Raising the profile of South Asian writers since 2007
Tell us more about your journey as a poet? When did you start writing poetry and when did you start performing? I think the journey probably started before I knew it did – poetry was always in my house, and in our car through the old desi tunes my parents listened to. On top of …
Nikesh Shukla is one of the most exciting voices of our time. I remember when I interviewed many years ago. He was just figuring out who he was as an artist and I was somewhat in awe of his courage even then. I’ve interviewed him several times since and he’s one of the loveliest authors I’ve …
Firstly, congratulations on winning Best Short Fiction at the British Fantasy Awards . What was your reaction to the announcement? I was very surprised to make the short list and grateful to everyone who nominated me. To be honest, it’s not yet sunk in. What was your experience of writing competitions prior to this win? and …
Q. The collection, Saris and a Single Malt really works as a whole piece, with each individual poem moving you along the journey from your mother being unwell, her death, to coming to terms with her death. Was the poetry always with you during this tumultuous time? Poetry and pain never left my side—from the …
Interview with Mary Mount, a fiction editor at Viking, part of Penguin Random House UK. Mary has published authors including John le Carré, Hisham Matar, Colm Tóibín, Naomi Alderman and Nina Stibbe. Q. We’re really excited about the #WriteNow initiative. Why is Penguin Random House reaching out to marginalised writers? Books and writers are …
Q. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you started your writing journey? Like most writers I have always written in one way or another but as a working parent with three children it was never going to be easy to make it a priority, at least not until the kids were a bit …
As a qualified accountant you came into writing later in life. Tell us more about how and why you decided to become a writer? My journey from accountant to writer began back in the autumn of 2013. I was thirty-nine at the time, hurtling towards forty and I had the hope that maybe there might …
How important was it for you to set your series in Bradford? It was important to set the series in Bradford, my home town. It is a city with amazing history – a hundred years ago the richest city in Europe. It is a city steeped in glory from the industrial boom days but over …
Tell us about your debut novel, Where the River Parts? Where the River Parts follows a Hindu Muslim couple caught up in the traumatic Partition of India and Pakistan. They are separated during the process, and don’t see each other for the next fifty years. It is only half a decade later, as both India …
Q. What inspired you to write a psychological thriller? Have you always been fascinated by them or has it been a recent obsession? It’s a return to my roots! My last two novels (The Naked Name of Love and Sugar Island, published by John Murray) were historical fiction, but my first two were literary thrillers. …