Githa Hariharan, a prominent Indian writer and literary scholar, is spending the summer at Dartmouth through the Montgomery Fellows Program. Hariharan delivered a public lecture and reading entitled, "In Search of Our Other Selves" to a packed audience at Filene Auditorium Tuesday afternoon as part of the Montgomery Endowment's two-term series, "Reimagining India."
The series focuses on India's literature, politics and history. In her lecture, Hariharan read from her short story "The Remains of the Feast" as well as from her recent novel, "In Times of Siege."
The world-renowned author, whose debut novel "The Thousand Faces of Night" won the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize, is teaching a class called "The Edges of Nation-Making: Perspectives on Modern Indian Literature" through the English department.
Hariharan's view of India addressed themes of nationalism, prejudice, ignorance and hatred. She said that while her writing focuses on Indian issues, its message is broader. "I must say that 'Siege' is a metaphor and a reality, and not just in one part of the world," she said.
Hariharan concluded her lecture by addressing the current situation in her country.
"I think that there is hope: we must look for new places and spaces in which to debate, and even more important perhaps, is to look for new ways to use our passions of questioning and wondering to set the terms of debate," she said.
Hariharan's fellowship at Dartmouth is the latest accomplishment in a career that has lasted 14 years and produced four novels, two collections of short stories and a children's book. Hariharan said that she had dreamt of becoming a writer since childhood.
"I always knew that I would do something with words," Hariharan said. "When I was ten or eleven, I made this great leap of discovery that I could use words to create or shape things. Even early on, I loved to simply appreciate the beauty of words."
The author originally planned on following in her father's footsteps and becoming a journalist until she studied English literature as an undergraduate at Bombay University. It was the study of Western literature, Hariharan said, that set her "into a mode of rebellion" and made her want to become a novelist.
Hariharan worked in publishing for several years after college, which she described as a means of "underwriting [her] rebellion." Her time spent critically analyzing literature, she said, gave her the ability to develop her own writing skills.
"I spent a lot of time doing apprentice work. I think that, as a writer, it's better to wait until your skills have caught up with your judgement of things," Hariharan said.
"The Thousand Faces of Night" was published in 1992, and the international acclaim it received sparked Hariharan's successful literary career. She defined her writing style as characterized by "a pluralism of viewpoints," and said that she pays special attention to the nature of the language in her novels.
"I try to make the language as polished and transparent as possible. I feel that my bigger interest is to use the Indian English I know in as beautiful a way as I can to deal with pluralities," she said.
Though her work contains strong feminist overtones, Hariharan is ambivalent about being classified as a "feminist writer," saying that she is more broadly interested in "power relations and how they relate to modernity."
"I don't like saying I'm such-and-such a writer, because often that can be very ghetto-izing," she said. "But of course my work has been informed by lots of -isms, feminism being one of them."
Despite the sociopolitical elements in her work, Hariharan also insisted that she is "not in the business of writing blueprints" for society.
"It would be a dream to believe that something you wrote made some sort of change, but I don't really think that happens," she said. "[Good fiction] has the power to enhance certain aspects of your world view. I want people read what I write and leave with the sense of having been exposed to a new viewpoint."
During here time at the College, Hariharan hopes to share her viewpoint with Dartmouth students, whom she described as "a very fine bunch."
"Teaching a course has been a real learning experience for me," Hariharan said. "I love the idea of the writer being a teacher. The writer is able to offer an insider's perspective, but the writer also benefits from links with the students in ways that can kind of recharge the writing."
