Mona Dash: A Writer’s Secret
Dash strikes that ever-sought after writer’s balance between being true to personal identity and nuanced enough to resonate with a wider audience. Her first novel, ‘Untamed Heart’, tells of a young newlywed, Mohini, who travels the world in order to find herself even as she breaks away from the constraints of her particular marriage, while the author’s latest poetry collection – A Certain Way – was announced at a special poetry reading and awards ceremony – held at the House of Lords recently– wherein the book-loving public attending had the choice to themselves finance the work. “I have been told to make the cultural elements in my stories more exotic, louder, sensational or more community-specific” Dash told us, “but one can only draw from their own experience which is inevitably broad and varied. Who we are isn’t a rigid construct – you can’t predict people on their backgrounds – and I think my writing works because it reflects this: I talk about normal people who are always moving; whether it be through emigration or just travelling, and what they have in common is the journey within themselves.
Read the full interview in Asian Voice.