1. Congratulations on being shortlisted for the Young Writer of the Year Award! What was your reaction when you found out, and how did you celebrate?
Thanks! I was on holiday in West Bengal when I found out and celebrated with a big plate of Tibetan momos. It was a total surprise and a great end to the trip!
2. Saraswati is a powerful symbol. What drew you to this particular goddess? Were there any other aspects of Punjabi culture that you wanted to highlight in the story, and did writing the book shift your own understanding of cultural identity?
I came to her through the story of the Saraswati river, which was long thought to be mythical. At the time I started writing, there were claims that not only had the river once existed but that water was returning underground along its ancient route, potentially due to the climate crisis. When I began writing about it, it felt apt that this river was related to the figure of Saraswati, goddess of language, speech and music.
One thing I wanted to highlight in the book was a South Asian folk tale form called the qissa. These are normally tragic love stories and I incorporate real qisse into the narrative as well as counterfeiting my own one. It felt important to mix different styles of storytelling in the novel.
3. You intricately weave together the lives of people from completely different worlds. Some characters seem suspended between places, roles or versions of themselves, others are navigating cultural inheritance, survival, betrayal and searching for meaning. How did you approach writing characters who exist between cultures, languages, and expectations?
I don’t think I set out with a particular approach other than trying to see each of the characters as fully realised people, not agents of change that would impact my plot. Each of them has a specific relation to culture, language and expectations that’s shaped by their contexts.
4. I loved every moment of Saraswati, I was sure each character I was introduced to was my favourite until I read the next part. Were there any characters which you felt especially connected to, or any who were challenging to write?
Thank you! My boring answer is that I felt equally connected to and challenged by all seven main characters. But if I had to pick, I had a lot of fun writing about Nathu, the archaeologist from Kenya. I think he’d be fun to go for a drink with.
5. Storytelling is a massive part of your novel – passed down through generations, stitched into textiles, carried in memory. Are there any books or stories that have stuck with you, which you would want pass on to future generations?
I was really interested in origin stories from around the world while writing. In an early draft I tied together lots of global creation myths together in one section, from Auðumbla to Pemba. I find these stories that we’ve been telling for hundreds of generations so compelling and am sure that they will continue to last.
6. Water is a central theme throughout this novel. It brings together people, histories, cultures, languages. It has the power to shape the lives of anyone swept up in it’s current. When writing did water influence the plot in ways you weren’t expecting? or help guide how the characters found one another?
Yes, water certainly shaped the plot – a river both gives and takes away, I think that’s why they’re often embodied by vengeful gods. Some plot points felt natural: if you build a dam in act one it’s likely to burst in act three. But others came as fun surprises – for example, the scene in the 1800s when a man uses a float made out of a water buffalo hide to escape down a river. That scene came from a photo I saw of people carrying inflated buffalo hides on their backs. The more outlandish a scene is in the book, the more likely it is to have been based on something real.
7. The novel spans India, London, Mauritius, Singapore, Canada and Pakistan. Did you travel as part your research, and did anything you encountered shift or deepen the direction of the story? Can you share a bit more about the writing process and the research you did?
I wish I’d had budget for that! Shortly after starting the book, lockdown started. So it’s easy to see why I might have been writing about such faraway places. At first, I wrote very freely about each place. Then I did extensive research to try to do justice to those places (spending a lot of time in the library and on Google Maps) but I soon found that while that was important work, it slowed the pace and wouldn’t interest the reader.
8. Your novel blends lyrical prose, mythology and realism with themes of capitalism, climate injustice, identity and politics. What do you hope readers feel or reflect on after closing the book?
It’s not my job to say! If the book is in a reader’s hands, it’s theirs, not mine.
9. If you could offer one piece of advice to another young writer, what would it be?
Don’t take yourself or your writing too seriously.
10. And finally – what’s next? are you working on something new?
I’m working on a new novel, it’s a historical adventure story. Though at the rate I’m working on it, I might not be classed as a young writer when I finish it!