As a kid I used to observe so much I used to watch and I think a lot of that was because there was a lot of turmoil in the family unit. So now whether I'm sitting on a bus daydreaming or whether I'm in meeting in my day job I'm always watching people and predicting who's going to say what. That really is conducive to being a good writer is just being aware and noticing that things that other people don't so that you can portray that in your writing.
This week on the Penguin Podcast, Nihal Arthanayake is joined by the second winner of Stormzy's Merky Books Prize, and she was also one of the Observer's best new novelists, it's Jyoti Patel.
Jyoti joins us to discuss her debut novel, The Things That We Lost, a story of family, loss and how far we go to protect those we love.
Also discussed on the podcast is the experience of mixing British and Gujarati cultures, the privilege of studying the arts, the importance of being your authentic self, the idea of the perfect sentence, and where it is that Jyoti feels the writer's life most intensely.
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