Working: The Bold Strategy That Drives One of 2023's Best Novels

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Arts

3.8 • 546 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, host Isaac Butler talks to V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of the book Brotherless Night, which takes place during the Sri Lankan Civil War and was recently featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. In the interview, Ganeshananthan discusses her experience in journalism school and explains how it laid the foundation for her fiction writing. Then she talks about the unique POV of Brotherless Night, the book’s multi-decade writing process, and the careful research that allowed her to depict the Sri Lankan Civil War. After the interview, Isaac and co-host June Thomas talk about lessons learned in graduate school. Then they explain why you should dare yourself to take creative risks. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I knew that people didn't think of people like me narrating books, but they also didn't think of people like me as the audience.
0:16.3	So I think what this structure enabled me to do is to set up a mode of interrogating both of those things.
0:21.9	I'm the narrator, and you're presuming a lot about me, and I'm going to occasionally yell at you about this.
0:29.9	Welcome back to working. I'm your host, June Thomas.
0:33.6	And I am your other host, Isaac, it's so nice to see you again on Zoom.
0:39.3	Thank you. It's been a while since we've co-hosted.
0:41.8	Our schedule is, let us just say, elusive.
0:46.2	It evades all understanding except to our great producer, Cameron Drews.
0:50.9	And that's how it should be.
0:53.0	Tell me, whose voice did we hear at the top of the show?
0:56.1	Yes, that was the voice of the novelist, essayist, and teacher VV. Vhaenna Shahnanthin.
1:02.2	And why did you want to speak with her? Well, Sugi, and I should say, that's the name she uses in
1:07.0	everyday conversation. She wasn't like, please, call me VV. Has a novel that just came out
1:12.5	called Brotherless Night.
1:14.2	It's a novel about a Tamil family
1:16.2	navigating the Sri Lankan Civil War.
1:19.0	It recently got this
1:20.7	kind of life-changingly
1:22.7	wild rave review
1:24.2	in the New York Times book review.
1:26.3	It was actually the front cover of the insert and
1:29.7	everything. And it's a good book. And I wanted to talk to her about it. That sounds amazing.
	...

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