I was born just outside of Paris and even though my parents moved back to England and then to Bangalore within a year of me being born. I had such an affinity with France in a way that I can't even ironically articulate clearly yeah when every time I go back I just feel like I'm home. When I went back last May actually on my own for a week to the south of France to edit my novel and swimming every day speaking in French every day making friends eating food writing and reading. That's how I want to live my life is is just being in France reading 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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