“I like the idea of channeling the sorts of stories that humans like to come back to…”- Kiran Bhat (Author, Girar)
2 min read
Kiran Bhat is a global citizen formed in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, to parents from Southern Karnataka, in India. He has currently traveled to over 130 countries, lived in 18 different places, and speaks 12 languages.
He is primarily known as the author of We of the forsaken world… (Iguana Books, 2020), but he has authored books in four foreign languages and has had his writing published in The Kenyon Review, The Brooklyn Rail, The Colorado Review, Eclectica, 3AM Magazine, The Radical Art Review, The Chakkar, Mascara Literary Review, and several other places.
His list of homes is vast, but his heart and spirit always remain in Mumbai, somehow. He currently lives in Melbourne.
Just a month before the release of his next novel Girar in April, Team Kitaab had the opportunity of interacting with him and know more about his writing projects. In this interview, Bhat sheds light on the impact of travelling on his writing and also gives us a glimpse (well, almost!) of his writing process.
Team Kitaab: What is your novel Girar about?
Kiran Bhat: Well, right now, I’m working on a giant streaming novel entitled Girar, that will take place in 365 different corners of the planet. It will release from April 13th, 2021 onwards until 2029, so please start following it (girar.world, or kiranbhat.substack.com)!
Girar turns around the lives of Mother and Father. These are not necessarily two fixed characters, but two archetypes, built off of my own mother and father, living a settled and suburban life, near the age of retirement. In the background is Son, who has migrated continents away from them, and yet is always in their mind. Over the course of multiple volumes, in book and short story form, Girar will imagine Mother and Father’s lives in 365 unique different locations on Planet Earth. Having two fixed minds to concentrate my stories on will allow me to chart the slow burn and growth inherent in daily life, while the changing of the setting and cultural mentalities of the archetypes allows Girar to act as a diary of early 21st-century life across all of the major nations of this Earth.
