Ants Among Elephants: A Discussion with Author Sujatha Gidla

Sujatha Gidla’s debut memoir, Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (2017), was hailed as an outstanding account of the brutal caste system in India and that nation’s history over a century. As Pankaj Mishra wrote in The New York Review of Books, Gidla’s story of growing up in a Christian and Dalit family “combines many different genres―memoir, history, ethnography, and literature―and is outstanding in the intensity and scale of its revelations.”

Gidla joins us for this webinar to discuss a range of issues, including the caste system in India and how it compares to the treatment of Black people in the United States. She will also talk about her writing process, how the West views her as a female immigrant author, her work as a New York City subway conductor, and falling prey to COVID-19—an experience she wrote about in a powerful New York Times op-ed.

David Gibson, director of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture, will moderate the discussion and take questions from the online audience.