Author feature: Where the River Parts by Radhika Dogra Swarup

The sheer scale of the displacement, though, was unknown to me. 1 million people were murdered, and 16 million left homeless, largely in the 3 month period that followed Independence. I had to research these aspects of the past – the extent of the tragedy, the interactions between members of the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities in united India, the clothes worn during the period, how the flames of hatred were fanned – partly through books and other media, and partly through family accounts.  

Is it a difficult thing to bring a history so few of your readers will be familiar with so vividly into life? As a debut novelist, there must have been challenges…

I tried to focus on the fact that protagonists from that era and from that geography still had familiar concerns. A 17 year old girl was still consumed with her youth, her friendships and with love. She had no concept of a career back then, but she did recognise the need for education, and in that sense, she doesn’t feel so dissimilar to a young girl today. A 20 year old boy was still focussed on injustice, his career and the girl he loves. And though the setting is different for many readers today, I hope the common traits they share with the protagonists help make them feel real.  

Tell me more about your path to publication… 

I left my career in finance behind to work on my writing. I began by writing short stories, and once I was certain of my voice, I began to write longer fiction. It has taken a few years to write Where the River Parts and get it to a place where I’m happy with it. Once my agents went out with Where the River Parts, we were delighted with the offer made by Sandstone Press. We agreed terms in January 2015, finalised the novel by autumn and the book was published in February 2016.  

And how about you, the writer. Had you always wanted to write fiction? What gave you the push to actually do it?

I always wrote as a child, but stopped when I went to university. My degree was in Economics, and after I graduated I began to work in investment banking, and for a while it seemed as if my days of writing – of indeed reading for pleasure – were at an end.  

And then, on my 26th birthday, I found myself at a Private Equity conference in Frankfurt, surrounded by industry veterans crowing over the latest article to call them vultures. It was at that moment that I realised that my future didn’t lie in finance, and that I had to write. I left the celebrations of the conference and went to my hotel room to write, and was the happiest I had been in years.  

How do you write? Are you fitting it round the demands of a job and family? What’s a typical writing day? 

I write around my family – I have two young children, and am tied to their schedules. I tend to write when they’re in school, but if I’m in the middle of writing a draft, I wake up at 4am to fit in a few hours of writing time while the children are asleep.  

And what writers do you admire? if someone said “your writing reminds me of…”, who would you like them to mention?

There are so many writers I admire greatly, and have spent so much of my childhood trying to emulate them. Hemingway, EM Forster, Tolstoy, Toni Morrison to name a very few. I have greatly enjoyed reading Arundhati Roy, and more recently, Akhil Sharma too. I feel, though, that I have to write in my own distinct voice.

And what’s next for you? Are you working on something new?

I’m working on my next novel, which examines a woman’s response when the world she knows changes forever. It’s an internal exile, if you will, as compared to Where the River Parts’ epic journey. It’s in the early stages of planning, but I’m really looking forward to delving into her life.

I’ll really look forward to that one Radhika, and hopefully will be able to catch up with Where the River Parts before too long – it sounds simply wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Follow Radhika on Twitter, or via her website.