Aatish Taseer, author of ”A Return to Self”

My guest today is someone I’m lucky enough to have known personally for many years, so getting the chance to interview him today was a real treat. Aastish Taseer is a writer and thinker who straddles many cultures – Indian, American, British – and this cultural journey infuses his writing with refined and penetrative insights. I first met him in India, when I was living in Delhi and he took me under his wing and introduced me around & gave me some great tips on how to navigate this massive city.

In the past, I’ve really appreciated his work and always recommended it, such as his novel “The Way Things Were”, a multi-generational Indian family saga, and his non-fiction work, like “The Twice Born” where he wrote about contemporary challenges to the ancient ways of the Brahmin caste in the holy city of Varanasi in India. When I heard that he had a new book out called “A Return to Self”, where his travels to sacred and remote sites around the world would be viewed through his own complex sense of identity, I could not wait any longer and immediately called him to get an interview.   In our chat today, we dig into some questions surrounding belonging, identity, exploration and exile. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

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Aatish Taseer’s four books were:

• Survivors in Mexico, Rebecca West (2011)

• In Light of India, Octavio Paz (1995)

• A Bend in the River, V. S. Naipaul (1979)

• My Friends, Hisham Matar (2024)