Shashi
Bhat
Shashi Bhat holds an MFA in fiction from Johns Hopkins University. Her stories have appeared in The Malahat Review, PRISM international, The New Quarterly, Grain, The Dalhousie Review, Journey Prize Stories 24, and other publications. She has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Her debut novel, The Family Took Shape (Cormorant, 2013), was a finalist for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Shashi is the editor of EVENT magazine and teaches creative writing at Douglas College.
Award History
Jury Citation
In Shashi Bhat’s “Mute,” rooms open into other rooms, and each one is furnished with an inventory of meticulous detail, right down to the roaches scuttling across the floor and the narrator who puts on heels to rise above them. It is a story about fear and loneliness, failed connections and existential questions, as well as a darkly funny take on academia, literary snobbery, and popular culture. This is a story where sentences sparkle, each one laying down the path toward a perfect and most unsettling conclusion.
Jury Citation
“Humour and horror combine in startlingly authentic ways in ‘Indian Cooking,’ a moving story that makes brave choices in its characterizations and avoids sentimentality in its depiction of family tragedy.” — 2010 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award Jury (Trevor Cole, Susan Glickman, and Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer)
