About, and welcome!

Nilanjana Roy at Bahrisons bookstore with copies of Black River — At Bahrisons Bookstore, New Delhi

Nilanjana S Roy is the author of Black River, noir fiction set in and around the edges of Delhi, about the aftermath of a terrible murder in Teetarpur and grief, love and friendship in a time of a thousand tiny fractures.

She has also published two award-winning fantasy novels (The Wildings and The Hundred Names of Darkness) and a collection of essays on reading (The Girl Who Ate Books). Black River, her third novel and her first for an adult audience, is coming out in 2022.

Her anthologies include Our Freedoms: Essays and Stories From India’s Best Writers, A Matter Of Taste: The Penguin Book Of Indian Food Writing, and Patriots, Poets & Prisoners: Selections from Ramananda Chatterjee’s The Modern Review.

She writes about books and the reading life for the FT’s Life & Arts section, was a contributing opinion writer on gender and other subjects for the New York Times, and has written extensively for the BBC, the Business Standard and other places. She helped to set up the Indian publishing house, Westland Books, as its first chief editor, is a founder member of PEN Delhi, and has served on several literary juries, festival boards, gender and literacy trusts.

Before she became a full-time novelist, Nilanjana worked as a food columnist, a travel writer, a reporter and columnist on gender and gender violence, an editor, a publisher, was briefly a legal researcher, taught even more briefly in a nursery school and spent several happy years as an intrepid blogger, Hurree Babu over at the now defunct Kitabkhana.

Novels:

Black River (2022)

The Wildings (2012); The Hundred Names of Darkness (2013)

“Nilanjana Roy’s novel is a delight to read. Eliot’s Old Possum would have enjoyed these Practical Indian Cats.” – Salman Rushdie

The Wildings won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Commonwealth Book Prize among others. Environmental fable about a clan of cats in the rapidly changing Old Delhi neighbourhood of Nizamuddin, with dazzling guest appearances by tigers, a warrior mongoose, black kites and Doginder Singh.

Collections:

Patriots, Poets & Prisoners: Selections From Ramananda Chatterjee’s The Modern Review (2016)

From Gaganendrath Tagore’s Scream series: Varsity Scream 1.

“A must read for all interested in understanding the great debates and expositions that shaped discourse in India during four critical decades preceding Independence.” – Hiranmay Karlekar

“Every issue of the review packed a lot of intellectual punch. Besides the new Indian elite that devotedly followed The Modern Review every month, the British colonial authorities too read it closely to understand Indian nationalist opinion on contemporary issues.” – Niranjan Rajadhyaksha

The Girl Who Ate Books: Adventures in Reading (2016)

“A book so delicious it might make future bibliophagists of us all. Think of it as a guide to book lust, a compendium of Indian writing…” Tishani Doshi, The Hindu

A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Writing On Food (2004)

“In the next lane, a puja was being held in the house of a rich man. When darkness fell, Apu could see a large number of guests going into the house to have dinner. What if…what if he slipped in with them? It was such a long time since he had been to a big dinner. Could he do it? Who would recognise him anyway?
Apu stood in his balcony, swinging between temptation and fear.” –

Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay

Essays and short stories in anthologies:

50 Writers, 50 Books: The Best of Indian Fiction (Edited by Pradeep Sebastian)

Chillies and Porridge: Writing Food

(Edited by Mita Kapur)

The Panchatantra (Puffin Classics, translated by Rohini Chowdhury,

Introduction by Nilanjana S Roy)

Some early short stories have been published in BeWitched!, Spooky Stories and ‘7’, by Scholastic India

Journalism and publishing:

FT Life & Arts columnist, Reading The World (2017-present)

https://www.ft.com/stream/101d0e64-c420-412a-98d3-cd5fa4d50030

Business Standard, columnist, books and the reading life
Speaking Volumes, my weekly column on the reading life and Indian publishing, was the longest-running literary column in India’s English-language media.

https://www.business-standard.com/author/search/keyword/nilanjana-s-roy

Contributing opinion writer, New York Times, 2013-2014

Columnist, gender, International Herald Tribune, 2012-2010.

