Anuradha Roy on pottery, people and dogs in her fiction

Anuradha Roy’s new novel, The Earthspinner, is shot through with her trademark subtlety, elegance and lyricism. But I had never dared place one at its centre though I have long wanted to write a novel about a dog that was not a ‘cute’ one,” says Roy. Though there are strands in the novel—including Roy’s love for lost pups and pottery, her other passion—that echo her life, it is no autofiction: “Fiction gives me room to move away from my own life even as it allows me to explore themes that are urgent and important for me.” Roy says she has always thought of writing as a kind of making, like pottery—all-consuming. As with all her novels, Roy is as much attuned to the intricate workings of language and euphonies as she is to silence As the dream of a clay horse on fire—which Roy links with myths about a “submarine horse” that roams the ocean floor—grows statuesque in Elango’s imagination, impelling him to make it a reality, many things obstruct his vision of the mythic horse, from mundane things such as clay supplies and the weather, to complex matters like the forces of hatred within his community. Almost every character in the book experiences loss of some kind but the novel, says Roy, is about survival rather than mourning: “If I can borrow an image from ceramics—pots emerge stronger and their colours and shapes are fully realised only after they are put through fire.” Nawaid Anjum is a Delhi-based culture journalist.