Roie Oknin is a writer, artist and medical student. He holds a BSc in Neuroscience and a BA in Psychology. Ramen, Existential Crises is his first novel.
About Ramen, Existential Crises
Koji is twenty-seven and one module short of a degree in Politics and Government. The missing module is Crisis Management. It feels appropriate.
For six years, he has worked in a tiny ramen shop with eleven seats, one dish and a broth whose flame has not gone out in thirty-two years. The noodles cook for exactly eighty-five seconds.
Then the timer fails. A stranger gives Koji his business card. Someone from his past walks into the restaurant. Around him, other people make decisions and continue with their lives.
Koji has always known what should be done.
Doing it is another matter.
The interview
Do you keep a notebook of ideas?
Yes, although it is mostly the Notes app on my phone rather than an actual notebook. I write down anything that feels like it might become something later: lines, titles, thoughts, dialogue, situations.
Some notes never become anything, and some are almost impossible to understand when I come back to them months later. But I like keeping them anyway. Sometimes one small note sits there for a long time before suddenly finding its way into a story.
Fill in the blank: “People will like your book if they like stories about…”
…slice-of-life stories with a touch of light absurdism. I’m drawn to stories where something important can be happening without anything particularly dramatic taking place. A person can be making ramen, walking home, sitting in a café, or avoiding a decision.
Ramen, Existential Crises lives in that kind of space. It’s grounded in ordinary routines, but those routines occasionally become slightly strange when you look at them for too long. I like that tension between the mundane and the absurd, especially when the absurdity doesn’t feel completely separate from real life.
Would you rather own a bookstore or run a library?
A bookstore, definitely. I’d want it to be more than books, though. I would like it to be more than just books; I want to create a creative outlet. People will come to read and write; we would run reading sessions and book clubs. I’d have a café inside and source the coffee myself. I can imagine it very vividly.
I’d also like to sell handmade goods alongside the books, such as ceramics, prints, small objects, and things made by local artists. I like the idea of creating a place that feels very personal rather than purely commercial.
Basically, a bookstore designed around all of my existing obsessions in one place.
Who is your dream audiobook narrator?
Anne Hathaway. I think she has the kind of voice that can move very naturally between warmth and seriousness, and humour.
For Ramen, Existential Crises, I’d want the narration to stay fairly restrained. The book has absurd moments, but I wouldn’t want them performed as jokes. A lot of the humour works better when it’s delivered almost completely straight.
I think she could handle that balance really well, making the quieter moments feel intimate while still catching the subtle comedy underneath them.
Do you try to hit a certain page or word count with each writing session?
No. I don’t really write with a daily word count target in mind. Some days I’ll write a lot, and other days I might spend most of the time changing a paragraph or realising that a scene needs to go in a completely different direction.
For me, progress isn’t always about adding words. Sometimes deleting a page is more useful than writing three new ones.
I prefer to stop when I feel like I’ve actually moved the book forward in some way, even if the word count barely changed.
Do you have any writing rituals?
Coffee is probably the closest thing I have to a ritual. I almost always have a cup next to me when I write, and making it gives me a small transition into sitting down and working.
I do reread what I wrote previously before continuing, though. It helps me get back into the rhythm and voice of the book, especially if I haven’t worked on it for a few days.
What are your passions/obsessions outside of writing?
Sculpting, drawing, studying, and coffee are probably the main ones. I really like making things with my hands, especially sculpture, because it feels completely different from writing. With writing, everything begins as something abstract in your head; with sculpture, you’re physically pushing and shaping the idea into existence.
I also enjoy studying and learning new things. Medicine takes up a huge part of my life, but I’m curious well beyond that and tend to fall into little rabbit holes very easily.
Who would you most want to read your book, living or dead?
Dostoevsky, although I have a strong suspicion he would hate it.
I imagine he might find it too restrained, too uneventful, or perhaps wonder why everyone isn’t suffering more dramatically. But getting a brutally unimpressed reaction from Dostoevsky would still be a pretty incredible review.
Who is on your Mt. Rushmore of greatest/inspirational authors?
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and Gabriel García Márquez.
Dostoevsky for the intensity of his characters’ inner lives and the way thought itself can become almost unbearable. Woolf for how much she can find in a seemingly ordinary moment, and for the rhythm and interiority of her writing.
Kafka for the precision of his strangeness and the way the absurd can feel completely normal once you are inside his world.
And Márquez for the richness of his imagination and the way reality and the impossible can exist together so naturally.
What is an annoying thing that a non-writer has assumed about writers or the act of writing?
That you have to suffer in order to write something good.
There’s this romantic idea of the tortured writer, as if being miserable somehow makes the work more authentic or profound. I don’t really believe that. Difficult experiences can obviously shape what someone writes, but suffering isn’t a requirement for creativity.
How do you measure the success of your writing career?
Readers, more than anything else.
Of course, sales, reviews, and other numbers are exciting, but what matters most to me is knowing that someone actually chose to spend a few hours with something I wrote. A book only really begins its second life once it reaches a reader.
And to me at least–and many would disagree–it doesn’t matter what you tried to convey. because once it is out in the world, it breathes; it doesn’t exist in a void. Some will love it, some will get angry, and some will call it a waste of paper. These are all legitimate thoughts.
A book is only as good, as important, or as impressive as its readers think it is.
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