S5 Ep. 20: ‘A Spiritual-Industrial Complex’: SJ Sindu on Writing the Life of a Child God

fiction/non/fiction

Novelist SJ Sindu joins host V.V. Ganeshananthan live from the Tamil Worlds Initiative at the University of Toronto-Scarborough to discuss her new novel, Blue-Skinned Gods, and its protagonist, Kalki, a blue-skinned boy raised in an ashram as the tenth human incarnation of Vishnu. Sindu talks about depicting caste, gender, and heteronormative privilege within a rigid community; the destructive intersection of spirituality and capitalism; and how the age of digital misinformation has aided the Hindu right’s attempt to redefine South Asian history.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf and Hannah Ward.

Selected readings for the episode:

SJ Sindu

• Dominant Genes
• Blue-Skinned Gods
• Marriage of a Thousand Lies
• I Once Met You But You Were Dead

Others

• Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
• Tamil Worlds Initiative at the University of Toronto-Scarborough
• “Where Countries are Tinderboxes and Facebook is a Match,” New York Times, April 21, 2018
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• Marrying for a Future by Sidharthan Maunaguru
• The marriages in-between - Himal Southasian A review of Sidharthan Maunaguru’s Marrying for a Future: Transnational Sri Lankan Tamil Marriages in the Shadow of War by V.V. Ganeshananthan | Jan 29, 2020
• Garrard Conley and SJ Sindu on the Mainstreaming of Queer Identity, Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 26

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