Giller Prize Spotlight: Shashi Bhat
September 27, 2024
Shashi Bhat’s story collection, Death by a Thousand Cuts, has been longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize.
Shashi Bhat is the author of the novels The Family Took Shape, a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, and, most recently, The Most Precious Substance on Earth, a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for fiction. Death by a Thousand Cuts is her first book of short fiction. Her stories have won the Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize and been shortlisted for a National Magazine Award and the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, and appeared in such publications as Hazlitt, The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Best Canadian Stories, and The Journey Prize Stories. Shashi holds an MFA from the Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Cornell University. She lives in New Westminster, B.C., where she is the editor-in-chief of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.
What inspired you to write Death by a Thousand Cuts?
- To illustrate the realities of the female experience: how little control we have over our bodies, how we might suppress our best instincts, how we wrestle with expectations, how we can be dismissed, how we can be afraid to take up space.
- Because I love the short story form. I love its shape and artfulness and omission, its potential for emotional impact. I love how the ending of a short story can feel like falling off a cliff.
What do you hope readers take away from Death by a Thousand Cuts?
I hope it makes them feel something: discomfort, triumph, rage, a lump in the throat. That it both makes them laugh and makes them feel seen.
Where is your favourite place to write and what is your process?
I like to write in Vancouver cafes with friends, where we sit at a big wooden table and vent about—everything. Then we set a timer and write for 45 minutes. And repeat.
Is there an activity you do to help inspire writing?
I go on walks, mostly by the Fraser River, where there are sometimes strange birds. I listen to podcasts and audiobooks. Something about the combination of moving and listening prompts me to write. I read books. I also spend a lot of time on Reddit, but I’m trying to quit.
What’s a book you recommend others read and why?
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. I’m astounded by the audacity of that book and its character voice. It’s such a joy. You can tell from the title alone how audacious it is.