Multiple international book award winner Jayanthi Sankar has graced several international panels of literary festivals, including APWT 2018 at Gold Coast and the Asean-India Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Writers Festival. The Singaporean author believes a fiction should always expand the readers’ imagination rather than conclude or get them to agree and that’s why we can’t hear her voice in any of her fiction.
Recently, her readers have been enjoying her recent socio psychological novella, ‘When Will You Die?’ that explores the human psyche. While experimenting with her storytelling, she plays with different perceptions and readers love that. Through that, she also creates so much meta text, leaving the reader with even more scope for imagination. They must decipher for themselves where, why and how they agree or disagree, where, biased or not, where, why and how they love or hate it. Any reader ends up revisiting her beliefs in human minds.
Widely known for her newer, refreshing methods and tools in her storytelling the author plays with her themes and characters in her mind, writing and rewriting, before she crafts her drafts. Stories churn deep in her all the time waiting to be created. Historical fiction, and psychological issues in relationships have been her forte. Her realistic and unique characters peopling the worlds she creates connect instantly with the readers.
Her novel Tabula Rasa talks about how the ancient migrants built Singapore and continue to contribute. The island was like a newborn baby’s mind, so clean by itself, until it started collecting all the impressions of the migrants from many lands, far and near. The novel was a 2022 NYC Big Book Award ‘Distinguished Favourite’ in the category of historical fiction and an ‘Honourable mention’ in the San Francisco Book Fest Award 2022.
The national library board of Singapore played a pivotal role in initiating and shaping the three and a half decades of her literary journey. NLB had also supported and sponsored the venue for her one-day solo art exhibition in 2018 at the central library, which saw 500 visitors of all ages and ethnicities. Around 300 chosen pieces out of her thousand paintings got exhibited.
The novelMisplaced Heads was Eyelands Book Awards 2020 final list of historical fiction in Greece, making its mark as outstanding postmodern historical fiction. It has the backdrop of thousands of years of temple dancers’ tradition. The system, and the community with all the flaws and flaunts have existed gloriously most of the times and struggled at certain other times, depending on the ruler or the dynasty. The deterioration started only after the penetration of the colonial influence into the system and the minds and the system crumbled. The temple centric community genuinely respected the women as they truly deserved, unlike the blind glorification by any contemporary human.
Born the eldest of four children, the author used to be an introvert during her formative years and read less than most children her age, but she became a serious reader after she migrated to Singapore in 1990, and that unexpectedly led her to try writing. Naturally exposed to different cultures and languages, and that prepared her for her life in a multicultural city. Her late engineer father had sensed a writer forming in her, but he wasn’t alive to see her passion for writing transform her into an accomplished author. He didn’t even get to see her first book published.
Dangling Gandhi, her blended collection of short stories touching on topics from colonial to contemporary issues in South Asia, was the winner of the 2020 International Book Award – American Book Fest and the Literary Titan Award in the fiction category. Each of these character-driven short stories with a unique theme has taught her differently. She could explore different ways of storytelling that taught her choosing an angle to the plot, the main character, the content, track, tone, and a lot more.
Jayanthi Sankar derives immense joy from creating platforms for promising beginners and emerging aspirants through collective anthologies and podcast. The Mighty Pen Awardee was also bestowed the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for Contribution to Literature’ by PW Publishing. The author currently works as an English, Tamil, Hindi interpreter with the Ministry of Manpower.