In Conversation with Damyanti Biswas

Recently awarded The Fay Khoo Award in Penang, Malaysia, Damyanti Biswas is making waves in the literary community. Her debut novel You Beneath Your Skin is a crime novel set in New Delhi that ties the sharp truth of lies with a world of poverty, misogyny, and political corruption. Secrets circle families, and death is taunted by ambition.

Passionate about providing more opportunities for women and bridging the education gap for underprivileged children in New Delhi, Damyanti has donated her author proceeds to Project WHY. Another NGO that she has chosen to donate to is Stop Acid Attacks (SAA). Not only does Damyanti highlight the gruesome and oppressive injustice of acid attacks in her novel, but she also continuously supports SAA’s campaign against acid violence, which aims to bring social change to the Indian government.

In this interview, Evelyn Ramli focused on her identity as a writer and as a challenger of the patriarchy, concluding with the most rewarding things writing has bought into her life.

Read up on Damyanti before our event on December 2nd—an author reading and Q&A session hosted by UNM’s Particle and Writers’ Society!

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ER

Of all your novels and short stories, which one was the most memorable for you and why?

DB

Unglamorous secret: I can’t stand any of my work—published, or otherwise, and more often than not, find it very hard to write. For me, the work most on my mind is the one that I’m focused on (struggling with) finishing at that moment. I don’t love it, but I feel compelled to write, so I get on with it.

ER

In one of your past interviews, you mentioned that secrets fascinate you and are in many of your works due to their nature—‘[it’s] hard to write crime stories without secrets’. How much psychoanalysis do you inject into your writing? (does this come from research or personal experience?)

DB

When I’m writing, I scavenge from everywhere: research, hearsay, eavesdropping, newspapers. Everything is fair game. I do psychoanalyze my characters a lot— I speak about it at length here, but that’s because all my stories come from characters, and I need to know them to understand what their needs and wants are, what their driving desire is because that’s what fuels my story and determines its structure. For me, characters are the plot.

ER

You’ve mentioned that you wrote your novel “You Beneath Your Skin” in over 15 drafts, determined to write your best novel—what is your process in between drafts, how do you sort out all the “moving elements”?

DB

“You Beneath Your Skin” was my first novel. I learned how to write a novel by writing it. Between drafts, there’s usually a break while the book goes to trusted readers. By the time the feedback turns in, I have (hopefully) developed enough objectivity to tackle it. I write about more of my drafting process using index cards, here. This process is flexible enough that I feel like I have freedom, and provides enough structure so that my story doesn’t collapse on itself.

ER

Not only do the causes you’ve donated to nod to your commitment to fight gender imbalance and inequality, your pieces often uncover the truth about power and patriarchy. How do you see yourself and the wider literary world challenging patriarchy in the future?

DB

I’m just a writer who tells stories. My stories challenge patriarchy because I’m personally convinced of its toxic effects—humanity can’t really progress towards any sort of utopia if half its population is treated like second-class citizens—and that conviction seeps into my work. I’ve never set out to inspire or give messages: my attempt is to try and portray the truth, as I see it, as honestly as possible. Patriarchy is alive and well in a lot of nations, whereas in others it is on a death roll, trying to destroy everything in its path. There’s a lot of work ahead. Stories are harbingers of change—they have been the mode one generation passes on wisdom to the other. I hope stories in general, including mine, continue to portray, instigate, and nourish the kind of change we want to see in this world, where all of us are treated as equals.

ER

You’ve talked about how your work as an editor of the Forge Literary Magazine has been transformative for you as an author. Could you see yourself being an author without being an editor?

DB

Forge has been a magical space for me. Reading and editing bunches of stories has given me perspective and taught me what works for me, what doesn’t. It has helped me understand my own taste if you will. I would definitely be an author even if I were not an editor, but I guess in that case I would have struggled even harder than I do now.

ER

You seldom give writing advice as you believe there is no one-size-fits-all advice, and one of the pieces of advice you’ve given is to let writing be its own reward. For you, what is the most rewarding part of being a writer?

DB

I do give advice, only it isn’t mine. It is advice collated from folk far more qualified than I ever will be, through my monthly writing gazette. You can receive it in your inbox.

Writing has rewards, you said? Sorry, I jest. On some days, like today, when I must produce each word like pulling out my own teeth without anesthetic, it feels like sacrilege to speak of rewards.

There are rewards, of course. Writing has given me my tribe—brought me in touch with so many readers and writers an awkward introvert like me would never have met otherwise. It has given me a way to examine how I look at myself, and the world.

The reward I consider most important lies in those good writing days, the days that come once every blue moon, when I don’t have to do battle with words, when the right words come to me at the right time in the right order, when I can compress meaning into them without effort, when I lose awareness of myself as a writer, and become the pen. Those days are the reward worth living for.

Note: This interview was conducted through email.