Covered issues ranging from sexual violence to the rights of domestic workers and the battle of Muslim women for legal equity, over a two-year period.

Chief Editor, Westland Books/ Tranquebar Press, 2007-2009.

Westland Books is one of India’s largest English-language publishing houses, with offices in Delhi and Chennai. As its first Chief Editor, I helped to put an ambitious literary fiction and non-fiction publishing programme in place, leaving in 2009 to pursue my own writing.

Essays and journalism have also been published in Al-Jazeera, Biblio, the BBC, Granta, The Hindu, Outlook, The Sunday Times and other media.

Residencies:

Arts and Literary Arts Writing Fellow, Rockefeller Center Foundation, 2013

Writer at Tranquebar, Sangam House Residency, 2011

A few interviews about the books:

Parul Sehgal – The Art of the Review:
https://parulsehgal.com/2011/08/16/the-art-of-the-review-v-nilanjana-roy/

Tishani Doshi – Books For Breakfast:

http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/tishani-doshi-interviews-nilanjana-roy-about-her-new-book-the-girl-who-ate-books/article8257147.ece

The New York Times: A Conversation with…

Writers At Work: Interview by Somak Ghoshal

https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/PWEOLnlq9fAVO0x7or74xL/Writers-At-Work–Nilanjana-Roy.html

Urvashi Bahuguna: The Broken Taar

http://helterskelter.in/2016/03/interview-nilanjana-roy-the-girl-who-ate-books/

Comments

35 responses to “About, and welcome!”

tapankanti mandal

October 14, 2013

Nice.

Reply
dillikidiva

January 22, 2014

Read Hundred Names in a straight four hours (in the train back from Jaipur; since I really couldn’t find space or time to read much in Jaipur itself this weekend) and loved it..slightly less than Wildings but that always happens to the younger sibling. My problems – I couldn’t understand why the Mara’s senses and the cats network didn’t stretch into the Golf Club if it could stretch all the way to Paolim, why was Magnificat so important to Mara and why darkness being your friend was so important to the plot?

Reply
1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  September 18, 2016
  
  There’s a reason, but I’ll have to tell you when we meet in person because it contains plot spoilers 🙂
  
  Reply
  1. himank pathak
    
    August 30, 2018
    
    hi mam, my name is himank pathak. i am a journlism student. i have deep intrest in art and culture. mam please suggest me few books so i can make a basic plateform of art and culture knowledge. please mam i dont have the another way to ask this.
Peter Redpath

October 4, 2016

In a cafe I read your Oct. 2/3 FT comments. Went for hike up Mt. Tzouhalem, then to Alderlea Farm for dinner. Engaged momentarily with couple over antics of a sulking child. ”Where,’ I asked of the mother, ‘are you from?’ ‘India.’ ‘Oh, I was just reading a column by an Indian writer.’ ‘Who?’ I showed the mother the column; she chuckled. I indicated I [not a literary critic] might send a critique to the author. Mother’s response: ‘Mention,”You’re not from La Martiniere in Calcutta, are you?”‘ The parents are visiting from Tibet, They’re teachers, probably still with the Krishnamurti system. Anyway ‘Is it necessary … to shape real life into fiction? Yes;’ all fiction … draws from the truth., or it has no life to it.’ Couldn’t one also say that non-fiction does the same? Aside from protecting the innocent, what is it about moored-in-reality, and skillfully altered facts that is valuable? I think that novelists like anyone else are inquirers after meaning … meaning deemed interesting and valuable. The biographer renders a life but may bring extra meaning to the subject, for to any subject there is extra meaning. Any enterprise may need that dimension to have life. Your column has me thinking. Thanks! Peter

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1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  May 13, 2017
  
  Dear Peter,
  
  My apologies for responding so late – I missed seeing about 20 comments in the Pending folder, and everyone who wrote in must have wondered why I hadn’t replied! To answer your question: yes, I am from La Martiniere! On fiction versus non-fiction – you’re very accurate on the shaping that goes into both kinds of writing. I must find the exact quote, but in one of Van Gogh’s letters, he writes that painting is not about translating reality – that would not be enough, to make an exact copy, one must go beyond towards a deeper meaning. As with art, so with writing.
  
