Shapeshifting with Indrapramit Das - Reading and Discussion of The Devourers and other fictions
SF and SFF genre discussions
“My part in this story began the winter before winters started getting warmer, on a full-moon night so bright, you could see your own shadow on an unlit rooftop. It was under that moon -- slightly smudged by December night mist clinging to the streets of Kolkata -- that I met a man who told me he was half werewolf. He said this to me as if it were no different from being half Bengali, half Punjabi, half Parsi. Half werewolf under a full mon. Not the most subtle kind of irony, but a necessary one. If I’m to value the veracity of my recollections.”
Thus begins The Devourers by Indrapramit Das -- a richly imaginative and immersive novel about European werewolves in Mughal India, and how their paths cross with a human woman Cyrah. A sensitive commentary on patriarchy, toxic masculinity and the inadequacy of binary understandings of gender and sexuality, The Devourers, like its characters, refuses to fit into boxes of genre or convention.
We will also discuss some of the author’s short fiction works, including the Shirley Jackson award winning story, Kali Na (published in The Mythic Dream, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe), and The Shadow We Cast Through Time (published in New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction By People of Colour, edited by Nisi Shawl).
About the speaker:
Indrapramit Das (aka Indra Das) is a writer and editor from Kolkata, India. He is a Lambda Literary Award-winner for his debut novel The Devourers (Penguin India / Del Rey), and a Shirley Jackson Award-winner for his short fiction, which has appeared in a variety of anthologies and publications including Tor.com, Slate Magazine, Clarkesworld and Asimov’s Science Fiction. He has lived in India, the United States, and Canada, where he received his MFA from the University of British Columbia.
About the moderators:
TG Shenoy is an SFF enthusiast, a columnist and critic. Shenoy hosts To Boldly Go, a fun SFF quiz every Saturday.
VIjayalakshmi Harish is a columnist, writer, and author of Strangely Familiar Tales.
Participation: is via Zoom for registered participants. Alternatively, you can watch the livestream here and post comments on https://hasgeek.com/bookclub/shapeshifting-with-indrapramit-das/
Contact details: For queries, write to info@hasgeek.com or call 7676332020