Website → http://iguanabooks.ca/
Tell us about your
book! What is it about and what inspired you to write it?
we,
of the forsaken world... came to me in
2011, when I was on a bus between Dubrovnik and Zagreb. A tall, brunette woman with a lingering stare sat down
next to me on one of the stops. We began to talk about a host of things I can’t
remember now, but the one thing that she told me which did remain in my head
was the following: Croatia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Something about that sentence inspired my imagination.
After we reached the bus station, I had to sit on one of the metal benches for
a few hours, and write. I was starting to imagine different countries,
completely imagined in my head. One was a half-rich half poor megalopolis, the
sort found in most third-world countries. Then, there was a town that wasn’t so
different looking from my grandmother’s place, the southern Indian city of Mysore. There was a tribe in the middle of nowhere, not to
mention a town of great touristic importance, destroyed by an industrial spill.
I also imagined hundreds of voices. Though, over the course of time, those two
hundred-so voices became around sixteen; the most distinct and boisterous of
the lot.
Tell us about your
publishing process. What was it like? Did you go indie or the traditional way?
The
tale of how I got published is equally as much of a complicated one. I had
finished the book in 2016. One of my friends, who was an editor at a small
press in New York, gave me a list of agents to contact. Most of them
responded stealthily and quickly, but after some months, they did not find my
book – experimental, ambitious, overtly literary – to be a quick fit for the market.
They had to turn it down. After about a year of waiting for these agents to
respond, I started submitting to small presses. It was in 2019 that I got a
response from an editor at Iguana Books. They were interested in publishing the
book. I told them that I was still waiting for some other publishers to
respond, so I asked them to wait for some weeks so that I could get some
responses. Within two weeks, this same editor emailed me, asking me to follow
up. He really liked this book and wanted to publish it.
Before my work with Iguana Books, I hadn’t had a publisher
respond to me so positively. Admittedly, Iguana Books is a hybrid press. This
means that they vet every book project that they take on, but they ask the
author to take on the financial burdens of publication. This still did not mean
that they had to care so much about my writing. They did a lot of work, from
the editorial stages, to the design of the cover, and the maps that I asked to
have tailored onto the book itself, to make sure that the book was
aesthetically enriched. They spent a lot of time with me talking on the phone,
making sure all of my needs were met, from last-minute changes to a sentence or
two, to having my books flown to Hong
Kong or Delhi for the sake of book festivals. I do not think having been
published by a hybrid press has downgraded the quality of my work in any way;
if anything, I am glad to have had people who believe as fondly in my vision as
I do. It makes me look forward to later publications, as well as the future of
my career.
How did you choose
the title for your book? Did it come to you right away, before you started
writing it, or did it come later?
we, of
the forsaken world... is a rightful perversion of the phrase we are the poorest country of the world... I
felt that the former title lacked grace, and damned the so-called ‘poor
countries’ as something static, submissive. we,
of the forsaken world... gives a Biblical and Classical touch to the same
concept; and it also gives a lot more space for the ‘forsaken world’ to speak
back. What does it mean to be a ‘we’ or a multitude of the part of the world
that the rest ignores? What does it mean to be ‘forsaken?’ Is it something that
is chosen by that part of the world, or something to be resisted? These are the
sorts of questions the title asks; a good state of mind to be in, as one opens
the first pages of the book.
Tell us about the
cover design process. Did you have a basic idea of what your book cover would
be like?
Yes. When I imagined we, of the forsaken world... I thought
of it as a chorus of voices, from different corners of the planet, uniting to
tell a tale of global abandonment; a collective protest, if you will. I wanted
this multiplicity to be reflected in the cover. I wanted to see hundreds of invisible
hands, almost like the broadbands connecting the world to the Internet,
sticking themselves out, and reaching for another person in another corner of
the world, to join them in their grievance. Unfortunately, though my cover
designer tried, this concept was a little too hard to represent in a picture.
We eventually settled for something that was a lot subtler, and did the concept
equally as well.
Who is your cover
designer and how did you find him/her?
My cover designer – as well as map
designer – is Kyle Poirier, and he was found by my publisher.
How was your
experience working with the designer?
It was hard simply because I lived in Australia, and he lived in Canada, and we both had to work on multiple things
at once, which the time zone difference certainly made harder. But, he worked
really hard, and whenever I told him something of his drawings wasn’t working
for me, he was quick to respond. I really appreciated his work ethic and zeal.
Anything else you’d
like to say about your book?
For anyone who likes experimental, literary
writing, with globalizing intent, please take the time to look at my book.
The Internet has connected – and continues to connect – billions of
people around the world, sometimes in surprising ways. In his sprawling
new novel, we of the forsaken world, author Kiran
Tell us about your
book! What is it about and what inspired you to write it?
we,
of the forsaken world... came to me in
2011, when I was on a bus between Dubrovnik and Zagreb. A tall, brunette woman with a lingering stare sat down
next to me on one of the stops. We began to talk about a host of things I can’t
remember now, but the one thing that she told me which did remain in my head
was the following: Croatia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Something about that sentence inspired my imagination.
After we reached the bus station, I had to sit on one of the metal benches for
a few hours, and write. I was starting to imagine different countries,
completely imagined in my head. One was a half-rich half poor megalopolis, the
sort found in most third-world countries. Then, there was a town that wasn’t so
different looking from my grandmother’s place, the southern Indian city of Mysore. There was a tribe in the middle of nowhere, not to
mention a town of great touristic importance, destroyed by an industrial spill.
