Novelist Damyanti Biswas talks crime fiction, secrets, short stories, and why she’s donated the author proceeds from her debut novel to two charities.

Click here to read her story featured in the August 2020 edition of Spittoon Monthly.


   

   

Deva Eveland: What attracts you to stories about crime?

Damyanti Biswas: Writing about crime lets me explore human experiences that are very different from mine. It carries me into fascinating by-lanes of research. I can examine—without the danger of pontification, stereotyping or hyperbole—concepts of morality and justice, motivations behind human actions that stray from the ‘norm’, and the loss and suffering that is the lot of all humans.

DE: I can imagine this being inspired by an actual event, but I don’t want to presume. What kind of research, observation and writerly obsessions went into the writing of this piece? 

DB: You’re right, this story was inspired by a news item about a man who had lived with the bodies of his dead parents for years.

When writing this piece, I remember reading up about hoarding, about the abuse of children, about funeral practices. Then the narrator’s voice took over, and I went with that. I got it read by Singaporean friends to check for authenticity, and corrected goof-ups I’d made—in this particular story I’m an expatriate writing about a Singaporean, and I was hyper-aware and respectful of that. Any remaining errors in the research are entirely mine. I try always to write what interests me and writing a story set in Singapore was a great way to research the country I’ve called home for many years now.

DE: Can you discuss the role that keeping secrets plays in this story? Is it a common theme in your writing?

DB: I find secrets fascinating, especially secrets that could be very damaging once revealed. Now that you mention it, secrets play an important role in my debut crime novel, You Beneath Your Skin, and a few other short stories as well. Hard to write crime stories without secrets! Secrets are often about shame and guilt—and at the root of all of this is fear. Fear of loss, of suffering, of recrimination.

On the surface, in ‘I don’t want him to smell’ the secret is a decomposing body within an apartment in a tropical climate. The reason behind the secret is deeper. Like most toxic secrets, it involves a family’s shame, guilt, and suffering.

DE: You’re also a novelist. How has short story writing informed your novels and vice versa?

DB: Short stories are unforgiving—they force you to consider each word. You must characterise and describe with economy and precision. Writing them also trains you to grab the reader at the first sentence and not let go.

Writing novels has taught me to not be precious about my work. Tossing away 90,000 word drafts for novels puts things in perspective. I no longer hesitate about throwing away entire short story drafts and writing them again from scratch if that seems likely to lead to improvement.

DE: Your website mentions several NGO’s: Project Why and Stop Acid Attacks. Could you briefly describe what they are, how they relate to your writing and why they’re important to you?

DB: Stop Acid Attacks (SAA) is a campaign against acid violence in India. This organisation has been actively campaigning for the cause of acid attack survivors by continuously creating dialogue with the Indian political and legal system in order to bring about social change. They aim to sensitise and educate people about the gruesome nature of this crime, and the oppressive injustice of a gender-biased society.

Project WHY’s aim since the year 2000 has been to bridge the education gap for underprivileged children in New Delhi and improve their learning outcomes in a safe environment, as well as to provide life-skills and all-round development opportunities for women.

The narrative of my novel You Beneath Your Skin was researched and shaped during my volunteering work at Project WHY since 2012. Some of the experiences generously shared by acid attack survivors in 2014 also became part of the novel. In an attempt to return this debt of gratitude in some measure, all author proceeds from the book go to these two non-profits. They have my heart because they do honest, heartfelt, back-breaking work on the ground. In our seemingly evil, dark world, they are a small, good thing.

DE: I also see on your website that you’ve talked to a number of authors about the craft of writing. How has this informed your own writing practice? Are there any tips that stand out which you’d like to share (perhaps because they’re surprising, or they come up again and again)?

DB: Damyantiwrites.com started as a daily writing practice, but when I took up writing fiction I tended to not blog as much. I wanted to provide value to my audience, and one way that suggested itself was to seek advice from writers advanced in their journey.

Their cumulative writing wisdom has informed my work, but it is hard to pinpoint something that stood out. The one conclusion I’ve reached from a wide diversity of authors I’ve hosted is that there’s no one-size-fits-all writing advice. What works for you may not work for me, and vice versa. Each writer is an individual. Exploring what works for us seems to be the journey and the destination.

DE: What are pao and kueh? I don’t think it’s necessary for understanding the story, but now I’m curious. 

DB: A pao or bao in Singapore is simply a bun with a filling. I do not mention what kind it is in the story, but there are many varieties in Singapore: steamed, fried, or baked. They can be sweet or savoury, and are named after the fillings they contain. They originate in China, of course, but are eaten in their many variations all over South-east Asia.

Kueh, or kuih, is a sweet or savoury bite-sized snack. It can be a tart or a pastry with fillings. The Peranakan Community who were early Chinese settlers in Malacca and, later, Indonesia adapted the original Malay and Indonesian snack as part of their cuisine. Peranakans popularised the term “Nonya Kueh” in Singapore.


   

   

Damyanti Biswas’s short fiction has been published or is forthcoming at Ambit, Litro, Griffith Review Australia, Pembroke magazine, Atticus Review, and other journals in the USA and UK. She serves as one of the editors of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her debut literary crime novel You Beneath Your Skin was published by Simon & Schuster India in autumn 2019, and optioned for TV adaptation by Endemol Shine.