Speaking of the City w/ Vivek Shanbhag

Bangalore’s World-Famous Semi-Deluxe Writing Program sponsors a monthly curated talk called Speaking of the City at Shoonya. Writers, artists, journalists, scholars, architects, scientists, entrepreneurs, historians, geographers, activists or anyone who has worked on Bangalore will be invited to speak of this city we all inhabit. These lectures are about Bangalore and will be in English. They will be 40 minutes long, followed by a discussion of 40 mins.

The first talk in July 2017, when Mr. Ramachandra Guha talked about his career as a writer, was a thrilling event that drew so much audience that the hall was packed to the rafters. The honorable speaker for the month of August is Vivek Shanbhag, who will be in conversation with Zac O’Yeah.

Note:
> The talk will start sharp at 3:00 pm. Please be seated by 2:30 pm sharp
> Seating will be available on a first-come basis, though 25 seats in the front rows will be reserved for bona fide students, faculty, and alumni of Bangalore’s World-Famous Semi-Deluxe Writing Program

|| Speaker – Vivek Shanbhag ||

Vivek Shanbhag writes in Kannada and has emerged as one of the most interesting voices of the language. He has published five short story collections, three novels, and two plays, and has edited two anthologies. Vivek’s stories have been translated into English and other Indian languages. Vivek’s writing has appeared in Granta, Seminar, Indian Literature and Out of Print, and many of his stories have been adapted for the stage, and one of them ‘Nirvana’ has been made into a film.

His critically acclaimed novel Ghachar Ghochar was published in 2015 in English translation and was hailed by critics in both the UK and the US. The best-selling Ghachar Ghochar will soon appear in 14 other languages. He has also co-translated U R Ananthamurthy’s book Hindutva or Hind Swaraj into English. For seven years from 2005 to 2012, he published and edited the celebrated literary journal Desha Kaala, and subsequently, he was a 2016 resident at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. An engineer by training, Vivek lives in Bangalore.

|| Moderator – Zac O’Yeah ||

The talk will be moderated by Zac O’Yeah. Zac has a diploma in creative writing from the University of Gothenburg and studied linguistics and theatre science at the University of Stockholm. He has published 13 books including several fiction and non-fiction bestsellers, and his travel writings have appeared in magazines such as National Geographic Traveller, Outlook Traveller, RES, and Vagabond, and also been included in many anthologies. All in all, he has written for more than 75 different publications – including The Hindu and BusinessLine, Times of India, Indian Express, New Indian Express, Forbes, GQ, and too many others. His writings have been translated into German, French, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Russian, Chinese and Kannada. He is one of the founders of Bangalore’s World-Famous Semi-Deluxe Writing Program, the first semi-professional writing school in India. His most recent novel is Hari, a Hero for Hire. Forthcoming in 2017 is the novel Tropical Detective and the nonfiction book A Walk in Barygaza.