THE MYSTERY OF FICTION!

On the third day of the Jaipur Literature Festival, a very deep conversation took place between literature critics and authors, Amit Choudhary, Deepti Kapoor, Ruth Ozeki, and Shehan Karunatilaka. When asked about why they all read fiction, everyone has varied answers.

Shehan said, “You always love inside your own head. To get out of your own head, you need to read fiction. And that’s why I read fiction.” On the other hand, Amit Choudhary had to say that he never read fiction, and that he was always inclined towards poetry.

“My tutor at UCLA questioned me, why don’t you read fiction. I was drawn to the idea of narrative, a transformative account of poetry. But my tutor said if I wanted to Ace my course, I must read fiction, and that’s how it began.” Ruth said, “I was an only child and had no one to talk to. So I engaged in books to have conversations with characters. It was a way of living inside their skins for a while.” Talking of the writing process, Deepti said,” The process of writing a novel for me is a complete cut off from the world.