In India queer existence is still relegated to the margins; it is precarious, ephemeral, endangered. It was only in 2018 that the Indian Supreme Court struck down a British colonial-era law that criminalized homosexuality. As of this writing, Indian law does not recognize samesex marriage or civil unions. While there is a rich, storied tradition of queerness in South Asian art, culture, and mythology, queer literature is still a relatively sparse canon. This makes Akella's novel, and his voice, all the more important-an infusion to a collective oeuvre that deserves much more far-reaching attention than it has received so far, both on the Indian subcontinent and abroad.
I was struck by an exchange between the narrator, Shagun, and his father at the start of the novel, in which his father asks Shagun about his favorite god. Can you talk a bit about the role Hindu mythology plays in the novel as well as in the framing of traditional ideas of masculinity?
Hindu mythology, in both oral and written forms, abounds with queer and trans characters. However, a fleet of political invasions on the subcontinent triggered the age-old fear of "the great replacement." These original texts were supplanted with rigidly structured heteronormative versions: stories where straight uppercaste couples are at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the ruling and the agrarian, landowning caste. A celebration of the "masculine" cis man led to a reframing of Hanuman only as a fierce, masculine god-the version that Shagun's father wants him to imbibe. The Sea Elephants presents myths in original and censored versions but without being didactic.
Shastri Akella whose debut novel, The Sea Elephants, will be published by Flatiron Books in July
This story is from the July - August 2023 edition of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July - August 2023 edition of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Literary MagNet
When Greg Marshall began writing the essays that would become his memoir, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It (Abrams Press, June 2023), he wanted to explore growing up in Utah and what he calls \"the oddball occurrences in my oddball family.\" He says, \"I wanted to call the book Long-Term Side Effects of Accutane and pitch it as Six Feet Under meets The Wonder Years.\" But in 2014 he discovered his diagnosis of cerebral palsy, information his family had withheld from him for nearly thirty years, telling him he had \"tight tendons\" in his leg. This revelation shifted the focus of the project, which became an \"investigation into selfhood, uncovering the untold story of my body,\" says Marshall. Irreverent and playful, Leg reckons with disability, illness, queerness, and the process of understanding our families and ourselves.
THE MEUSEUM OF HUMAN HISTORY
READING The Museum of Human History felt like listening to a great harmonic hum. After I finished it I found the hum lingering in my ears. Its echo continued for days.
The Sea Elephants
SHASTRI Akella's poised, elegant debut, The Sea Elephants, is a bildungsroman of a young man who joins a street theater group in India after fleeing his father's violent disapproval, the death of his twin sisters, and his mother's unfathomable grief.
The History of a Difficult Child
MIHRET Sibhat's debut novel begins with God dumping rain on a small Ethiopian town as though. He were mad at somebody.
The Sorrows of Others
AS I read each story in Ada Zhang’s brilliant collection, The Sorrows of Others, within the first few paragraphs— sometimes the first few sentences— I felt I understood the characters intimately and profoundly, such that every choice they made, no matter how radical, ill-advised, or baffling to those around them, seemed inevitable and true to me.
We Are a Haunting
TYRIEK White’s debut novel, We Are a Haunting, strikes me as both a love letter to New York City and a kind of elegy.
RADICAL ATTENTION
IN HER LATEST BOOK, THE LIGHT ROOM: ON ART AND CARE, PUBLISHED BY RIVERHEAD BOOKS IN JULY, KATE ZAMBRENO CELEBRATES THE ETHICAL WORK OF CAREGIVING, THE SMALL JOYS OF ORDINARY LIFE, AND AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE NATURAL WORLD WITHIN HUMAN SPACES.
The Fine Print
HOW TO READ YOUR BOOK CONTRACT
First
GINA CHUNG'S SEA CHANGE
Blooming how she must
WITH ROOTS IN NATURE WRITING, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, POETRY, AND PHOTOGRAPHY, CAMILLE T. DUNGY'S NEW BOOK, SOIL: THE STORY OF A BLACK MOTHER'S GARDEN, DELVES INTO THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL ACT OF CULTIVATING AND DIVERSIFYING A GARDEN OF HERBS, VEGETABLES, FLOWERS, AND OTHER PLANTS IN THE PREDOMINANTLY WHITE COMMUNITY OF FORT COLLINS, COLORADO.
