Shaan’s intention is expansion on what migration fiction can be. Tired of postcolonial trauma literature, the perpetual and apparently compulsory plight of The Sad Brown Character, she aims to swivel the lens of othering and document white absurdity – our real-time reactions to them, rather than theirs to us.
She also writes critically about diasporic liminality; the effects of the ingrained and undying culture of belief in there always being something more somewhere else. The brutal endurance test that follows a decision to pursue this. What that does for the heath and stability of those born into it.
In 2021, she made a successful bid for the new scholarship to the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course, completing the programme in April. She has two short stories published: Bad Form Review (London, UK) and Portside Review (Boorloo, Australia), and between shift work continues to submit short fiction to journals and magazines in both places. Most recently, she has contributed to panel discussions at the National Young Writers’ Festival (Australia/Aotearoa) https://youngwritersfestival.org/artists/shaan-saggar/.
At present, she is deep in edits on her first novel, and has a full first draft of a second. Her degree is in English, American, and Postcolonial Literature.