I also imagined hundreds of voices. Though, over the course of time, those two
hundred-so voices became around sixteen; the most distinct and boisterous of
the lot.
Tell us about your
publishing process. What was it like? Did you go indie or the traditional way?
The
tale of how I got published is equally as much of a complicated one. I had
finished the book in 2016. One of my friends, who was an editor at a small
press in New York, gave me a list of agents to contact. Most of them
responded stealthily and quickly, but after some months, they did not find my
book – experimental, ambitious, overtly literary – to be a quick fit for the market.
They had to turn it down. After about a year of waiting for these agents to
respond, I started submitting to small presses. It was in 2019 that I got a
response from an editor at Iguana Books. They were interested in publishing the
book. I told them that I was still waiting for some other publishers to
respond, so I asked them to wait for some weeks so that I could get some
responses. Within two weeks, this same editor emailed me, asking me to follow
up. He really liked this book and wanted to publish it.
Before my work with Iguana Books, I hadn’t had a publisher
respond to me so positively. Admittedly, Iguana Books is a hybrid press. This
means that they vet every book project that they take on, but they ask the
author to take on the financial burdens of publication. This still did not mean
that they had to care so much about my writing. They did a lot of work, from
the editorial stages, to the design of the cover, and the maps that I asked to
have tailored onto the book itself, to make sure that the book was
aesthetically enriched. They spent a lot of time with me talking on the phone,
making sure all of my needs were met, from last-minute changes to a sentence or
two, to having my books flown to Hong
Kong or Delhi for the sake of book festivals. I do not think having been
published by a hybrid press has downgraded the quality of my work in any way;
if anything, I am glad to have had people who believe as fondly in my vision as
I do. It makes me look forward to later publications, as well as the future of
my career.
How did you choose
the title for your book? Did it come to you right away, before you started
writing it, or did it come later?
we, of
the forsaken world... is a rightful perversion of the phrase we are the poorest country of the world... I
felt that the former title lacked grace, and damned the so-called ‘poor
countries’ as something static, submissive. we,
of the forsaken world... gives a Biblical and Classical touch to the same
concept; and it also gives a lot more space for the ‘forsaken world’ to speak
back. What does it mean to be a ‘we’ or a multitude of the part of the world
that the rest ignores? What does it mean to be ‘forsaken?’ Is it something that
is chosen by that part of the world, or something to be resisted? These are the
sorts of questions the title asks; a good state of mind to be in, as one opens
the first pages of the book.
Tell us about the
cover design process. Did you have a basic idea of what your book cover would
be like?
Yes. When I imagined we, of the forsaken world... I thought
of it as a chorus of voices, from different corners of the planet, uniting to
tell a tale of global abandonment; a collective protest, if you will. I wanted
this multiplicity to be reflected in the cover. I wanted to see hundreds of invisible
hands, almost like the broadbands connecting the world to the Internet,
sticking themselves out, and reaching for another person in another corner of
the world, to join them in their grievance. Unfortunately, though my cover
designer tried, this concept was a little too hard to represent in a picture.
We eventually settled for something that was a lot subtler, and did the concept
equally as well.
Who is your cover
designer and how did you find him/her?
My cover designer – as well as map
designer – is Kyle Poirier, and he was found by my publisher.
How was your
experience working with the designer?
It was hard simply because I lived in Australia, and he lived in Canada, and we both had to work on multiple things
at once, which the time zone difference certainly made harder. But, he worked
really hard, and whenever I told him something of his drawings wasn’t working
for me, he was quick to respond. I really appreciated his work ethic and zeal.
Anything else you’d
like to say about your book?
For anyone who likes experimental, literary
writing, with globalizing intent, please take the time to look at my book.
In, we of the forsaken world, Bhat follows the fortunes of 16 people who live in four distinct places on the planet. The gripping stories include those of a man’s journey to the birthplace of his mother, a tourist town destroyed by an industrial spill; a chief’s second son born in a nameless remote tribe, creating a scramble for succession as their jungles are destroyed by loggers; a homeless, one-armed woman living in a sprawling metropolis who sets out to take revenge on the men who trafficked her; and a milkmaid in a small village of shanty shacks connected only by a mud and concrete road who watches the girls she calls friends destroy her reputation.
Like modern communication networks, the stories in , we of the forsaken world connect along subtle lines, dispersing at the moments where another story is about to take place. Each story is a parable unto itself, but the tales also expand to engulf the lives of everyone who lives on planet Earth, at every second, everywhere.
As Bhat notes, his characters “largely live their own lives, deal with their own problems, and exist independently of the fact that they inhabit the same space. This becomes a parable of globalization, but in a literary text.”
Bhat continues: “I wanted to imagine a globalism, but one that was bottom-to-top, and using globalism to imagine new terrains, for the sake of fiction, for the sake of humanity’s intellectual growth.”
“These are stories that could be directly ripped from our headlines. I think each of these stories is very much its own vignette, and each of these vignettes gives a lot of insight into human nature, as a whole.”
we of the forsaken world takes pride of place next to such notable literary works as David Mitchell’s CLOUD ATLAS, a finalist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize for 2004, and Mohsin Hamid’s EXIT WEST, which was listed by the New York Times as one of its Best Books of 2017.
Bhat’s epic also stands comfortably with the works of contemporary visionaries such as Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick.
No comments:
Post a Comment