S176.
Yes We Exist, America: Queer South Asian Stories & Why They Matter
Saturday, February 10, 2024
12:10 pm to 1:25 pm
The panel brings together queer writers of diverse South Asian origins: Pakistani-American, Omani-Indian, Assamese, diasporic, and southern Indian. We read from their fiction, share the unique challenges we faced between writing our books and publishing them, and talk about how queer South Asian fiction is in dialogue with queer writing being read in the United States, even as they tell unique stories rooted in the specificity of historical, cultural, and postcolonial legacies.
Participants
Shastri Akella's debut novel is The Sea Elephants (Flatiron (US-Canada), Penguin (India)). His writing has appeared in Guernica, Fairy Tale Review, Masters Review, The Rumpus, World Literature Today, CRAFT, etc. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at Michigan State University.
Rehman’s dark comedy, Corona, is one of the New York Public Library’s favorite books about NYC. She’s coeditor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism and author of Marianna’s Beauty Salon and Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion, a modern classic about what it means to be Muslim and queer.
Sarah Thankam Mathews is the author of All This Could Be Different, which was shortlisted for the 2022 National Book Award in Fiction. Mathews' debut novel was also a New York Times Editor's Choice and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Vogue, Vulture, Los Angeles Times, Slate, and others.
Aruni Kashyap writes in Assamese and English. He is the author of two books of fiction, including His Father’s Disease (Gaudy Boy Books NY), and a poetry collection. Winner of fellowships from NEA and the Charles Wallace Trust, he is the director of the CWP at the University of Georgia, Athens.
Neel N. Patel lives in Los Angeles, where he is completing a collection of short stories called If You See Me, Don't Say Hi. His work aims to examine the experience of first-generation South Asians living in America.