  Many thanks,
  
  Nilanjana
  
  Reply
Brendan Lynch

February 14, 2017

I am a fan of your column in the FT and enjoyed your 11-12 February article elucidating some of the greatest painters of the Mughal period. I am a London-based dealer in Indian miniature paintings, sourced from European and American collections, and you might be interested to look at our eighth annual exhibition as part of the New York Asia Week in March, where we will exhibit Indian Court Painting, spanning the Mughal and Rajput traditions as well as some Company School examples. As well as the traditional British, European and American collectors and museums who buy in this area, the last five years has seen a growing number of cognosenti from India. See http://www.asiaweekny.com and our catalogue will be uploaded on our own website towards the end of this month, http://www.forgelynch.com

Reply
1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  May 13, 2017
  
  This is such a late response, I’m sorry – I missed seeing some of the comments that had been posted. Thank you for letting me know about your work, though. I’d be happy to tell friends in London about your exhibitions and catalogues.
  
  Best wishes, Nilanjana
  
  Reply
Marion

February 6, 2018

Nilanjana, are you planning a sequel to The Hundred Names of Darkness? I’ve devoured The Wildings & its sequel….will there be a trilogy? Or perhaps a new tale, altogether?

Kindest regards
Marion

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1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  May 29, 2018
  
  Thank you! (And apologies, I’d neglected this site because I’m working on something new. It’s not a Wildings novel, but I do hope to add a set of Monsoon-in-Corbett stories to the Hundred Names of Darkness family once this is done.)
  
  Reply
  1. Marion
    
    May 30, 2018
    
    Thank you – I will really look forward to that!
Paul Polydorou

August 5, 2018

Nilanjana, earlier this year I noted with interest in one of your FT pieces your mention of Verrier Elwin. It so happens that four years ago I came across a faded photograph of him in a small museum in the Bastar District, Chhattisgarh. Back home in London, I began to investigate this intriguing character. The result of this is an article I have just had published in the current issue of Kyoto Journal on his life and work titled, ‘Revisiting Verrier Elwin’s Tribal Villages of Central India’, accompanied by several of my photographs. So yes – I understand your comment of ‘the finder’s thrill of discovering something lost and forgotten’, and hopefully more people may now come to know something of this warm and engaging man who documented the myths and folk-songs of the tribal peoples of India.

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1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  August 15, 2018
  
  Thank you for writing in – I would love to see a link to your article!
  
  Reply
  1. Paul Polydorou
    
    August 16, 2018
    
    Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately they do not have a digital version of this journal presently. The link below provides details of the particular issue, and there are selected newsagents and places where it may be purchased. However, if you email me directly I can maybe send you something, but there’s nothing publicly available I’m afraid. https://kyotojournalcurrent.org/product/kyoto-journal-issue-91/
Annis Parker

December 10, 2018

Nilanjana, thank you very, very much for writing these books about the cats. I have referred them to so many people because I can see visually exactly what you are saying and hear the truthful communication between the animals. I have never read anything which is so factual in my world. So many people do not see all animals, birds and sea creatures as being sentient but I know they are. I work with animals (anything really) World wide, de-stressing, balancing energy structures and listening.
Your books gave me the greatest thrill. Thank you very much. I live in N.Z. but do travel quite a lot – mostly to work with animals. Regards, Annis Parker

Reply
1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  June 6, 2019
  
  Thank you so much, Annis!
  
  Reply
Lis Riba

December 30, 2018

I finished The Wildings last night and have to extend my compliments.

I was reading during intermission of a comedy show, and when I reached Miao’s last stand, tears started rolling down my cheeks. It took me a few moments to compose myself when the show resumed, but it was a great performance and I laughed myself hoarse. Then, when I resumed reading, the subsequent scenes reduced me to tears once again.

I’m a heavy reader, and while many stories can make me mist up, I can’t remember the last time a book made me cry like yours did.

So, thank you.

