Interview with Anoushka Poddar, Author of A Thousand Dawns

Anoushka Poddar discusses A Thousand Dawns, feminist retellings, Bengali folklore, complex women characters, and her journey as a young author.
on Jun 22, 2026

Frontlist: A Thousand Dawns retells a Bengali folktale that most readers outside Bengal may never have encountered. What was it like to be both a cultural preservationist and a reimaginer at the same time - did those two roles ever pull against each other?

Anoushka: I think it was difficult for sure, because I was always trying to find the balance between preservation and adaptation, keeping intact the details and events and characters that were true to the original story and narrative, but also changing it and making it a more feminist and equal retelling. These roles definitely conflicted sometimes since I would have to find concrete middle ground, but I think overall, I managed to maintain a balance between the two through constantly looking over my work and comparing it to the original narrative while also keeping in mind what new ideas and concepts I was adding.  

Frontlist: You've said the original folktale had several women who were unnamed and unexplored. When you finally gave Aarin and Hemaprabha their full interior lives, was there a moment that surprised even you - where a character took the story somewhere you hadn't planned? 

Anoushka: Initially, I was going to make Hemaprabha the typical villain—harming others for vengeance and never truly caring for others. However, as I began writing her, I slowly realised that I, myself, was falling victim to the same system that had villainised her to such an extent in the original folktale, simply viewing her as a one-dimensional character rather than a scorned woman with her own relationships, motivations, and conflicts. I didn’t intend for her to have such a deep relationship with Dalim, almost viewing him as her own son, and I didn’t intend for her to fall to such an extent, but I think altogether, she was my favourite character to write simply because of all the complexities that surrounded her.  

Frontlist: The relationship between Aarin and Hemaprabha moves from potential sisterhood to betrayal. In a book that champions women's voices, why was it important to you not to shy away from women as each other's antagonists? 

Anoushka: I think it was important because, while women are often pitted against one another by the societies and systems around them, that rivalry is also a reality many women have had to navigate throughout history. I didn't want to present women as perfect or morally superior simply because the book is feminist. Instead, I wanted to portray them as fully human, capable of kindness and solidarity, but also jealousy, ambition, mistakes, and failure. I think showing these flaws ultimately humanises female characters and allows women and girls to see that they don't need to be perfect all the time to be worthy of empathy or understanding. 

Frontlist: You're 17 and this is your fourth book. At what point did you stop thinking of writing as something you could do and start thinking of it as something you had to do? 

Anoushka: I think that shift happened when I started writing longer pieces and, more importantly, writing the stories I wanted to tell rather than writing for school prompts or assignments. Writing became a way for me to express myself and explore ideas that I couldn't always articulate otherwise. Over time, stories began appearing everywhere in conversations, in history, in everyday moments, and I found myself constantly imagining narratives and characters. At a certain point, writing stopped feeling like a hobby and started feeling like something I needed to do in order to make sense of the world around me. 

Frontlist: Dalim - torn between two mothers - sits at the emotional heart of the novel. Did writing him change how you think about the way sons are shaped by the women around them, especially in the context of Indian family structures? 

Anoushka: It definitely did. In many traditional Indian family structures, sons are often given greater social importance, while the women around them can be overlooked despite playing such a significant role in shaping who they become. Through Dalim, I wanted to explore the idea that no one is raised in isolation. His identity is shaped by the women in his life—his mothers, and later his wife and each of them influences him in different ways. Writing him reminded me that it truly takes a village to raise a person, and in Dalim's case, that village is largely made up of women who both support him and challenge him throughout his life. 

Frontlist: Feminist retellings of mythology and folklore are having a real moment in Indian writing in English right now. Do you think there's a risk of the genre becoming formulaic, and how did you consciously try to avoid that with this book? 

Anoushka: I think there is definitely a risk of that happening if retellings become simply rewriting a familiar story without engaging with its deeper complexities. For me, a retelling should have a clear purpose. It should be asking a question, addressing an issue, or exploring a perspective that the original narrative overlooked. Otherwise, there is little reason to alter a story that has already endured for generations. What keeps the genre fresh is the diversity of viewpoints that writers bring to it. With A Thousand Dawns, I tried to avoid becoming formulaic by focusing on a specific issue that interested me: the portrayal of women and the relationships between them. I also introduced a small number of non-canonical events that allowed me to explore those themes while remaining respectful to the spirit of the original folktale 

Frontlist: The title A Thousand Dawns carries a strong sense of persistence and renewal. Without giving too much away - what does the dawn represent by the end of the story, and did that meaning shift as you wrote it? 

Anoushka: The dawn initially represented something quite literal: the countless mornings that pass while Aarin waits for Dalim's return. As I continued writing, however, it gradually took on a broader meaning. It came to represent hope, resilience, and the possibility of change, even after long periods of hardship. By the end of the novel, the dawn also reflects my belief in the inevitability of better representation, and support among women, even if progress is often slow. In many ways, the meaning evolved alongside the story itself, becoming not just about waiting for someone else, but about learning to be kinder to oneself and to the women whose lives and experiences inspired the narrative. 

Frontlist: You're interested in short films and documentaries alongside writing. If A Thousand Dawns were adapted into a visual medium, what would be the one scene or image you'd most want an audience to see rather than read? 

Anoushka: I would probably choose Hemaprabha's emotional breakdown toward the end of the novel. It's a scene that relies heavily on atmosphere and feeling, which I think visual media can capture particularly well. Through lighting, sound design, camera work, and performance, an adaptation could convey her growing anxiety and sense of unease in ways that are difficult to replicate on the page. I love how film can communicate subtle emotional shifts—the feeling that something is wrong even though you can’t really point it out, and I think that scene would benefit enormously from that.