THE SEARCH FROM WITHIN

Saikat Majumdar's new novel is an ode to friendships, complexities, and the quest to find one's identity in lesser-known terrains

- SAMREEN TUNGEKAR

Two 30-something best friends, away from home in North America, find themselves in a complex circumstance when one’s marriage to a woman starts to become a conflict. There’s a deep bond, there’s friendship, and there’s intimacy. In this battle between conventions and exploring one’s sexuality, who will win?

Author Saikat Majumdar is known for exploring the shapelessness of human sexuality, patterns, and human nature. As his latest fiction novel, The Remains of the Body, releases this Pride Month, we sit with the author to learn about his process, interests, and plans.

GRAZIA: This new book explores some intense emotions. How did these emotions form the backbone of your story?

SAIKAT MAJUMDAR: The novel is driven by a desire for pansexuality – of the dream of experiencing sexual attraction to all genders. A hidden part of me imagines pansexuality as a kind of universal humanity. Sexual identity is such a large part of who we are, and how we relate to people of different genders, which sometimes feels unfair and unethical. But this novel is also tied to a real world where that dream of pansexuality fails.