, and the book proves what that time was. So, it's tough to say how I am different.

What do you want readers to take away from this book?

There is a lot of effort to uncover memory and history. When I was writing this book, I realized there are ways in which memories about things we don't remember live within us. For those who feel they don't have access to memory about their families or think that the knowledge has been lost, I want them to be aware that such memories reside within them in some form.

Which authors and books have inspired you?

Authors like Franz Kafka, Clarice Lispector, and Virginia Woolf influenced me during my formative years. There are so many books being published these days. Amongst the current lot, I liked Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty, and Seven Empty Houses by Samantha Schweblin.

What is the strangest place you have visited?

I think once when I was on a road trip across the US, there was this place an artist built out of junk. And when you enter inside, things are hanging from everything. It was wild.

Lastly, what is the weirdest writing habit you possess?

I wear this shade of deep ocean blue whenever I write. I have done it over the years, and I even wrote about it for the New York Times magazine.

INGRID ROJAS CONTRERAS was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Hailed as “original, politically daring, and passionately written” by Vogue, her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree earned the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, an Indie Next Pick, and a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection.

Her debut memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds was a National Book Award Finalist. Rojas Contreras brings readers into her childhood, where her grandfather, Nono, was a renowned community healer gifted with “the secrets”: powers that included talking to the dead, fortunetelling, treating the sick, and moving the clouds. The Man Who Could Move Clouds interweaves enchanting family lore, Colombian history, and a reckoning with the bounds of reality.

Ingrid Rojas Contreras’ essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Cut, Nylon, and Guernica, among others. She has received numerous awards and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, VONA, Hedgebrook, the Camargo Foundation, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. Rojas Contreras is a Visiting Writer at the University of San Francisco.

Author of her memoir, A Turbulent Mind-My journey to Ironman 70.3’, Swetha Amit is currently pursuing her MFA at University of San Francisco. She has published her works in Atticus Review, JMWW journal, Oranges Journal, Gastropoda Lit, Full House literary, Amphora magazine, Grande Dame literary journal, Black Moon Magazine, Fauxmoir lit mag, Poets Choice anthology, and has upcoming pieces in Drunk Monkeys, Agapanthus Collective, The Creative Zine, and Roi Faineant Press. She is one of the contest winners of Beyond words literary magazine, her piece upcoming in November. She is also, alumni of Tin House Winter Workshop 2022 and the Kenyon Review Writers’ workshop 2022. Twitter: @whirlwindtotsInstagram @swethaamit