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1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  June 6, 2019
  
  Dear Lis,
  
  This might be one of the most heartwarming responses I’ve got on The Wildings. Thank you, and Miao was one of my favourites, too. You might be happy to know that there was a real Miao, a wise Siamese stray, who was adopted by one of our neighbours and lived a long, peaceful, battle-free life.
  
  My best wishes,
  
  Nilanjana
  
  Reply
George Neidorf

March 10, 2020

Ms. Roy, I just read your FT, 9, Feb. column: Be your own bibliotherapist and it made me feel good about the books I have chosen to keep. Over the past 50 yrs. I’ve been purchasing, collecting and weeding out my book shelves and have got them down to the the essentials that I re-read frequently for all the reasons that you mention. It’s nice to “meet” a kindred spirit. I live in a small town in Thailand and an English friend in Bangkok sends me his FT’s. I always look forward to reading your columns, they cause me to think and reflect on my life, surroundings and world at large. You are a treasure. Thank you.

George Neidorf, American Primitive

Reply
1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  May 2, 2020
  
  Thank you so much, George — I trust you’re fine in Thailand during this pandemic. Your life sounds like a booklover’s dream, so nice of you to write in.
  
  Warmly,
  
  Nila
  
  Reply
  1. George Neidorf
    
    June 29, 2022
    
    I just read your FT column of 8 May 2022, Myths without the misogyny, and would like to recommend Layne Redmond’s, When Drummers Were Women. A study of women frame-drummers throughout history. Layne was a gifted drummer, writer, artist, filmmaker, and teacher, who influence is spread throughout the frame drum world.
Russell Munson

May 3, 2020

Dear Ms Roy,
A friend just sent me a link to your April 30th FT column on flight and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I am so happy that my photographs in the book meant something to you. I was photographing seagulls even before Richard Bach and I became friends because their beauty in flight was so inspiring to me. And I am still photographing them to this day. During this pandemic flight and flying mean even more to me. My wife and I are sheltered in place on the south fork of Long Island. The best part is that I am near the airport where I keep my little Aviat Husky airplane, and I have been flying almost every day that the weather permits. After 58 years as a pilot it means more to me than ever. Thank you so much for your wonderful article. If you respond to this, please do so on my email as I don’t follow Twitter.
My best to you
Russell Munson

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1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  January 10, 2021
  
  I saw this late — but thank you. Both for the photographs and for the wonderful thought that you continue to soar with the seagulls. I hope you and your wife will stay safe.
  
  Reply
Oliver Bandmann

May 17, 2020

Dear Nilanjana (if I may),

Just a quick note to thank you, yet again, for your wonderful FT column. How wonderful to share the joy of language and the frustration to not have the right words for what we’re all going through at the moment with somebody who lives so far away.

With all good wishes,

Oliver

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Rustom Pomeroy

May 26, 2020

Dear Nilanjana,
I’m a big fan of your FT column, your passion for reading and bibliotherapy. I am a professional violinist with the BBC Concert Orchestra in London, and also a first time writer. My self-published book is a memoir about my mother’s time living in Bombay in the 60’s, and our family’s adventures in India in the 80’s/90’s. I really enjoyed the process, reminiscing with family and friends about these golden memories, and feel like I’ve been on a real journey which will hopefully provide a loving legacy for my young children. I would be very happy to forward you a copy of the text and would welcome any feedback.

I hope that you are keeping safe and well in these troubled times.
All best wishes,
Rustom

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Pankaj Vir Gupta

May 29, 2020

Dear Ms. Roy

I’m a long-term reader of your excellent column in the FT and particularly loved reading your piece on the books that take us around the world. The past few months of unfolding crisis made me think of how limited we can be in the understanding of our more proximate world….for the past eight years, fellow academics and students at the University of Virginia have been documenting the ecology of the Yamuna River as it flows through Delhi, and the lives of those sustained on the banks of its various drains. We’d love to share a copy of the book with you! Yamuna River Project: New Delhi Urban Ecologies

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Chintan Patel

December 8, 2020

Hi Nilanjana,

I was part of Amit’s class that you regaled with your incredible insights and advice – many thanks for that. I read your “Girl who ate books” to prepare for the interaction which I loved.

