Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Ravi Mangla writes about The Observant from Spuyten Duyvil.

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I’ve always admired writers that put a great weight on research. The practice calls to mind literary idols like (to name a few) Olga Tokarczuk, Joanna Scott, and Jim Shepard, whose story collections include copious source materials. Despite carrying out plenty of research for essays, my previous attempts to write research-rich stories fell short, as I discovered too much research stunted my imagination, made the stories feel like a cold litany of facts. For The Observant, I aimed to conduct enough research to evoke a strong sense of place, as well as detail the main character’s profession (filmmaker), but not so much that I felt hemmed in by a dutiful adherence to fact.

The novel is loosely inspired by the story of Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee, South Korean film royalty who were kidnapped by the late Kim Jong-il and coerced into making propaganda films for the North Korean government. It’s a bizarre and fascinating story that has lived in my head for years. The Observant takes place in a composite authoritarian country that bears similarities to Iran, Syria, and North Korea, while having characteristics all its own. For this, I studied books on the histories of these countries, while also watching films by a number of Iranian directors, especially Abbas Kiarostami, Asghar Farhadi, and Jafar Panâhi, to steep myself in the feel and mood of the region without being wedded to strict detail.

The book marries two of my central interests: film and politics. Writing about a filmmaker allowed me to reference some of my favorite films and directors (I’ll never pass up an opportunity to talk up the brilliance of Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped). The main character is written in the mold of a journalistic and politically-minded documentarian (think Laura Poitras, Joshua Oppenheimer, or Alex Gibney), who grapples with ethical quandaries around documentary filmmaking.

bq. “I was taught that a documentarian should always keep their subject at arms-
length. Intimacy is the privilege of the viewer and the undoing of the filmmaker.”

My day job in political organizing also factors into the book. Pro-democracy uprisings inspired by the Arab Spring form the backdrop of the story. I’m fascinated by leftist political movements (as both a participant and witness), the power of propaganda, and how authoritarian forces come into being. Characters challenge one another’s political convictions and dogma throughout the book. And my own questions about mass politics, the lingering impacts of colonialism, and corrupting influence of power form the basis of these conversations.

As our nation contends with encroaching fascism and the downward pressure of global capitalism (and the pursuit of endless economic growth fueling the destruction of our natural environment), I hope this novel challenges notions of Western exceptionalism and raises questions about the role of art in a world on fire.

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