QUESTIONS ABOUT ME

How do you pronounce your name?

The Sang in Sangu is pronounced sung, like the past tense of sing. And I pronounce Mandanna so that it rhymes with bandanna.

How long have you been writing?

Since I was about four or so? I wrote my first story then, which my dad still has tucked away in his desk drawer, and then never stopped writing after that. The first time I decided I was Going to Be an Author, I was about nine years old. I wrote a story about a brave and intrepid heroine named Sangu who saves a group of kidnapped girls while on a seaside holiday. I printed it off the computer, stapled the pages together and stuck a photograph of myself on the back to make it look like a book!

How long did it take you to get published? How did it happen?

I did it the old-fashioned way, but it wasn’t quick. I sent out my first query when I was fifteen and signed with my first agent when I was twenty-two. With a completely different manuscript! There was a lot of hard work, a lot of rejection, and a lot of Stubbornly Refusing to Quit.

I wish I could tell you there was no luck involved, but I’m afraid that a lot of publishing is about luck and timing, especially if you’re an author from an underrepresented background.

QUESTIONS ABOUT KIKI

What inspired you to write Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom?

The mythology in Kiki’s story is all rooted in the folklore and stories I grew up with in south India. India is a huge country, with an enormously rich pantheon of folklore that changes depending on which part of the country you’re from, and I wanted to tell a story that was true to where I came from.

The heart of Kiki’s story is her art, and the way she uses it to cope with her anxiety and OCD. I’ve had OCD and anxiety since I was Kiki’s age, and I’ve used art and creativity to help me with my mental health since before I can remember, so Kiki’s struggles, adventures and journey are incredibly important to me. And I hope they feel just as true to every reader who struggles with the same things.

All your main characters so far have been girls of colour, and Kiki is no exception. Is that a deliberate choice?

Yes. I grew up with very few stories about brown girls, so those are the stories I now want to write. I want readers like me—and all readers—to read and love stories about brown girls who have adventures, fall in love, explore the stars, fight the system, and so much more. In Kiki’s case in particular, as my first middle grade protagonist, I very much wanted to write a character for brown kids her age, who so rarely get to see themselves in fantasy fiction.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CELESTIAL SERIES

What made you think of retelling the Mahabharata in space?

I grew up with the Mahabharata and had wanted to write an epic story inspired by it for years, but nothing ever felt right. Then, quite by accident, in 2014, my then three-year-old became obsessed with the solar system, space, planets, all of that. And the two things—space and the Mahabharata—came together in my head. After that, the story came easily. I knew I wanted to focus on Esmae, who is a version of the character Karna from the epic, and I knew I wanted to tell a story about love, rage and family.

How many books are in the series?

Right now, the main series is a trilogy: A Spark of White Fire, A House of Rage and Sorrow, and A War of Swallowed Stars. I also have a free short story set twenty years before A Spark of White Fire.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LOST GIRL

How did you come up with the idea?

I was rereading Frankenstein at university, and I decided I wanted to tell a story from the Creature’s point of view. It took a few false starts after that before I came up with Eva and the Weavers. My stories always seem to start out like that—with an idea that starts and stops, evolves, and becomes something else before it feels right.

There were also a lot of other influences on the mood and tone of the story, like the quirky, eerie vibes of The Corpse Bride, and of course I was hugely inspired by both my hometown of Bangalore and the Lake District in northwest England, where I was living at the time.

Will there be a sequel?

I did have sequels planned, but they didn’t work out.

What’s with the ending? What happens after that?

Many of you have loved the ambiguity of the ending of the book. Many of you have hated it. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t intend it to be so ambiguous and final. My intention was to end the book in a way that felt right for the story, but the problem there was that the story wasn’t over. I wanted to have some closure and loose ends tied off, just in case the book never got the sequels I’d planned, but I also couldn’t tie everything off because that wasn’t how the story wanted to go. It’s an awkward line to walk, but that’s the nature of publishing. That’s why the book ends the way it does. If I could go back and change it, I’m not sure what I’d do.