Episode 1: Nilanjana Roy's "Black River
On our first episode, we're joined by a very special guest. Someone I’ve long admired for her writing across genres, fantasy, journalistic non-fiction, columns, essays, Instagram posts, and now crime fiction. Nilanjana Roy is a writer who famously, as a child, ate books. Then she grew up though I suspect she still sneaks a nibble or two out of a page here and there. She’s here to talk about her most recent novel "Black River"— "Black River" is set in and around the edges of Delhi, and though it’s framed as a fast-paced, gritty, grimy police procedural, it becomes so much more than that in its meditations on justice, on the natural world, on memory, family, and friendship. Kiran Desai has called Black River “a riveting murder mystery, a psychological thrilled, a magnificent work of literary fiction…reading this novel is like holding a prayer in one’s hands.” PS: Keep an ear out for some feathered friends who wish, quite insistently, to be a part of our conversation!