Welcome to Season Five of the Listen by Heart Podcast, where we feature Stories from Women of the South China Sea. I’m Jasmine Low and today, I will be joined by Shivani Sivagurunathan, an author and educator. Head of School, Assistant Professor; Research Director; Director of Postgraduate Studies; Senior Tutor, Faculty of Arts at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia and has an interest in post-colonial literature and in particular literature surrounding the topics of Indian diaspora and contemplative pedagogy. Shivani has been writing and publishing fiction and poetry for twenty years, and teaching for twelve years. Her first book, Wildlife on Coal Island, was published by UPM Press in 2011 and republished by HarperCollins India in 2012. The Indian writer Tabish Khair described the book as ‘R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi, turned into an island, meets Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book in this highly readable collection of stories by a new and distinctive voice from Malaysia’. Her second book, Yalpanam, is her first novel and it was published by Penguin Southeast Asia in September 2021. Her short stories and poems have appeared in numerous international journals and magazines including Cha: An Asian Literary Magazine, Agenda, Construction Literary Magazine and many others. Her poetry collection, Being Born, and her book of fiction, “What Has Happened to Harry Pillai?: Two Novellas” are out now and will be discussed at the George Town Literary Festival on 25 November 2022. She currently teaches English Literature and creative writing at the University of Nottingham Malaysia and is working on her next novel. Visit www.shivanisivagurunathan.com for more.

You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, an AFT Podcasts production. Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them. Our Mission: Listen by Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.

Production Credits: An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com). An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production. Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com. Website by WebPROjx.com.

#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com

Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Sea? Wherever you are in the world, we'd love to hear from you...

Recording includes ambient sounds of birds in trees located near an arterial road.

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Dr. Chuah Guat Eng on her PhD Thesis, From Conflict to Insight: A Zen-Based Approach to Reading Fiction