ROSHANI CHOKSHI’s latest novel, The Swan’s Daughter, is a new standalone young adult fantasy with a fairytale twist. We caught up with the author to find out what she’s reading and what books she’d bring with her to a desert island.
What are you reading now?
Speak Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only have five books – what would they be?
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Diving Bell and The Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
The Oxford-English Dictionary
Where is your favourite place to read?
Rocking chair
Do you read one book at a time or multiple?
Multiple
Do you use a bookmark or fold the corners of pages?
I am abominable to my books and do neither. I flay their spines and scatter them on every surface.
What can you tell us about your novel The Swan’s Daughter?
It is a fairytale, but not in the way you might imagine. It is a fairytale in the sense that whimsy lives alongside woe; what is dark is also delightful; what is moving is also macabre. It is silly and solemn and sweet. I wrote it because I needed to reacquaint myself with wonder.
What did you find most rewarding or challenging about writing this novel?
The world was both the most rewarding and challenging. It is a true secondary world. I needed things to exist for a reason and that meant that small details needed to do the heaviest lifting.
What do you hope readers will take away from this novel?
I hope they take away a sense of wonder and delight. I hope it briefly brings them back to childhood.
What book character would you be, and why?
My character, Kamala, from The Star-Touched Queen. She’s a flesh-eating demon horse. Theoretically, a dastardly foe. In practice, a delightful fool.
If you could meet one author (living or dead) – who would it be and why?
The Pearl Poet. Why did they write Sir Gawain and The Green Knight as they did?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roshani Chokshi is the award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling series The Star-Touched Queen, The Gilded Wolves and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which Time Magazine named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time. Chokshi’s adult debut, The Last Tale of The Flower Bride, was a #1 Sunday Times bestseller. Her novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages and often draw upon world mythology and folklore. Chokshi is a member of the National Leadership Board for the Michael C. Carlos Museum and lives in Georgia with her family.
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