Shobha Rao moved to the United States from India at the age of seven. She is the winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Fiction, and her story “Kavitha and Mustafa” was chosen by T.C. Boyle for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2015. She is the author of the short story collection, An Unrestored Woman, and the novel, Girls Burn Brighter. A resident of San Francisco, Rao lived in Pittsburgh while attending law school at the University of Pittsburgh!
Don’t miss out: Rao will be visiting Alphabet City on March 19th!
From the publisher: “[Girls Burn Brighter is] an electrifying debut novel about the extraordinary bond between two girls driven apart by circumstance but relentless in their search for one another.”
“Incandescent… A searing portrait of what feminism looks like in much of the world.”
—Vogue“Girls Burn Brighter blew my heart up. Heart shards everywhere. I am in awe.”
—Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky“A treat for Ferrante fans, exploring the bonds of friendship and how female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies.”
—The Huffington Post
What comes to mind when you think of Pittsburgh?
The six years that I lived there! First Oakland and then the South Side and then Shadyside/East Liberty. I have so many memories, but I do distinctly remember long nights studying in the Cathedral of Learning, tucked among the medieval furniture and the soaring ceiling. I recall the feeling of standing at the tip of Point State Park and watching the rush of water, as if it were passing through me instead of around me. I also, of course, think of eating a Primanti Bros. sandwich. I was in my early twenties at the time. Somebody walked by – just as I was lifting the sandwich to my mouth – and said, “You’ll die that way.” And I remember thinking, I’ll die anyway.
What books are on your nightstand?
Well, I only ever have one book on my nightstand. Is that odd? But how can one worship at the altar of two gods? Currently, it’s The Histories by Herodotus. I also just finished Out by Natsuo Kirino and Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls. Both of them brilliant, bold, lonely, and full of feminine ache.
Is there a book you’d like to see made into a film?
Does a poem count? If so, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
Who would you most want to share a plate of pierogis with?
Roberto Bolaño. And after we shared a plate of pierogis, I’d want to walk with him across the Birmingham Bridge. I’d point out Mallorca, the restaurant, which I used to live above. In the summers, I’d tell him, I used to lie on my bed, with the windows open, and listen to the sounds of diners laughing, glasses clinking. I was too young then to know there was no greater music. I’d say to him, “I know we just stuffed ourselves with pierogis, but let’s go share a bottle of Tempranillo. Let’s laugh.”
Interview by Michael Krasny on KQED Forum:
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