Full of Lit: Short Story Month Continues with a Collection from Sadhu Binning

Today we’re featuring the third contributor in our epub sampler, Full of Lit, (available now for only $5.99!) in celebration of this year’s Short Story Month. Sadhu Binning’s collection, Fauji Banta Singh and Other Stories, comes to us from TSAR Publications, an independent publisher that strives to publish works that reflect the diversity found within our own ever-changing Canadian culture. This collection in particular focuses on the Vancouver Sikh community. The author and the publisher share details below!

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Set among new immigrants to Canada in the late twentieth century, facing racial animosity and economic insecurity, and moving forward as their lives became more settled, Fauji Banta Singh gives us rare glimpses into the private lives of the Sikh community—the successes and failures, the growing and painful irrelevance of the old, changing values and the conditions of the women, the place of religion and tradition, and the ever-present echoes of distant Indian politics and nationalist extremism. Unique and powerful, brutally honest yet compassionate, these stories present us with characters that are empathetic and vividly real.
 
“Safe-keeping,” featured in Full of Lit, talks about the social pressures on young people of the Sikh community. A high school student compromises traditional values of her community by secretively dating a Sikh boy who has no intention of marrying her, who knows she has compromised and uses this knowledge to blackmail her.

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We asked the author… Sadhu Binning

Tell us what your collection is about in 140 characters or less.
These stories deals with the tribulations faced by Punjabi immigrants in later part of the 20th century Canada. Coming from an agricultural background to an industrialized society, these migrants faced numerous challenges.

Do you have a favourite story in your collection?
The story titled "Off Track"

Did you consciously decide to be a short story writer — or did the format choose you?
Yes, I wanted to be a short story writer, even though I have been writing in various other genres.

Who is your favourite short story writer and why?
Maxim Gorky and Richard Wright. Their stories are about people who struggle against all kinds of difficult situations that they face due to no fault of their own.

What makes short stories so different (besides the obvious) than other writing formats?
Short story writing, perhaps, by comparison, the most difficult format.

What would be the title of your memoir, if you were ever to write one?
Have no idea.

Sadhu Binning was born in India and immigrated to Canada in 1967. He has published more than fifteen books including one novel, two short story and four poetry collections. He edited a literary monthly Watno Dur from 1977 to 1982 and currently co-edits Watan, a Punjabi quarterly. Sadhu is the founding member of the Vancouver Sath and Ankur collective. He has co-authored and produced a number of plays about the South Asian Community. A retired UBC language instructor, Sadhu lives in Burnaby, BC. His bilingual collection No More Watno Dur is also available from TSAR.

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We asked the publisher… TSAR Publications

Tell us why you like reading short stories, and what struck you about this collection in particular?

We like reading short stories because they provide a quick, often emotionally charged looked into a specific aspect of a person’s life. They allow us to focus in on the little details. What struck us about this particular collection was how it provided us such an all-encompassing look into a particular community (Vancouver Sikhs). It breaks down generalizations and shows us diverse perspectives and experiences from a range of voices.

TSAR Publications is dedicated to bringing to the reading public fresh new writing from Canada and across the world that reflects the diversity of our rapidly globalizing world, particularly in Canada and the United States. Our focus is on works that can loosely be termed "multicultural" and particularly those that pertain to Asia and Africa.

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Thanks to TSAR and Sadhu for taking part in our 2014 Short Story Month celebrations. To get your copy of Full of Lit now click below! Not satisfied yet… want even more Canadian short stories? Check out our Short Story Pinterest board!

_______Edited from the original post, published on the LPG blog