Скачать или смотреть Mining History for Fiction a novelist’s account of researching & sifting thru a variety of sources

On Tuesday 8th April 2025 at the Monthly Evening Open Meeting, we were absolutely delighted to host, Cauvery Madhavan, for the second time. Her books Paddy Indian and The Uncoupling were published to critical
acclaim. Her novel, The Tainted, was chosen by Laureate Sebastian Barry for his Laureate Picks 2020. It was one of An Post Irish Book Awards’ Top Summer Reads. Her new book, The Inheritance, has been widely
hailed as a sumptuous, moving evocation of landscape, history and the human spirit. Cauvery’s topic ‘Mining History for Fiction—a novelist’s account of researching and sifting through a variety of sources’ explored the
rigorous research undertaken by a novelist, often over several months or even years, to fully understand, feel and really know the story they are about to write. Cauvery went through her various sources from newspapers, photo
graphs, local histories, military histories and, surprisingly, catalogues and almanacs. These old catalogues from stores in Great Britain, with hundreds of advertisements for household goods, personal items, clothing and all
sorts of implements, provided an invaluable window into the world of her subjects. For her novels concerning life in the “Indian Raj” there advertisements spoke to the aspirations, identities, cultural tastes and social priorities of the settler colonial community and the imperial officials, including military families. Cauvery explained how the different strata of society, including the British officials and military, Anglo-Indians and the wider populations, coexisted with limited and highly controlled interaction. The etymology of the word “doolally” derived from the Deolali transit camp for British soldiers and its subsequent colloquial usage was explained revealing some of the harsh realities of colonial oppression and exploitation. For genealogists researching links to the “Raj” this lecture was hugely informative