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Frog in the Mouth
Writing About a World on the Brink of Shutting Shop
Speakers
“My tongue, he said, jumped around like a frog. Now that is called the eye
of the seer.
Tie your tongue, he said, and you shall be fine. But
you won’t, will you?
I smiled. And of course this frog has been
the ruin of me.”
If form follows function, what is the purpose of a short story?
In Frog In the Mouth, renowned writer Vivek Shanbhag speaks to Zahid Rafiq, the author of The World With Its Mouth Open, on the art of writing about darkness and unease. Zahid’s debut book is a stunning collection of eleven short stories that charts the inner lives of the people of Kashmir as they walk the uncertain terrain of their days, fractured from years of war.
Together, the two writers explore how fiction can offer refuge from an unbearable reality; the act of writing to address loss, grief, violence and all things weighing on the soul. Can the short story, in its compressed form, capture the vastness of pain and longing? Can silence on the page echo louder than words?
This conversation invites us into the quiet interior of storytelling; where craft, memory, and resistance meet.
The session will conclude with a Q&A with the audience.
In collaboration with:
Speakers
Zahid Rafiq
Zahid Rafiq is a writer living in Srinagar, Kashmir. The World With Its Mouth Open is his first book.
Photo credit: Muzamil Mattoo
Vivek Shanbhag
Vivek Shanbhag is a Kannada author, editor and playwright. He founded the pioneering literary journal Desha Kaala, editing it for seven years. His works include the widely translated Ghachar Ghochar. Although his stories are regularly translated and anthologised, Sakina’s Kiss is only his second complete work to be translated into the English. He is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the Ashoka University. He is an engineer by training and lives in Bangalore.
