Anuja Varghese, local queer South Asian writer, won the Governor General's Literary Award this year for fiction with her short story collection Chrysalis
The Governor General's Literary Award is one of the oldest and most prestigious literary awards in Canada. Chrysalis, written by Anuja Varghese, is one of the 14 titles that was among the winners. The book is a collection of short stories about South Asian women in transformative periods, and it explores the themes of sexuality, cultural norms and family.
The title of the book speaks to how the stories are all centred around the theme of transformation.
"If you're in a chrysalis, you're kind of in this transformative state. So, Chrysalis is also the title of the last story in the book, which also happens to be the very first story I ever sent out into the world," said Anjua Varghese, the author of Chrysalis.
If you're in a chrysalis, you're kind of in this transformative state. So chrysalis is also the title of the last story in the book, which also happens to be the very first story I ever sent out into the world.
Anuja Varghese, author, Chrysalis
Varghese grew up in Kingston, Ontario and completed her bachelor’s degree at McGill University. She then lived in Toronto for 10 years. She moved to Hamilton around 2017 and started to put her short story collection together. She wove her experiences from each city into her stories, especially in Toronto.
She particularly enjoys reading horror, fantasy and fairytales, and she incorporated elements from these genres into her collection. She also emphasized the importance of diversity in her stories.
"We're seeing more representation now. But especially when I was growing up, and even still, a lot of horror and fantasy in general really centres [around] white main characters. So it was important to me to centre queer and racialized women and girls in my stories and to have that representation in the kind of stories that I like to read and write," explained Varghese.
Since she is a second-generation South Asian and queer woman, she always wanted to see characters like her represented in stories. As such, Varghese hopes that her book can be a mirror for those who have not seen their experiences represented.
Now that diverse authors who are speaking against injustice and oppression but are being censored and silenced, she believes that right now is an important time to celebrate, amplify the voices and use the power of storytelling as a means of resistance.
The impact that her book has had on students has been rewarding so far. Whenever Varghese goes to book events or festivals, she always has readers come up to her expressing their gratitude in being able to see characters similar to themselves in her book.
"[At] almost every event I go to, students will come up to me, usually either queer or racialized students and they'll say, “This is the first time I saw characters like me in a story or a mainstream book.” And that just means a lot. I really wish there had been stories like this for me when I was in my teens and early 20s, [when I was] trying to figure out who I was," said Varghese.
[At] almost every event I go to, students will come up to me, usually either queer or racialized students and they'll say, “This is the first time I saw characters like me in a story or a mainstream book.” And that just means a lot. I really wish there had been stories like this for me when I was in my teens and early 20s, [when I was] trying to figure out who I was.
Anuja Varghese, author, Chrysalis
Varghese hopes that her success will open doors for emerging BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ writers in the community. She is currently working on expanding one of the short stories from Chrysalis into a novel, and, in the meantime, Varghese will be celebrating her achievement with friends.
