Today’s conversation with novelist and story writer Jai Chakrabarti is unusually wide-ranging, touching on everything from classical Indian aesthetics to Jewish ritual, from poetry to cognitive science, from Tagore’s plays to Buber’s philosophy, from sublimating the self to writing the other. Chakrabarti’s new story collection, A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness, engages with complex questions of class, gender, race, religion, and nationality, particularly in relation to families and family making, and the tensions between our individual dreams and the countervailing realities of the people we share lives with and among. We discuss questions of story shape, characterization, point of view, and the role of the reader in order to look deeply at how to tell such stories in ways that feel nuanced, lived, and embodied.
For the bonus audio archive Jai reads two poems by the Polish poet and translator (and biographer of Bruno Schulz) Jerzy Ficowski. The epigraph to Jai’s novel comes from one of them, and the second poem is dedicated to the memory of Janusz Korczak (who we discuss quite a bit in the main discussion). To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio and about the many other potential benefits and rewards from joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, head over the the show’s Patreon page.
Finally, here is the Bookshop for today’s conversation.
The post Jai Chakrabarti : A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness appeared first on Tin House.
Gabrielle Bates : Judas Goat
Georgi Gospodinov : Time Shelter
Lucy Ives : Life Is Everywhere
Crafting with Ursula: Neil Gaiman on Word Magic & The Power of Telling Stories
Sawako Nakayasu : Pink Waves
Ama Codjoe : Bluest Nude
Crafting with Ursula : Gabrielle Bellot on The Power of Names & Naming
Hélène Cixous : Well-Kept Ruins
Billy-Ray Belcourt : A Minor Chorus
Crafting with Ursula : Maria Dahvana Headley on Feminist Translation & Classical Retellings
Dionne Brand : Nomenclature — New and Collected Poems
Elaine Castillo : How to Read Now
Crafting with Ursula : Lidia Yuknavitch on The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
Claire Schwartz : Civil Service
Morgan Talty : Night of the Living Rez
Crafting with Ursula : Julie Phillips on the Writing Mother
Daniel Mendelsohn : Three Rings — A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate
Vauhini Vara : The Immortal King Rao
Crafting with Ursula : William Alexander on Writing for Children
Hernan Diaz : Trust
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Lit Society: Books and Drama
Ex Libris
Write The Book: Conversations on Craft
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Frankenstein
Fresh Air
Myths and Legends