Bestselling Author Alka Joshi’s New Novel Debuts
Words by Angela Salazar
Alka Joshi didn’t set out to be a writer. But the story she imagined as a could-have-been life for her late mother wouldn’t let go. “You look at your mom, and she's just your mom. Then, all of a sudden, one day she becomes an adult who had a whole life before you ever came along,” Joshi says of her mom, who married at a young age and began a family in India. A former advertising executive, Joshi pursued the pen during the Great Recession and earned an MFA from California College of Arts. Her first novel, “The Henna Artist,” began as her thesis. It evolved into the bestselling Jaipur Trilogy, with a rich tapestry of characters set against the colorful, sensorial backdrop of newly independent India. “The Henna Artist” climbed the New York Times Best Seller list after being named a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick in 2020, and Hollywood came calling soon after. The book was optioned for an episodic TV series.
Now, the Pacific Grove-based author is out with her fourth novel, “Six Days in Bombay,” a riveting, art-world mystery inspired by real life painter Amrita Sher-Gil—the “Frida Kahlo of India.” Joshi recently sat down with her friend and neighbor, book editor Heather Lazare, at Olivia & Daisy Books in Carmel Valley for a wide-ranging conversation as part of the Northern California Writer’s Retreat (which was founded by Lazare). Joshi was the retreat’s author-in-residence, offering advice to aspiring writers—and allowing us the inside scoop on her latest debut.
Bestselling author Alka Joshi's fourth novel, "Six Days in Bombay" (MIRA) is based on real life painter Amrita Sher-Gil (top). All photos courtesy Alka Joshi.
“Six Days in Bombay” is written from the perspective of a nurse who cares for, and bonds with, famous Indian painter Mira Novak, before Novak’s suspicious death in a Bombay hospital. “When she dies, she leaves paintings for the nurse, with a cryptic note that implies the nurse needs to go to Europe, where the painter’s former lovers and friends are, and deliver her paintings to them,” Joshi says. The result is a sweeping journey of self-discovery that takes readers from 1937 Bombay to Istanbul, Prague, Paris, Florence, and London. As with all of Joshi’s novels, the story is an exploration of identity and independence. “You can tackle such big themes in your books. Mine are always focused on women' s right to make their own decisions in their lives, which all started from my mom.”
Look for local appearances by Joshi this summer, with book-tour stops in Carmel and Monterey. Visit alkajoshi.com for dates. <img src="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6457f19f1c1e1601e2c9c3f6/6487a9355b63a6818c705cea_CC-Icon--20.svg"alt="CC"height="20" width="20">