S6 Ep. 14: Brotherless Night & Friends: V.V. Ganeshananthan with Curtis Sittenfeld and Whitney Terrell on Editing A Work in Progress

Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell as a special guest co-host to discuss Ganeshananthan’s newly released novel, Brotherless Night. Sittenfeld and Terrell ask Ganeshananthan about growing up in the Washington, D.C. metro area and how she came to write a book about a Tamil family living in Jaffna, Sri Lanka during the 1980s, the earliest years of the Sri Lankan civil war. Ganeshananthan reads an excerpt and talks about working on the novel for almost 20 years with help from many readers; how Terrell’s notes helped her with characterization; and how a comment from Sittenfeld altered the first line of the book and part of the plot. 

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

V.V. Ganeshananthan

• Brotherless Night
• Love Marriage
• “On Authenticity, Research, and Writing From the Diaspora,” Literary Hub

Curtis Sittenfeld

• Romantic Comedy
• Rodham
• You Think It, I’ll Say It
• Eligible

Others:

• Emergency ’58
• Elizabeth McCracken
• Rebecca Shapiro
• Caitlin McKenna, editor
• ‘Terrorist’ — to Whom? V.V. Ganeshananthan’s novel ‘Brotherless Night’ reveals the moral nuances of violence, ever belied by black-and-white terminology. | by Omar El Akkad, The New York Times

A young woman's family is torn apart during the lengthy Sri Lankan civil war in this propulsive masterpiece by a Minnesota writer. |by May-lee Chai, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune 

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