Well Read

Like the characters in her critically acclaimed new novel, Intemperance, Seattle University’s Sonora Jha, PhD, has been busy. Now in the middle of a nationwide book tour, Jha has been sharing her latest work at packed events across the country, meeting new fans and reconnecting with old friends and former students.

In Intemperance, the protagonist—a university professor in Seattle—announces that she will hold a swayamvar, which is an ancient custom in her native Indian culture, in which potential suitors compete in feats of strength and intelligence for the hand of a princess. Comedy and drama ensue as the reader is taken on an entertaining journey mixing satire with sociology and social justice.

In anticipation of the final stop on her U.S. book tour—a conversation at SU on November 20 with Professor of English Nalini Iyer—Jha spoke with the The Newsroom about her new novel, the tour and what new ideas and pedagogies she is planning to bring back to the SU community and the classroom.

Tell us about the genesis of this new novel. How did you come up with the idea for the plot?

Jha: The genesis of the book was personal, talking with other single friends in middle age and wondering with them what might be ahead! We began talking about the Hindu myth of the swayamvar, kings hosting this very-involved event to find husbands for their daughters. It started out as a joke among me and my friends—“we should do this!”—but as it turns out, I’m not bold enough to actually do it, so I decided to write about it. I pulled together a feminist narrative on the search for love that subverts the patriarchal form of the swayamvar and draws on bell hooks’ ideas in Communion: The Female Search for Love.

This book is completely different from my last novel, The Laughter, where I wrote from a white man’s point-of-view and now I’m writing from the perspective of an Indian woman, who shares some characteristics with myself. They’re both satirical, but I turned it around for this plot with a bit of self-satire. It’s more playful, with a lot of depth and interiority, I hope.

Your last novel, The Laughter, won the Washington State Book Award for Fiction. Did that recognition affect the way you approached writing this book at all? Did it bring added pressure for a follow-up novel?

Jha: I had already written the first draft of this novel before that award was announced, thank goodness! For me, writing literary fiction has always felt like a guilty pleasure, so I don’t feel like I need to win all the awards (though I enjoy them).

I feel like I’m gaining an education while I’m writing. I do research, then create a story based on that. Each book has a social justice aspect to it: Islamophobia in The Laughter, farmers’ suicides in my first novel Foreign and caste and disability in Intemperance. Being an academic and social scientist, I like internalizing the research and figuring out how to turn it into a compelling narrative.

It makes me a better journalism professor, as well, because I use the tools of fiction writing to ask students to dig deeper. You keep asking questions and getting to the heart of the matter. It’s really elevated my teaching and helped me to better understand different student perspectives when I was the faculty advisor for (student newspaper) The Spectator. 

You were recently appointed as one of the inaugural Loyola Endowed Fellows here at Seattle University. How will that recognition support your writing?

Jha: It’s a really meaningful recognition of my public scholarship, especially my novels, and it feels valuable because now what I used to do in my spare time I can bring front and center to my work life. Creative work is so important to my work at SU and now I can devote my full intellectual commitment to it and bring all of that back to the classroom. It’s wonderful!

How is the book tour going? What can we expect from the last stop here at SU on November 20?

Jha: During the tour for The Laughter, I felt like I was a stranger to many cities, but it’s different this time. Now strangers are telling me that they’re coming to my readings. It’s wonderful to know that there are so many readers in different cities.

Sonora Jha (center) with SU alums Anna Kaplan, '19, and Elise Wang, '20, during a book tour stop in New York City. 

It’s exciting to me. My favorite part is meeting readers and talking about what their experience was with the book. When someone says that they’ve been moved by my book, it feels like everything is worth it. It’s also been wonderful to see so many former students at these readings.

I’m thrilled to be able to finish the U.S. portion of the tour at Seattle University. I'm fortunate to be in conversation with Dr. Iyer, a leading scholar and literary critic of postcolonial literature that we're lucky to have right here at SU. You can expect a lively and wide-ranging conversation! And it will be good to be home.

Register now for Sonora Jha in Conversation with Nalini Iyer on November 20 at 6:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing by the author.