Spec Fic Books
EARTHRISE Stories Pasts Presents Potentials
“Chabria’s writing transitions from merely listing various disasters to envisioning a post-disaster, non-tellurian world and its beings. The subsequent section, “In the Near Future,” provides a snapshot of daily life through an Ecolit Question paper, starkly envisioning a culture that might arise from widespread destruction. The most frightening and intriguing part is the “True and False” question, which blurs the boundaries between the real and the fictional. For instance, statements like, “The Cuckoo Agenda was the name given by ultra-nationalists of rich nations to climate refugees,” or “Luring fish back to dying coral reefs through their recorded calls induced reefs to flower with colours and become vibrant ecosystems,” could be just as true in our current reality as they are in this fictional future.”
‘ …in drawing on such a vast array of inspirations, from mythology, history, science—natural, physical, ecological— and, of course, poetry, Chabria has crafted a collection that values life, all life, not just the hair-covered, supposedly “Wise Ones.” It is sad and hopeful—a warning, a promise, and a prayer.’
“Priya Sarukkai Chabria’s collection Earthrise Stories: Pasts Potential Prophecies … hover from the past to the present time and the freedom it gets takes them to the future making them stories about time. And like always, time has the power to relax any contracted vision…
…Priya Sarukkai CHABRIA asks us to dream. To nod for the right things. To approve what we want to have so that we are not too late. To live the origin and feel what took birth from it. Why? Because humankind deserves kindness, and constant realization of why we are humans.
Earthrise Stories: Pasts Potentials Prophecies is a very important collection … The writer has not just crafted an alternate portrayal of legendary myths; rather she has gone beyond the legends in an attempt to open our eyes and imagination to see what we need to do – and how we should project our learning to the next generation.”
Clone
“not an ordinary book of speculative fiction. The book is intimately woven with many thoughts and ideas that provide fodder for the thinking and seeking reader. Sarukkai Chabria’s novel evokes luscious images, even as the narrative throws up unsettling theories of the future of humans. Clone is an immensely engaging and satisfying book, commanding alert perusal and demanding intelligent interaction from its reader."
— Shikandhin
Kitaab
"... stands as a unique work"
— Suneetha Balakrishnan
Usawa
"Eloquent"
— Sudipta Dutta
The Financial Times
"A poetic imagination"
— Tim Parks
Translator and author
Reviews:
Scroll.in
Roughghosts
Interviews:
Generation 14
“Priya Sarukkai Chabria is remarkable both as poet and novelist and her twin aspects are clearly evident in Generation 14 , for while the book is, on the one hand, a piece of ambitious and inventive science-fiction about cloning and control, it is, also, most importantly, concerned with the poetry of belonging, selfhood and commitment. The scenes are vividly visualised and carried through at a convincing pace. Chabria depicts a violent world out of which revolutionary forces emerge out of history to round out a new world that is an echo of the lost, awakening the new to a deeper, more humane consciousness.”
— George Szitres
Winner of the T S Eliot Memorial Poetry Prize
“…undoubtedly inaugurates a new kind of writing on the Indian continent. .. The formal inclusiveness of Chabria’s prose only mines, and strengthens, the book’s plea for accepting and recognizing the splendour of difference, otherness, and plurality… The unique, carefully-chosen standpoint from which each story is told also creates imaginative space for compassion in the midst of all the grotesquery. It is by way of this redemptive space, imagination’s greatest victory, that the novel offers a ray of hope, both to Clone14/54/G’s perplexed world and to ours”.
— Stuti Khanna
DNA
“The necessary questions the author raises … revolve around the meaning of a shared humanity and the necessity of plurality of expression.”
— Sanjay Sipahimalani
“…nothing quite prepares us for Chabria’s clone…. the premise is imaginative – and irreverent…her prose is as eloquent as her poetry.”
— Sudipta Datta
The Financial Times
The Other Garden
"in the only way epic fables must: you, the reader, cannot stop turning the pages until you reach the end..."
— Jeet Thayil
Poet & novelist
“The virtuoso performance comes to an end with the narrator asking the reader ---
‘Now you tell me, who am I? ‘ (the effect of this narrative which refers not only to the puranas but also to the western classics is to question whether there is anything of significance in our lives, whatever we may learn and live out . . . All in all an impressive first book.“
— GJV Prasad
Indian Review of Books
“Sarukkai Chabria's luminous beautiful prose suffuses this novel”
— Robert B Siegel
Mirror to Mirror: Postmodernity in South Asian Fiction
” . . . The words evoke a multiplicity of images, the viewpoints are varied and the book has a kaleidoscope vision . . .”
— Times of India
"” . . . Done with both skill and sensitivity . . . has the gift of drawing characters true to life and making them compelling as well . . .”
— Vijay Nambisan
The Hindu
Select Anthologies
Go-Slo, Kitaab Anthology of the Best of South Asian Speculative Fiction, 2019
Dreaming of the Cool Green River, The Gollancz Book of South Asian Fiction (Hachette India) 2019
Paused, Avatar Contemporary Indian Science Fiction (Future Fiction, Rome) 2020
Listen: A Memoir, Multi species Cities: Solar Punk Urban Futures ( World Weaver Press, USA) 2021
Mid – Term Ecolit Examination Paper, Open Your Eyes: An Anthology on Climate Change (Hawakal) 2020