All that said, my real reason for writing is to let you know that my 9-year old loves Wildlings. He is obsessed with reading and a fan of the Warriors series – a fantasy series for about cats (as you must know). With Wildlings, he has gotten the first taste of a “literary” novel. I hope he can nurture his reading habit as well as the author 🙂

Figured you may be pleased to know that your books are being received very well by the next generation.

Thanks,
Chintan

Reply
1. Nilanjana S Roy
  
  January 10, 2021
  
  Thank you so much — and my best to your son. 🙂
  
  Reply
I Ahmed

January 8, 2021

Dear Nilanjana,

Just wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading your article on the shifting shape of the writing-publishing life in the FT. It resonated with me.

Happy New Year!

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matthew haughey

June 5, 2021

Ms. Roy,

I just stumbled upon your FT column about “the lessons of Flashman” and I can’t thank you enough. After being introduced to Flashman at the turn of the century I’ve spent the last twenty years struggling unsuccessfully to explain what is so great about a series with such a bastard at its heart. From now on when I try to recommend the series to a friend I’m going to share your column instead of making such a hash of it myself that they never read them.

Your column was so complete and compelling that it has me fired up to read it all again.

One question, which Flashman book would you recommend first? Even though I liked it, I tend to think “Flashman” is nearly the weakest of the series, only just ahead of “tiger”. I’ve always had a soft spot for “the charge”.

I was thrilled to find out that you are an accomplished novelist as well as FT columnist and I am looking forward to tracking down and reading as much of your work as I can find.

All the best,

Matt

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Fida

June 18, 2021

Love you work

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Pradip Shah

September 12, 2021

Dear Ms Roy,
As a long-time reader of Financial Times, I have very much enjoyed your columns, your erudite comments on interesting topics and your reviews such as What Mowgli did next on Stephen Alter’s Feral Dreams.

I am therefore taking the liberty of inviting your attention to the just-released The Cane-Cutter’s Song, the brilliant translation by Dr Vidya Vencatesan from the French La Panse du Chacal by Raphael Confiant, the award-winning Martinique author, available for the first time in English. It is about the Indian indentured labourers who went faraway in hope of a better life and pined to return home.

The translator was inspired to give it its lyrical title from the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati’s “Karumbu tottattile (in the Sugarcane Plantations) wherein the poet asks the wind to carry back the sorrowful outpourings of the women toiling in the cane fields in an island lost in the oceans, so far from home…. When I first read La panse du chacal, I knew that the wind, wet with their tears, had finally reached our shores.”
I am sure your readers will enjoy reading your comments on the book!
Best wishes,
Pradip Shah

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Rima Pande

September 22, 2021

Dear Nilanjana – Hope you are doing well. I have just released a book that is based on my personal experiences during my father’s illness a few years ago. His Voice (https://www.hisvoice.life/) is my attempt to give voice to my father’s unspoken thoughts and capture the swirl of emotions coursing through his mind during two tumultuous years when he was bedridden and unable to speak. I try to put myself in his mind, feel what he is feeling, imagine what he is thinking, and experience events from his perspective. As much as it is a narrative and memoir of sorts, His Voice is about respect, resilience and realism. Respect – how important it is to maintain dignity for a person who is in a helpless state; Resilience – working with what life throws at us, with a smile on our face; Realism – understanding that effort may not always yield the results one hopes for, but continuing, and not giving up. His Voice is also about Relationships – steadfast spousal commitment, the parent-child bond, and familial support. I hope to coax readers to pause, acknowledge and appreciate the key relationships in their life, think about how they view and interact with people who are not fully functional, and deliberate on the grey area between living and existing, which is defined by attitude, not physical and mental status.

I would love to send you a copy of the book, an would appreciate your feedback if you are able to read it. Please do let me know. I can be reached at rimapandeauthor@gmail.com.

Warmly, Rima

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Gerald Rabie

October 1, 2021

Dear Ms Roy. I’ve just read one of your articles. I wanted to tell you how beautifully I thought it was written. Your prose is life-enhancing. Thank you.

Reply
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