Author Gigi Ganguly explores a whole new world in Biopeculiar 

Author Gigi Ganguly talks about her second book Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World

By Smruti S and Sneha Sadhukhan 

Ten-year old Gigi would have never guessed she would become a writer, despite enjoying speculative fiction and fantasy, such as the Harry Potter series. It was while she was in her early 20s, working as a feature journalist, that she realised she had found her groove. 

”I used to write about books, food and music, and conduct interviews. The variety gave me so much freedom and such a range. That’s when I realised that I loved writing,” says Gigi who was in Bengaluru for a discussion on her second book Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World (Westland Books).

Eventually, Gigi realised that she favoured Irish authors, although their works usually fell under the category of British literature. She visited Ireland in 2018 and became fascinated with its culture. She decided to take up a master’s in creative writing in Ireland, following which she published her first book, a novella, One Arm Shorter Than The Other, in 2022.

The book, Gigi says, gave her the confidence to pursue a career in writing. “I stayed back in Ireland, that is where I wrote One Arm Shorter Than The Other. Some of the ideas for this collection were conceptualised over there. Once the novella was published, I believed I could do this.”

Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World, is a collection of short stories themed around nature, but unconstrained by genre.  

Talking about her process, Gigi says, ”I try to have the ending in mind before I start writing so I know this is the goal that I have to reach.” While she sometimes gleans inspiration from other books, at times, she browses the net. “For instance, if I want to do a story on the wind, I’ll just look it up and search for interesting words till an idea forms. At other times, the title comes to me first as it did with Seamlessly Sea, one of the short stories in Biopeculiar.“