The South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival (SALTAF) brings together writers, filmmakers, and dramatists from across the South Asian diaspora for a day of screenings, panel discussions, and book signings. Previous participants of the festival, which takes place on Saturday, include directors Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding) and Deepa Mehta (Earth, Fire, Water), and writer Kiran Desai (Inheritance of Loss). The D.C. chapter of the Network of South Asian Professionals and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program are the chief sponsors of the annual event, which is an opportunity for both emerging and established artists to present their work, and engage in a dialogue with those interested in South Asian culture.
Author Tania James is one of the young artists taking part in this year’s SALTAF, where she will discuss her debut novel, Atlas of Unknowns. Born in Chicago and raised in Louisville, her studies include a degree from Harvard, where James, then an aspiring filmmaker, majored in Visual and Environmental Studies. But having caught the writing bug, she went on to earn an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University in 2006. After spending a couple more years writing in the Big Apple, where her work appeared in The New York Times, One Story magazine, and other publications, James relocated to the District.
Atlas of Unknowns tells the parallel story of two sisters who, after the death of their mother, are raised by their father in Kerala, the southern Indian state where the author’s family roots lie. One sister, Anju, wins a scholarship to study in America, where she finds herself in elite and deceptive company. The other sister, Linno, remains in India, and uses her artistic talents to forge her own path. When Anju disappears, Linno goes in search of her sister. How they reconnect is a tale woven with themes of sisterhood, family, and self-discovery.
James took some time to sit down with DCist to discuss her craft and her new book.
What were you trying to achieve, artistically, when you set out writing Atlas of the Unknowns?
When I started I didn’t really have in mind a longer work. I had only written short stories. I kind of approached it the way I approached short stories, which is that I was just writing about characters that somehow interested me. And then as I got into it, 20 pages in or so, it just seemed to open up in a way that felt like it had a broad scope. It felt like it had a family at its heart, and certain family dynamics were coming to light. It actually took me a long time to admit it was a novel. It was “the thing” on my computer for a long time just because it seemed like an intimidating thing to think of it as a long work.
