Today we’d like to introduce you to Aruni Kashyap.
Hi Aruni, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My journey as a writer started in Assam, in Northeast India where I was born, where I grew up. I left Assam in 2004 at a time when thousands of young men and women were leaving the state to escape the consequences of political violence that had been ravaging the state since 1979. During those years, it was a norm for thousands of students and young professionals from Assam to move to the large cities of Delhi and Mumbai to seek safety and better career opportunities as the insurgency against Indian rule in Assam had wrecked the state for almost three decades. I lived and worked in Delhi for fourteen years, with a short stint in the US in between when I finished graduate school. In 2018, I accepted a job at the University of Georgia, and Georgia is my new and adopted home now for the last six years!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It hasn’t been a smooth road at all because being a writer from writer from an under-discussed literary culture such as Assamese literature, or Literature from Northeast India was difficult enough in India. In the US, I found a different kind of challenge: of writing about a space that is from India but doesn’t fit into the popular imagination of India or South Asia in the US. This is made doubly challenging as the American literary culture doesn’t make it easy for writers of color, who writes fiction and poetry with questioning streak. The literary culture wants easily digestible, almost junk, stuff. They don’t want to eat salad; they like fries.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a fiction writer and translator, but I also take a lot of pleasure in my teaching. Every day, I get to wake up and write books, come to class and talk about books and encourage young students to contemporary American and global literature: it is an ideal job and life for me.
I think what sets me apart is that I am contributing towards changing conventional and popular depictions of South Asia and India. I am telling a different story about India that you will not see in glitzy dramedies on Netflix, such as Never Have I Ever or Indian Matchmaking. I think these different stories make us richer and wiser.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.arunikashyap.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arunikashyap/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arunikashyap.page/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AruniKashyap
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgeSbpoanl5STsfNI_A2pg
