She said in an interview, “ Ancient Promises.

Though it was challenging to bring forth so many personal accounts, she managed to find an inner rhythm that helped her write the book relentlessly. It was while writing Ancient Promises that Misra realised her full potential of writing fiction. Godwin found Ancient Promises a “terrifically moving novel”. According to India Today, Misra was the first woman to have been represented by David Godwin since he became famous worldwide as Arundhaty Roy’s literary agent in London.

Misra, however, felt the novel format “has given her the creative freedom to sketch a portrait of the paradoxical nature of life in Kerala, with its deep-seated prejudices and conservatism as well as its beauty”. Janu’s child with special needs from the first marriage and subsequent divorce, and then her marriage to her first love Arjun-are so heavily drawn from the author’s own life that her publishers first wanted to market the book as an autobiography. Janu, the protagonist of her novel, goes through a rigorous rite of passage and finally divorces her uncaring and aloof husband Suresh, whom she agrees to marry only for her parents who handpicked the groom from a respected Maraar family from her native Kerala. Narrated in the first person in flashback, it’s a moving story of one woman’s painful journey of self-discovery. Her debut novel, Ancient Promises, is a thinly-veiled autobiography. She has produced eight novels in her decades-long career, including her bestseller, Ancient Promises. Detesting “writing between two whistles of a pressure cooker”, Misra set out to build a full-time writing career from the very beginning of her literary journey.

She has produced eight novels in her decades-long career, including her bestseller, Ancient Promisesįans of fiction will be delighted to see London-based Indian novelist Jaishree Misra talk about her writing at the 8th edition of Dhaka Lit Fest.

Rani by jaishree misra