Nikita Lalwani: 'You have to be careful what you read sometimes whilst writing...'

Nikita Lalwani Photo credit: Nishant Lalwani

Nikita Lalwani is the author of the award-winning book Gifted. It made the Man Booker longlist in 2008. Her second novel, The Village, is a world away from her charming and bittersweet tale of a maths prodigy. Here, she tackles human rights and the potential of rehabilitation in an open prison in India. It concerns the West's preoccupation with 'triumph over adversity' stories, rehabilitation and demonisation concerning murderers, family, community - all set in a contained dazzling, sometimes disturbing backdrop. It's a brilliant book, frank and never judgmental.

We talked to Nikita about writing her second novel, about her humanitarian work and her experiences visiting an open prison herself.

Hello Nikita, welcome back to the world of books. What was your biggest fear about your sophomore effort?

I think I was worried about it being a misshapen book at one pointI think I was worried about it being a misshapen book at one point, something that was uncomfortable in the wrong way. I was in a thematic maze, trying to find my way out in a satisfying way, too fascinated with the ideas in the book, if you will. Given that you make it all up, apparently, in fiction, what constitutes a 'real' plot? That kind of thing was troubling me. In the end it required just being present, and patient, both in the act of writing, but also in the scenes themselves - the prose, the dialogue. I was really happy with the book when I came out of the tunnel and the story seemed to have absorbed what it needed.

When you were writing the book, did you feel any pressure from the acclaim for Gifted?

I thought there was no pressure because I take 'media intervention' with a pinch of salt, right? Being listed for prizes is all very nice, but I know how it works in terms of buzz etc, so I didn't take it too seriously. However, I did find myself overwhelmed by the task at hand at times - wanting to do the book justice. The Village was a book I'd wanted to write for many years after visiting an open prison in India, and I wrote it in response to the dissonant feeling that the place aroused in me. It was an attempt to understand the place in the way that only fiction allows sometimes.

Set the scene for us. Tell us about The Village.

A BBC tv crew descend on a prison village in India where all the inmates have committed murder and live with their family, coming and going pretty much as they please.

This book has a great sense of humanity and human rights pervading it. Did you visit any open prisons yourself?

...it is a self-sustaining village running on Gandhian principles - a strange and beautiful placeThe book is modelled on a real life place that I've visited a few times in Rajasthan, North India, called Sanganer Open Camp. In the fifty years since it opened, only a handful of prisoners have escaped, and there are no re-offenders on record to date. these statistics confused and troubled me when I first visited. What did it say about punishment and rehabilitation? Male inmates are made to support their families (and reunited with them after a 6-year term in a conventional prison ) as a condition of entry into the place - you see them sending their children to school, eating together on the floors of the huts that they have built themselves or in the courtyards. The taxpayer pays nothing - it is a self-sustaining village running on Gandhian principles - a strange and beautiful place. You can't help thinking about the victims when you are there - the families who can never be reunited with the spouse or child or sibling who has been lost due to the crime. And yet when you crush re-offending figures so they are negligible? The place demands consideration.

Can you tell us a bit about your charitable work?

That sounds rather grand! I offer time or a bit of writing whenever I have the chance to do it. So it is a lot less impressive than being an ambassador. I am privileged to be linked to The Dalit Foundation, an organisation that campaigns for equality for those at the bottom of the ladder in India in terms of status and income - the Dalit community. And I'm involved with the policy council for Liberty in the UK, who are working hard to make sure we retain our basic human rights in this country, in spite of class or background.

You have to be careful what you read sometimes whilst writing, draw a circle around yourself or be damned.What did you read when you were writing the book?

I was reading a few things over and over again - strange, unnerving books that may or may not have affected the novel: In a Free State by V S Naipaul, Waiting for the Barbarians by J M Coetzee, Winter in July by Doris Lessing, The Hunters by James Salter, stories by Colette. At one point I read a lot of Javier Marias and started going totally off road, finding myself and my passages of fancy highly amusing, then realising that I'd written a pile of tosh, which I had to cut pretty drastically! You have to be careful what you read sometimes whilst writing, draw a circle around yourself or be damned.

Do you have a solution to the oft-claimed statement that 'people are reading less'?

Well statements like that are so bizarre, because of course everyone is online now. So text is a part of life, even if it doesn't conform to the printed book format that these surveys demand. Regarding books - whether printed or ebooks, I don't know the figures but one thing in this country at any rate would obviously be to keep the local libraries open, well-stocked and attuned to changing technology. If they disappear then I do believe we'll enter a game-shifting paradigm, in terms of access to books being drawn along economic lines. At the moment you can order in books you might want to read at your local library for free, even if they don't have them in stock. It's an impressive state of affairs.

Summer approaches, so what would be the perfect companion to The Village to take away?

I'd take The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant. Cut glass pieces from a writer at the top of her game.

The Village by Nikita Lalwani is out now on Viking/Penguin in the UK.

It will be reviewed in July.