‘I stopped at an essential ambiguity’: How Sharmistha Mohanty wrote ‘Book One’ thirty years ago

Sharmistha Mohanty is the author of four works of prose, Book One, New Life, Extinctions, and Five Movements in Praise. She has also translated a selection of Rabindranath Tagore’s fiction, Broken Nest and Other Stories. Her prose and poetry have appeared in journals such as Granta, Poetry, World Literature Today, and The Caravan. She is also the founding editor of the online journal Almost Island, which began in 2007.

Mohanty’s latest book, Book One, first published in 1995 and republished in 2023 by Context Westland, is – quite literally – the writer’s first book. The iconic poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra said the stories in the book are “unflinching, tender, unexpected, aphoristic, violently observant and violently restrained.” And I agree.

I read Book One in one go and by the last page, I knew I’d be haunted by the mother figure and the house in ruins for a long, long time. As Dom Moraes said, Mohanty writes about “changing traditions which nevertheless remain radically unchanged.” Through movement, pauses, and stillness, Book One is a tender reminder of our mortal selves and immortal memories.

In a conversation with Scroll, Mohanty talked about republishing her first book, her relationship with the home and the house, and why “inspiration” is an overrated term for a writer.

You wrote this book nearly thirty years ago. Why did you want to bring it back to...

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