The Literary Mirror

Beyond the Hibiscus Gate avoids the expected Partition scenes almost entirely. Why?

Because those scenes have been written, and written well, many times. I didn't think I had anything to add to the train or the border that hadn't already been said better than I could say it. The ledger, though — nobody was writing the ledger.

The bricked-up gate is a quiet scene for what it represents. Was that restraint difficult to sustain?

Extremely. My first draft had a whole confrontation there, dialogue, tears, the works. Cutting it down to four sentences took longer than writing the original scene did. But the smaller version is truer to how these things actually happened — quietly, and often without anyone saying the real reason out loud.

You've since written nonfiction on small presses. Do you see a connection between the two books?

Both are about record-keeping as a form of memory, really. A ledger and a publishing catalogue do the same job in my head — they're what's left when the people who could tell you the real story are no longer around to tell it.