No romantasy for Balli Kaur Jaswal

Singapore author Balli Kaur Jaswal has experimented with subject and genre in her five published novels, but she is almost certain she will never write in the romantasy mode.

- Clement Yong Correspondent

The revelation comes with her first venture into young adult fiction, The Unpronounceable, scheduled for release in October 2026. An Indian-Australian teenager with a “really ridiculously difficult to pronounce name” follows the path determined by her pragmatic parents to mathematics and science school until she discovers art through a painting.

Jaswal offers a glimpse of young adult fiction’s current publishing pressures during her Salon session for the 2025 Singapore Writers Festival. During the pitching process, several editors said they did not want to see the manuscript unless “there were dragons in it - and there has to be sex”.

She says at Capella Singapore on Nov 13: “It’s not actually young adults. All of the young women who read Twilight are now in their 20s and 30s, and they have the purchasing power. I’ve no shade on that genre. Whatever you want to read. But it’s not my thing. I don’t care for it as a reader.”

The author of domestic worker mystery Now You See Us (2023) was speaking to a hyper-interested audience in an intimate $40 session accompanied by canapes and drinks.

She was smoothly moderated by fellow author Daryl Qilin Yam, who was also the copy-editor of her doctorate thesis.