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My guest today is Alka Joshi, author of four novels listed on Art In Fiction including Six Days in Bombay listed in the Visual Arts category.

View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eYPoIKk9pOk

• Inspiration for Six Days of Bombay and its relationship to the real life story of artist Amrita Sher-Gil.
• Background on Amrita Sher-Gil and how her personality and sometimes shocking activities influenced the creation of Mira Novak in Six Days of Bombay.
• Why Alka chose to write a novel about a fictional version of Amrita, rather than about the real artist.
• How Alka chose to frame Mira's story by telling it through the eyes of Sona Falstaff, the nurse who cared for Mira during the last six days of her life in a private hospital in Bombay.
• Background on Anglo Indians as inspiration for the character of Sona who must navigate two worlds after her British father abandoned her and her mother.
• Mira as archetype for the independent woman of the 1930s, that there were more of them then we think.
• How Sona is most like Alka herself compared to the other characters she has written.
• The role of grief for a mother played in the novel.
• Europe in the 1930s and its parallels to India during the same period.
• Researching the novel in Paris, London, Prague, Florence, and Istanbul.
• Reading from Six Days in Bombay.
• One thing that Alka learned from writing this novel that she didn't realize before.
• Alka's next novel, due out in late 2026/early 2027 about a girl wanting to learned classical dance in India when its practice was forbidden.

Read more about Alka Joshi on her website: https://www.alkajoshi.com/

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Want to learn more about Carol Cram, the host of The Art In Fiction Podcast? She's the author of several award-winning novels, including The Towers of Tuscany and Love Among the Recipes. Find out more on her website.