Mridula Koshy's debut novel launched

Published by HarperCollins Publishers India, the novel takes place over a 36-hour timeline, travelling between far-flung places, the past and the future.

"It was a technically difficult task to achieve. I had to work with multiple clocks set to different times," Koshy said in a dialogue with writer-journalist Suneetha Balakrishnan during the book launch here last evening.

Mridula is already known in literary circuit, thanks to a collection of short stories titled 'If it is sweet' that won her the 2009 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize.

Noted for its inventiveness in narration and structuring, Mridula set her novel's first part in Kerala and the second in the United States.

"My Kerala experiences stayed with me," said the writer who spent part of her childhood in her home state, Kerala. "The book is about a mother who loses her child and in the process loses her future."

"Decades on, the mother struggles on her deathbed to find the story that will release her from life; the son's struggle is for the story that will allow him to live," Koshy said.

The 43-year-old writer, who has worked as a trade union and community organiser in the US, said "As writers we are workers. Writing is not just about inspiration it is about hard work."

Now based in Portland, Oregon, Koshy has published her stories in literary journals including Wasafiri, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review and Existere, as well as in anthologies in India, the UK and Italy.