With graceful steps the renowned Indian English writer stepped on to the stage followed by Janaki Sreedharan. The interactive session began at 7.30 and an excited Anita Nair managed to pull the crowd with her answer to question thrown at her by Janaki Sreedharan
To begin with Anita thanked janaki for giving her an opportunity to speak about her journey as a writer.”When I started to write, all the authors were of academic background. I doubted whether people would consider me serious”.
She also shared her anxiety of the attitude of readers who give respect only to Indian writers who write in Englsih. Her books always spoke about suburban areas and tribal people and she shared the difficulty in translating their colloquial dialects to English.
“The language is English but my characters don’t speak in English”. The sentence construction, lyricism and the beauty of usage is difficult to translate according to her. She has always loved to write in Malayalam but didn’t have the opportunities to earn it.
She asked the community top give more youngsters exposure, “I will have a backseat now”, she said.
She also commented on the significance of literature festival. “Writers are very lonely we don’t have a writing society in India. This is where we meet another writer”.