Episode 182 with Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, Gifted Storyteller, Stellar Translator of Animals’ Inner Lives, and Master of Thoughtful Prose

Episode 182 Notes and Links to Talia Lakshmi Kolluri’s Work

 

    On Episode 182 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, and the two discuss, among other things, her prodigious love for libraries in her youth and beyond, her fascination with animals’ inner/hidden lives, formative writing and writers, anthropomorphizing, writing as action, writing as fun, the true stories that inspired some of her moving writing, and themes of maternal pull, environmental destruction, joy, and the boundaries, imposed and not, that govern the animal world and animal/human interaction. 

 

   Talia Lakshmi Kolluri is a mixed South Asian American writer from Northern California. Her debut collection of short stories, What We Fed to the Manticore (Tin House 2022), is a finalist for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the 2023 Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, and was selected as a 2023 ALA RUSA Notable Book. It’s available now wherever books are sold. Her short fiction has been published in the Minnesota Review, Ecotone, Southern Humanities Review, The Common, One Story, Orion, Five Dials, and the Adroit Journal.

A lifelong Californian, Talia lives in the Central Valley with her husband, a teacher and printmaker, and a very skittish cat named Fig.

 

Buy What We Fed to the Manticore

 

Talia Kolluri's Website

 

For Bomb Magazine: "A Different Experience Is Possible: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri Interviewed by Rebecca van Laer"

 

The Florida Review Interview Regarding What We Fed to the Manticore

 

From One Story: "Nature Is Wild: An Interview with Talia Lakshmi Kolluri"

 

At about 3:40, Talia talks about her rich reading life during her childhood, including her wide reading and love for libraries 

 

At about 8:10, Talia discusses imagination and its connections to her love of animals and curiosity about the lives of animals

 

At about 9:50, Talia talks about ideas of representation and not seeing “[her] exact self represented in literature” and the connections to “leaps of imagination” and what she read growing up, such as the inspiring Watership Down

 

At about 14:15, Pete and Talia talk about books in translation and the great work done by Jenny Bhatt

 

At about 15:05, Talia outlines her path to becoming a writer and her philosophy of revision 

 

At about 19:00, Pete highlights and compliments the book’s originality, and Talia discusses books and writers that the collection is “in conversation with,” such as Panchatantra, The White Bone, and The Great Derangement 

 

At about 23:45, Pete asks Talia about the book’s Acknowledgments and Talia’s views on being an observer and observing and connection to action or inaction 

 

At about 25:40, Pete wonders about Talia’s writing as a call to action/activism 

 

At about 28:00, Talia responds to Pete’s questions about the ways in which she anthropomorphized her characters in original and not trite ways

 

At about 30:35, Talia gives background on the inspiration for the collection’s memorable “Toy Man”-Arvind Gupta

 

At about 31:30, Pete references the collections’s first story, “The Good Donkey” and Talia responds to Pete’s wondering about the story’s Gaza inspiration 

 

At about 36:35, Talia recommends a powerful book, a diary of living in Gaza during conflict, The Drone Eats with Me: A Gaza Diary

 

At about 37:50, Talia discusses the title story and the meanings of the manticore, both mythically and in her story

 

At about 43:00, Pete highlights “Someone Must Watch Over the Dead” and he and Talia talk about dakhmas and their implications

 

At about 47:50, Pete cites the saiga antelope and its consumption and the two reflect on ideas of predators and willful ignorance 

 

At about 50:40, “May God Forever Bless the Rhino Keepers” is discussed, including its beautiful portrayals of connections and love and maternal pull

 

At about 54:00, “A Level of Tolerance” is discussed, including its beautiful and gutting last page, Pete’s hatred for Groundhog Day, and Talia remarks about the evolution and significance of the title; 832F, the famous wolf, is cited as inspiration

 

At about 1:00:05, “Let Your Body Meet the Ground” is highlighted, as Pete makes a comparison to “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote, and “Tía Chucha” by Luis Rodriguez

 

At about 1:03:30, Talia highlights a novel that she’s working on

 

At about 1:05:15, Talia gives her contact info and social media info 

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   Please tune in for Episode 183 with Eli Cranor, whose critically acclaimed debut novel, Don't Know Tough, won the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest and was named one of the "Best Books of the Year" by USA Today and one of the "Best Crime Novels" of 2022 by the New York Times; his highly-acclaimed Ozark Dogs came out on April 4.

   The episode airs May 16.