Chennai :

Books and the sea filled her life, and the city gave her enough of both. That’s author Anita Nair reminiscing her Chennai days.

“Growing up in Avadi, my main interests were to go to the Moore market to buy books and hit the beach where the sea seemed like an endless horizon of abundance and hope,” said Nair, whose latest novel is ‘Idris: Keeper of Light.’

She was addressing English literature students of Justice Basheer Ahmed Sayeed College for Women as part of a collaborative lecture series organised by the Madras Literary Society (MLS) to create awareness about its project to restore books, digitalise its catalogue and enroll more members.

In a sense, writing the book itself was a journey for her as she “travelled to places beyond to tap into the great unconscious world” where she visualised Idris, an African trader who is the main character of her novel, named after a prophet who wielded a pen. She wrote in long hand and it took six years to complete the book. ‘Idris’ was inspired by stories narrated by an acquaintance on a boat ride on the Nila river, now called the Bharatapuzha in Kerala, about a group of warriors in the 1600s who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the Zamorin of Calicut every 12 years. Historical fiction, she said, “makes history palatable and fiction relevant.” She researched the period and culled material from foreigners’ travelogues and records kept by a Portuguese clerk called Duarte Barbosa. Dr Fathima Banu, head of English department, Admiral M Raman and Padma Padmanabhan of MLS were among those present.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / February 25th, 2015