Janice Pariat
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Janice Pariat
Janice is a writer based between London and New Delhi/Shillong (depending on the weather).
Studied English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
Pariat worked as the Arts Writer at Time Out Delhi, after which she spent time in Shillong writing prose and poetry.
She edited an online literary journal called Pyrta. Her short story collection, Boats on Land, was published by Random House in October 2012.
Janice Pariat is the author of Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories (Random House India, 2012). She was awarded the Yuva Puraskar (Young Writer Award) from the Sahitya Akademi (Indian National Academy of Letters) and the Crossword Book Award for fiction in 2013. Her work—including art reviews, cultural features, book reviews, fiction and poetry—has featured in a wide selection of national magazines & newspapers.
She writes a monthly literary column “Paperwallah” for The Hindu BL Ink. In 2014, she was the Charles Wallace Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury. Currently, she lives in Italy and India. Her first novel Seahorse was published by Vintage Books, Random House India in November 2014
Her work has featured in a wide number of national magazines & newspapers including OPEN, Art India, Tehelka, Caravan: A Journal of Culture & Politics, Outlook & Outlook Traveller, Motherland, and Biblio: A Review of Books, among others
Pariat's online works
Her books
“Seahorse: A Novel”
Nem is a student of English literature at Delhi University. He drifts between classes, weed-hazy parties, and the amorous complexities of campus life, until a chance encounter with an art historian steers him into a world of pleasure and artistic discovery. Nem’s life is irrevocably transformed. One day, without warning, his mentor disappears.
In the years that follow, Nem cocoons himself in South Delhi, writing for a chic cultural journal. When he is awarded a fellowship to London, a cryptic note plunges him into a search for the art historian—a search which turns into a reckoning with his past. Retelling the myth of Poseidon and his youthful male devotee Pelops, Seahorse transforms a simple coming-of-age story into an epic drama of loss, love, and healing.
“Our Names”
A collection of poems inspired by the poet’s hometown Shillong, by the Khasi language and its special orality. By travel. To Wales, Lisbon, London. And finding a sort of home everywhere. The poems revel in a sense of place, and also placelessness. In seeking and losing, in love and depletion. They are miniature windows with which to look into the world with disconcertion – yet also, wonder. Written at desks and airplanes, on residencies and cellphones, while travelling and moving, while being still. They are offerings.
Forthcoming December 2014 with a preface by Robin Ngangom
Boats on Land
Boats on Land (Random House, India; 2012) won the Sahitya Akademi Young Writer Award 2013 and the Crossword Book Award for Fiction. Set in India’s northeast—around Shillong, Cherrapunjee and pockets of Assam—these tales are shaped against a larger historical canvas of the British Raj, the World Wars, conversions to Christianity. This is a world where the everyday is infused with the folkloric and supernatural. Here, a girl dreams of being a firebird. An artist watches souls turn into trees. A man shape-shifts into a tiger. Another is bewitched by water fairies. Political struggles and social unrest interweave with fireside tales and age-old superstitions.
Pariat's online works
Reviews
Asian Review of Books Pariat’s stories excavate the mystical and the vulnerable with nuanced, intense text, furtively capturing moods of displacement and stillness. ”
India Today Perhaps the most frustrating thing about reading Boats on Land is seeing how good a book it could be. ”
The Sunday Guardian Janice deliciously underplays her settings and is adept at conveying both atmosphere and character. Even her ambiguities have a queer beauty. ”
People The beauty of Janice’s prose is a feast for the senses. ”
Biblio: A Review of Books Boats on Land is a masterful rendition of the shimmery and fleeting, the haunting and disappearing, the complex and yet simple nature of a people perhaps lost, perhaps gone forever, but caught, only transiently, in the stories. ”
Awards
Crossword Book Award 2013 for Fiction
Yuva Puraskar (Young Writer) Award 2013 from Sahitya Academy (Indian National Academy of Letters)
Shortlisted for Shakti Bhatt First Book Award 2013
Longlisted for Frank O’Connor Short Story Award 2013
Longlisted for Tata Literature Live! First Book Award 2013
