GOSPEL TRUTHS

With his new novel, the increasingly prolific Jeet Thayil brings to the fore women who were once relegated to the peripheries of the Bible

- Bhavya Dore

Poet, writer and musician, Jeet Thayil worked as a journalist for more than two decades and turned to writing fiction in 2006, shooting to fame with Narcopolis, his Booker-prize-nominated debut novel. His latest book, Names of the Women, centres around women characters from the Bible who have been misunderstood or forgotten, and retells familiar stories from fresh perspectives.

How did Names of the Women first take shape?

I’ve been reading the Bible since I was in my teens, as a literary text primarily, and I’ve quoted selections in early poems as a call-and-response device, using the quotes as a grounding element. On a recent reading, it struck me that some of the pivotal stories involve women who are never named or given narrative prominence. I wondered what would happen if a writer were to place the women of the Bible at the centre rather than the periphery of the story. Once that thought occurred to me, everything else fell into place and I wrote the novel very quickly.

How did you decide which women you would feature?