NYS Writers Institute welcomes writer and NYC subway conductor Sujatha Gidla on October 23

Gidla is the author of "Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India."

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Sujatha Gidla (c) Nancy Crampton

ALBANY, NY (10/11/2018) (readMedia)-- EVENT DETAILS:

Sujatha Gidla, memoirist and NYC subway conductor, will visit the NYS Writers Institute at the University at Albany on Tuesday, October 23. Gidla, author of Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India, the story of a family's attempts to achieve a better life against all odds, and one of the most talked-about books of 2017, will speak at 4:15 p.m. in the Standish Room, Science Library, on the university's Uptown Campus, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany. Later that same day, Gidla will be featured in a Conversation/Q&A at 7:30 p.m. at the Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, 222 Madison Ave, Albany. Both events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 518-442-5620 or visit http://nyswritersinstitute.org.The events are cosponsored by the State Education Department's Office of Cultural Education and Friends of the New York State Library.

MEDIA RELEASE:

Writer and NYC subway conductor Sujatha Gidla is the author of Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India, the story of a family's attempts to achieve a better life against all odds, and one of the most talked-about books of 2017.

Gidla will visit the NYS Writers Institute at the University at Albany on Tuesday, October 23, for a talk at 4:15 p.m. in the Standish Room, Science Library, on the university's Uptown Campus, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany. Later that same day, she will be featured in a Conversation/Q&A at 7:30 p.m. at the Huxley Theatre, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, 222 Madison Ave, Albany. Both events are free and open to the public.

The Economist reviewer said, "It is quite possibly the most striking work of nonfiction set in India since Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, and heralds the arrival of a formidable new writer." A New York Times review called it "unsentimental, deeply poignant ... Ants Among Elephants gives readers an unsettling and visceral understanding of how discrimination, segregation and stereotypes have endured."

Gidla was the featured author on the front cover of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of 2017" issue, and the book was named among the year's "Top Ten" by the Wall Street Journal.

Born into generations of crushing poverty in the lowest caste in India, Gidla told PRI in an interview, "For us, our caste name itself [Mala] is the N-word. You can't say it in a good way. When people ask us [what caste we are] we won't say because it's too shameful... In India, your life is your caste. Your caste is your life."

Gidla studied physics in college and emigrated to the U.S. in 1990, when she was 26 years old. She worked as an software application designer at the Bank of New York, but was dismissed in the global financial crisis and recession in 2009.

Gidla says that she then wanted to do a manual job. She became the first Indian woman to be employed as a conductor on the New York City Subway. In an interview with The Financial Express, Gidla said, "Because I am a Marxist and Communist, I have these romantic feelings about being a working class person. So this job attracted me. Secondly, I wanted to do something that men are supposed to be doing."

For more information, call 518-442-5620 or visit http://nyswritersinstitute.org.

The events are cosponsored by the NYS Writers Institute, the State Education Department's Office of Cultural Education, and Friends of the New York State Library.

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