Sarah Thankam Mathews: After All This is part of In The Making, a documentary shorts series from American Masters and Firelight Media follows emerging cultural icons on their journeys to becoming masters of their artistic disciplines.
Andrew Nadkarni’s director statement
Sarah Thankam Mathews’ writing process dances between acting and architecture – finding the right voice and the right structure. It culminates with a ritual: as she nears the completion of a draft, she tapes the pages up on the wall. Here, she sees her progress, hears her characters, and asks: Does my voice ring true? Does it do justice to the people and places I’m trying to evoke?
In Sarah’s debut novel, All This Could Be Different, she charts the journey of a Queer Indian woman who, at first, cannot accept love or care from others, but comes to understand the value of community and allowing people in. She uses a narrative structure of “I” to “We” to accomplish this. Sarah wrote the novel in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, partially inspired by her mutual aid work as founder of Bed-Stuy Strong, a network of neighbors supporting one another. She credits the pandemic-era expanded unemployment insurance with providing the financial leeway she needed to actually do the writing. The novel spoke especially to Queer and South Asian communities, but was also widely acclaimed, shortlisted for the National Book Award in 2022.
Following the success and positive reception of my own debut documentary Between Earth & Sky, I was interested in exploring the question of “what’s next” alongside Sarah. As she embarked on writing her second novel, I want to capture the creative process required to dig deep within yourself, and find those sparks of memory and inspiration that drive the next project forward. I also wanted to understand how she navigates the internal and external pressures that come with a sophomore project. How does she stay true to her own voice?
Sarah’s second novel is both more personal, and more risky than her first, partially because it is set in Oman, the country she grew up in, and one not known to many American readers.
With no real archive for these stories, we witness Sarah excavate memories of her past, rediscovering lost time, place and people. As she conducts interviews, returns for research trips, and most importantly, does the writing, she grapples with finding the right voice and container for this story.
Yet, she persists. As she surrounds herself with her other practices – teaching, community building, gardening and organizing – she finds moments when acting and architecture align, where sparks of memory and inspiration collide, to create something new.
More about Sarah Thankam Mathews
Sarah Thankam Mathews is the author of All This Could Be Different, which was shortlisted for the the Discover Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and 2022 National Book Award in Fiction. Mathews’ debut novel was also a New York Times Editor’s Choice and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Vogue, Vulture, Los Angeles Times, TIME, Slate, and Buzzfeed. Mathews grew up between Oman and India, immigrating to the United States at seventeen.