Through an observer’s eyes: A conversation with author Siddhartha Gigoo

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this interview, the Indian novelist, short story writer, poet, anthologist, and film-maker Siddhartha Gigoo recalls his early development as a writer and comments on his approach to the writing of “resistance literature”, noting how contemporary Kashmiri writers were born and brought up in the midst of a conflict that has impacted their writing as well as their political consciousness. He characterizes his own writing as an “act of preservation”. When discussing the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits, their experience of persecution and eviction from the Kashmir Valley, he describes how his stories and films emerge out of a sense of longing for Kashmir. He credits his family as the source of his story-writing skills and explains what creative writing means to him in terms of inspiration, style and choice of genre. The interview began in a coffee house in New Delhi in March 2019 and continued via email in subsequent months.