SOURCE: "Building on Common Ground: An interview with Neil Bissondath," in Canadian Literature, No. 147, Winter, 1995, pp. 127-35.

In the interview below, Bisoondath discusses his family history and other influences on his writing.

[Van Toorn:] Tell me about your family history.

[Bissoondath]: Both sides of the family left India to come to Trinidad as indentured laborers to work in the sugar cane plantations. It would have been my great grandparents, around the turn of the century. And they decided to stay. The Naipaul side were from the state of Madhya Pradesh. My uncle [V. S. Naipaul] has written about a sad trip he made to the village in An Area of Darkness.

And you've never attempted such a trip?

No, I have no particular attraction to India.

As the eldest child in a literary family, was there pressure on you to do something or be somebody?

When it comes...