Writer Aruni Kashyap on using Fiction to understand Assam, Assamese Identity and India's Protests

Writer and Professor Aruni Kashyap was kind enough to join Asia Art Tours and the Arts of Travel Podcast to discuss India, the region of Assam, and how he tries to capture the complexity of India's politics, The complexity of his home state of Assam, and the human condition, through his fiction and poetry.
Aruni is a highly regarded Assamese Writer and Translator currently teaching at the University of Georgia. He is the author of His Father’s Disease and Other Stories (Context/ Westland) and the novel The House With a Thousand Stories (Viking/ Penguin Random House). His short stories, poems, and essays have appeared or forthcoming in The Oxford Anthology of Writings from Northeast, The Kenyon Review, The New York Times, The Guardian UK, the Hindu, Evergreen Review, Karthika Review, Juked, Sin Fronteras Journal, Stonecoast Review, The Atticus Review
For those interested in our discussion, below are recommended titles from Aruni:
Miya poetry is mostly available online in translation or in the Assamese script in blogs.

Fiction by Indira Goswami, Bhabendra Nath Saikia, Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya, Syed Abdul Malik, Nirupama Borgohain, Homen Borgohain, Arupa Patangia Kalita, would be a wonderful way to start with Assamese fiction.

Non Fiction by Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, Dilip Kumar Chattopadhyay, Makiko Kimura, Vibhuti Singh Shekhawat, Sanjib Baruah

For More w. Aruni, check out his interview in Scroll:https://scroll.in/article/949444/aruni-kashyaps-gentle-stories-depict-assamese-characters-trying-to-make-sense-of-their-world
His Interview in the Indian Express: https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/the-only-way-forward-is-building-a-tolerant-society-aruni-kashyap-6147681/
And of course his numerous writings on Context, Penguin, Viking and other presses: https://www.arunikashyap.com/
Music by Eskry: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn7sTl5-v4Ik6OpPHTQkEVg