August 13, 2012

A/P Chitra Sankaran from our Department of English Language and Literature has written a murder mystery novel set in both Singapore and India. Void of Reason, published in the UK by New Dawn Publishers, has been lauded as a ‘feat of plotting’ which ‘casts its spell on us from its opening chapters’. Below Dr. Sankaran took time to share with the SRN how the book came about and the unique challenges of writing creative rather than academic works.

Dr. Sankaran, congratulations on your new book. Please tell us what prompted you to venture into writing a novel?

Well the idea of writing a book had always been there but was not really a goal as such, even though I had a written some short stories in the past for my own pleasure. It was only when I fractured my foot a few years ago and was immobile for three months after the surgery that I really had the chance to put my mind to it. I wrote around 200 pages and then had to go back to work and so I put it aside. Soon after, my old PhD supervisor from London, Elizabeth Maslen, was in town and after reading a draft she encouraged me to publish it. I found a great website called www.firstwriter.com which is an amazing resource for finding publishers around the world that match your intended geographical market according to genre. I eventually found New Dawn Publishers in the UK who not only agreed to publish the book but who also gave clear reasons for the revisions that I would need to make in order to publish. In all, the process was very different from academic publishing and I still feel like I have much to learn!

What lies behind the setting for the book and choosing the whodunit genre?

Some of my personal history and interests are incorporated into the text. Although I have lived in Singapore for many years I was born in Tamil Nadu, where much of the story takes place and I grew up reading a lot of classical murder mystery writers as well as classical Tamil literature. My other former PhD supervisor Warren Chernaik has edited a volume of essays on detective fiction from around the world and commented that there are very few Asian murder mysteries, which really prompted me fill this void. I also wanted to give an insider’s view of Asia and not that of the typical white man protagonist exoticizing the setting. Most of the characters are Asian but are not insular and those characters that are Western are equally not stereotyped. Much of the action in the novel takes place in a suspicious Hindu Ashram [a religious retreat] and it was quite coincidental that at the time of writing there were a few scandals at real ashrams in India reported in the media. As for the genre though, most murder mysteries demand absolute closure in the final scenes but I really wanted to play around with this requirement. Some readers like what I have done but others have hated it!

It is clear that many of your teaching and research interests are reflected in the novel such as feminism, South Asian Literature, post-colonialism and comparative literature.

Yes in many ways I have written the book for myself and made the two main detective characters an amalgam of these interests. Singaporean Mr Lim is the well-educated, rational, Confucian thinker while Indian police officer Selvi is a no-nonsense, working-class, striving Tamil young woman, both of whom I would like to meet. In the book I have interspersed references to Classical Tamil literature, often using couplets from the Thirukkural as epigraphs as well as quotations from English writers.

There are also many references to spiritual ideals and religious practices.

Yes, spirituality is something which interests me very much, particularly as an instinct to question the meaning of life. I believe religion is becoming more divorced from that ideal and so extremism in many religions has made people more dogmatic. The quasi-religious ramblings of the mystery journal writer in the novel reflect how clinging to such dogma can lead to misogyny, hatred and deceit. I think the best kind of seeker looks for the truth in many places, from all great thinkers, not just religious figures like Jesus and the Buddha but also great poets such as Rumi and Shakespeare who reveal to us universal truths. In the book I refer to many principles which are particular to the South Asian religions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. I incorporated elements that are particular to the Tamil tradition which is something that just came to me in the writing. I also touch a little on quantum physics which is something that interests me increasingly, particularly how the idea of intention might affect matter.

Do you have plans for any further novels?

I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and I am thinking about eventually writing a sequel, especially since the characters are so good! However, if I do write a second novel I will control my style more and not let the story write itself so much. It is fascinating to keep discovering aspects of myself I didn’t know I had. I won’t be giving up my academic writing any time soon though!

Void of Reason is published by New Dawn Publishers (UK) and is available in Singapore from Books Actually or online from www.amazon.com and http://www.newdawnpublishersltd.co.uk/ – both as a printed or e-book.