Dorothea Schlegel Artist in Residence

Research Area 2: "Travelling Matters"

October – December 2024

Taj Mahal Tempelhof

Saskya Jain’s novels dissect Indian society and examine themes such as power, sexuality, gender, class and religion. Her characters are no longer primarily shaped by the conflicts and traumas of decolonisation but look at today’s politically polarised India through the lens of their very own modernity, made even more complex by economic shifts, which brings with it a new understanding of globality.

For the Cluster, Jain will for the first time dedicate herself to a novel project that is set outside of India and tells an intertwined story across continents and centuries. "Taj Mahal Tempelhof" is set in today’s Berlin but harks back to the medieval period in Mughal India, and questions dominant narratives on the global circulation of people and objects. What spatial-temporal shifts and narrative entanglements take place when stories begin to travel? The clash of modernities and the fluidity of historicity are negotiated from a non-Western perspective in this novel, while addressing questions on the mobility of language and transnational narratives.

Saskya Jain grew up in New Delhi. Her first novel, Fire Under Ash (Penguin Random House, 2014), was shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt Prize. Her second novel, Geeta Rahman at Championship Point (Simon & Schuster, 2021), was nominated for the Times of India AutHer Award and the Tata Literature Live Book of the Year Award. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Intelligent Life, The Economist, The Caravan and DIE ZEIT, among others. She has taught creative writing and literature at Hong Kong University, Grinnell College and Dartmouth College, and has held writer’s residencies at Hedgebrook and Art Omi (USA), Sangam House and Goethe Institut Bangalore (India) and Toji Cultural Centre (South Korea).