Nikita Lalwani, author of Gifted, and winner of The Desmond Elliot Prize is my last and final interview of the weekend. I’m looking forward to it, naturally. Lalwani is amiable and approachable without being intimidating. I like that about her, she is definitely a natural and appears confident without having any air of arrogance about …
A breeze of fresh air from The Linen Press
The Linen Press is a new, small publishing company based in Edinburgh has launched its first author. Breeze From The River Manjeera by Hema Macherla was published on November 1st, 2008. The lavish launch took place in London at The Nehru Centre, on November 5, 2008. Breeze from the River Manjeera follows the fortunes of …
The SAMA Writers Festival
Mohsin Hamid, Tahmima Anam, Preeta Samarasan and Kamila Shamsie, are some of the writers who took part in this year’s SAMA Writers Festival, held at The Sage Gateshead in Newcastle (10-12 October, 2008) The long weekend included readings, book launches and events as writers across the UK, India, France and Pakistan joined to share their …
A closer reading of Corner Shop with Roopa Farooki
Firstly I have to ask, what made you throw the lovely Zaki into a river, and run away for good? For much of the novel I thought Zaki would be the one to bring everyone together – were you tempted to go down that road? Or did you always know the fate of his character? …
The perfect ten: In the hot seat with Nasreen Akhtar
1) In your quest for love did you ever think that it was going to be such an emotional rollercoaster? Never could I have imagined it to be so. The depth of human emotion is amazing! 2) Did you write the book as you went along, or did you write it later? In its entirety, …
The Making of a Marriage Bureau – Farahad Zama
Could you give our readers a flavour of the story? ‘The Marriage Bureau For Rich People’ is set in Vizag, my home town in South India. It has two major stories intertwined in it – a retired couple, Mr and Mrs Ali, who have opened the marriage bureau and the young girl, Aruna, who joins …
An afternoon with Preeta Samarasan
I meet with Preeta Samarasan, it’s my first interview of the day and its obvious that I’m nervous but Preeta is so friendly she quickly puts me at ease. We talk about her book The Evening Is a Whole Day – and I apologise to her for not having read it yet! (Maybe I shouldn’t …
On meeting Tahmima Anam
I meet with Tahmima Anam minutes after she has given a reading – we have only ten minutes – so I quickly rush through the questions. I’m struck at how petite she is, there is an elegant poise about her. Without warning we are interrupted by a passer by. We both apologise, even though none …
Adiga wins Man Booker Prize 2008
Aravind Adiga is named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The White Tiger, published by Atlantic (October 14, 2008). The Indian writer is one of two first-time novelists on the 2008 Man Booker shortlist of six. The other is Steve Toltz. Only three other debut novelists have achieved this in …
A Pleasure to Meet Tishani Doshi
Tishani Doshi was born in Madras to a Welsh mother and a Gujarati father, and is based in India, after periods living in America and England. Her first book of poems, Countries of the Body won the 2006 Forward prize for best first collection. She was the winner of the 2006 All-India Poetry Competition, and …