Author Dina Nayeri on those all important first pages
Dina Nayeri is the author of The Ungrateful Refugee, winner of the Geschwister Scholl Preis, finalist for The LA Times Book Prize, Kirkus Prize, and ELLE Grand Prix des Lectrices. A 2019-2020 fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris and 2021 Fellow at the American Library in Paris, her work been awarded an NEA grant in literature and UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, and been published in 20+ countries and in The New York Times, New Yorker, The Guardian, Granta, O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Short Stories, and many other publications. She was born in Iran, has lived as a refugee, and is now a lecturer at University of St Andrews in Scotland.
In your own writing, what importance do the first few pages of a manuscript have? How do you find just the right tone and rhythm, how do you decide what goes first?
I often arrive at my first pages near the end of the writing process. In the book I just finished, the first page was the last item that I completed. By then I had edited the entire manuscript several times. I knew the tone, the rhythms, the themes, the arc. The subtle notes on that first page sounded to me like a gong. I guess that’s how I ensure that they remain subtle: had I written the opening pages first, I’d want to jam in all that information. But writing it last gives me confidence that the reader will get there by the end.
More generally, as a reader, what makes a captivating beginning for you? What makes you want to keep reading?
A confident voice. Intellectual and emotional stakes. Simple, elegant prose overlaying many layers of unspoken (and unsayable) things.
What are some of your favorite first pages, books with the best beginnings that have stuck with you?
My favorite first lines include Ha Jin’s Waiting, Anne Tyler’s Back When We Were Grownups, Emma Donohue’s Room, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Orwell’s 1984, and Camus’ The Stranger. They are all voice, all point of view, simple, unadorned, and chock full of context and tantalizing subtext.
photo credit: Anna Leader