The marvelous Titi Nguyen recently interviewed me for the Ploughshares blog. Read it all here.
Category: India
DEEP SINGH BLUE is work of ferocious bravery, intelligence, and art.
Thank you to Alex Shakar for the incredibly generous blurb, which he assures me is heartfelt.
“This is no picturesque coming of age. In an immigrant family and an adopted land both straitjacketed by denial and rage, it’s an open question—and a propulsive one—whether Deep Singh’s lashings out to save himself will lead to salvation or destruction. Deep Singh Blue is work of ferocious bravery, intelligence, and art.”
—Alex Shakar, author of Luminarium
DEEP SINGH BLUE tops DesiBlitz books list for 2016
So pleased to see — thanks! Check it out here.
DEEP SINGH BLUE in Sunday Guardian Best of 2016!
A big Thank You! to the ineffable Sudeep Sen who was kind enough to include Deep Singh Blue in his Best Of list for upcoming books for 2016 in the Sunday Guardian. Check it out here.
All Borderlands Are Ghost Lands
WATCHING TELEVISION FOOTAGE OF REFUGEES streaming west by their thousands, along the highways of Hungary toward the Austrian border, my first thoughts are about my mother. She made a similar trek, 69 years ago almost to the day, when she was only six. I see her in the girl raised by her father above the fray at the Bicske railway station in Budapest, or holding tight onto her mother’s hand in the throngs filling a nighttime road, led by men using their cellphone GPS to find the way. She too was fleeing war — or more exactly, walking through the heart of it, as what had been the Indian Raj was violently split into India and Pakistan.
Read the full article over at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Reading The Byword in Crete…
It’s a rare event when a major new literary magazine comes out of India, and rarer still that one of such scope and deep seriousness as The Byword emerges. But here it is, and to me it is a real cause for celebration. If you’re in India, run out to your local bookstore and see if you can get a copy, and if they don’t have one, tell them to order it. I’m proud to say I’ve got a major new story, “Jerusalem”, in the debut issue, but there’s so much else besides, and much of it fantastic. Finally, in India, a print venue where not only new writing is published, but also celebrated.
The Indian Short Story in English
Much that happens in the writing world is supported by people who do it just for the love of art — as those of us who write so often do. So here’s a shout out to the fine people at indianshortstoryinenglish.com — and their excellent work in putting together a compendium of what’s happening right now in the Indian short story form (as practiced by those who write in English). You can check out my page by clicking here, or on the image below, and search through the site to find some really fine writers of the form.
A traveler to Ladakh…
Back in 2011, when I was stuck in New Delhi and didn’t know what to do with myself, I decided to take a trip to Ladakh for the summer. Little did I know the journey itself would be as wild as anything I found when I reached the ancient Himalayan kingdom. Over at Terrain.org, I tell the story of that sometimes harrowing journey. One day maybe I’ll tell the story of all that happened when I finally arrived. Read it here.
Samrari, India, 2011
Happy to report, the fine people at F-Stop Magazine have published several of my “Samrari, India” photographs in their current group exhibition. The issue is dedicated to black and white photography. Check them out here — and check out the other fantastic work too.
The Indian wedding that exploded in violence
Just up on Salon.com, my new essay. If anyone is wondering, this is not a story — the account is purely factual. Check it out here.
It was the first days of the new year, and thrumming through the soles of my feet was that distinctive, hard-driving rhythm—the dhol drum singing out its bhangra beat. The dance floor was small, swallowed whole in a corner of the underground ballroom, but we were all crowded onto it, celebrating the closing night of the wedding. The speakers strained and gaudy lights painted our bodies in splashes of color and soon, after leaving the dance floor, I watched as a young Indian man newly arrived from a Midwestern city stammered across the ballroom toward a girl he claimed he loved with the simple plan of asking her to dance.
He’d come here with friends, three young men looking to discover India, reconnect with their roots, learn something of the land their parents came from. In a minute, he’d be sprawled across the floor, his face streaming blood and I’d be racing toward his attacker, a relative of mine, who now hoisted a heavy steel chair high over his head and was about to bring it down with all his might and crush the foreigner’s skull.
RANBIR SIDHU 