Gigi Ganguly | Photo credit: Special arrangement
By Smruti S and Sneha Sadhukhan
Ten-year-old Gigi never imagined she would become a writer, despite her interest in science fiction and fantasy, such as the Harry Potter series. It wasn’t until she was in her early 20s, when she was working as a feature journalist, that she realized she had found her path.
“I wrote about books, food and music and did interviews. The variety gave me so much freedom and range. That’s when I realised I loved writing,” says Gigi, who was in Bengaluru to take part in a discussion about her second book. Biopeculiar: Stories of an uncertain world (Westland Books).
At some point, Gigi realized that she preferred Irish authors, although their works mostly fell into the category of British literature. She visited Ireland in 2018 and was fascinated by the country’s culture. She decided to do a Masters in creative writing in Ireland, after which she published her first book, a novella. One arm shorter than the otherin 2022.
The book, says Gigi, gave her the confidence to pursue a career as a writer. “I stayed in Ireland, where I wrote One arm shorter than the other. Some of the ideas for this collection were developed there. When the novella was published, I believed I could do it.”
Biopeculiar: Stories of an uncertain world, is a collection of short stories with nature themes that are not assigned to any genre.
Speaking about her process, Gigi says, “I try to have the end in mind before I start writing, so I know that is the goal I need to achieve.” While she sometimes gets inspiration from other books, other times she browses the internet. “For example, if I want to write a story about the wind, I just look and search for interesting words until an idea comes to me. Sometimes the title comes to me first, like with Seamlessly Sea, one of the short stories in Organic special.”
Gigi says she mostly struggles with the main body of her work because “the middle part of a story should make sense and each character’s motivations should be clear.” She frowns on fiction that lacks clearly defined character arcs. “To me, bad fiction is like a bad movie where I don’t understand a character’s motivation or emotions. There should be a reason why a person takes a certain path; it should make sense.”
As an animal lover, she tries to incorporate animals into her work in one way or another. Biospecialshe has used anthropomorphism, a literary device that attributes human characteristics to non-human beings. Corvid Inspector, a protagonist in one of her short stories, is a detective bird who has all the characteristics of a human detective.
“Most detectives have problems, they are portrayed as people who struggle with addiction or depression or have a tragic past. I wanted that to be reflected in Corvid Inspector.”
Although she studied art and geography, she has dabbled in scientific research to give context and depth to her work. Gigi believes she can never do justice to pure science fiction and prefers speculative fiction because it gives her the opportunity to experiment with magical realism and fantasy. Gigi is currently writing another speculative work based on consciousness and AI.
