It is no surprise that books by Saumya Dave have an emotional impact.
The New York-based author, psychiatrist and mental health advocate uses her immense knowledge to create compelling stories connected to the human psyche.
For her latest novel, The Guilt Pill, she presents a unique story of a working mother and wife who seems to have everything, but is in fact constantly swimming against the tide and struggling to stay afloat.
She is offered a solution – a magic pill that removes all guilt and enables her to be the successful, happy woman projected to the world. As she is propelled down a guilt-free rabbit hole, her life takes a potentially dangerous turn.
Eastern Eye caught up with the writer to find out more about The Guilt Pill, which has been described as a feminist exploration of motherhood, race, ambition, and how the world treats ambitious women. She also revealed her inspirations and what makes for a great story.
'The Guilt Pill' her latest booksaumyadave.com
What first connected you to writing?
Reading. My parents worked around the clock in the first years we moved to the United States. As an immigrant and child of immigrants, I was curious about the world around me. I also spent a lot of time by myself. Reading was a way for me to escape and feel anchored at the same time. I loved series – Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley. Staying with different groups of friends helped me feel less alone and, over time, taught me about people living differently from me.
What inspired your new novel?
My first child turned three months old in March 2020.
I felt like I was introduced to new motherhood in a pressure cooker. The fear of an unknown virus impacting people around the world, combined with the isolation of new motherhood, took me to emotional places I had never been before. I was craving a story about the overwhelm in parenting – of love, exhaustion, fear and wonder. As I began to read more about the psychological changes that can happen in parenthood, Maya’s story became clearer.
Tell us a little about the story.
The Guilt Pill is about Maya Patel, a CEO, founder and new mother who discovers a supplement that turns off guilt in women. At first, Maya is empowered with the ability to turn off her guilt for hours at a time. She can do it all and feel great about it. But as she becomes addicted to the no-guilt feeling, her life starts to unravel in ways she never could have expected.
How does this compare to the other books you have written?
This is both a departure and has many of the elements of the first two. On the surface, this story has a speculative element and mystery woven throughout it. All my books explore personal relationships and how people discover who they are in the midst of chaos. All three also have an eldest daughter character because that is the type of character I am always drawn to.
Who are you hoping connects to this story?
I hope anyone who has experienced guilt, wondered ‘what if I could selectively control how I feel’, or felt a contradiction of emotions will connect with Maya’s journey. I wrote this because it is the book I craved when I was a new mum and early in my career.
What inspired the interesting title?
I must give full credit to my friend and brilliant author, Leah Konen. My original title was The Mother Who Swallowed Her Guilt. Leah immediately said the title needed to be short and catchy, then suggested The Guilt Pill.
How much does your work as a board-certified psychiatrist and mental health advocate inform your writing?
My work greatly informs my writing. Psychiatry gives me the privilege of learning about people, hearing their stories, and seeing if there is a small way I can provide support. When I began working with new mothers in my private practice, I heard the term ‘mum guilt’ repeatedly. I began to study what went into the idea of ‘mum guilt’ and discovered there are many layers to it.
Are any characters or situations in this book based on real life?
While the book is not autobiographical, many of the conflicts and emotional tensions come from places I have experienced or witnessed in loved ones. The fulfilment and overwhelm of modern parenting, how workplaces treat new parents and caregivers, how relationships change with life transitions – all of these are things I have personally grappled with and wanted to explore in the tech world for Maya.
How do you feel emotionally ahead of a book getting published?
I am feeling a mixture of emotions. Excitement for the book to be in the world, anticipation for what readers will take away from it, relief that the time is almost here after working on it for years, and a sense of surrender. Once it is published, it is no longer fully mine, and I want to hold on to the freedom that comes with that.
What, according to you, makes for a great story?
Immersion. If I can be immersed in a story, whether that is because of excellent character development, a compelling plot, or because I love the world the creator has put me in, I am in.
What do you enjoy reading yourself, and do you have a favourite book?
I love reading across genres. Fiction, of course. Nonfiction focused on mental health and well-being. I also enjoy poetry and essay collections. My favourite poetry collection is What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer.
What inspires you creatively?
Being present in my own life. In our modern world, we have every reason to be distracted. Putting away my phone and truly taking in the moments I am part of – whether that is playing with my kids, taking clinical notes, reading an article about modern motherhood, or watching television with my husband. All those moments have the potential to inspire me if I am open to them.
What can we expect next from you?
My next novel is about women’s anger – what it means, why it is often misjudged, and what can be done when it becomes a source of power. I am also working on a non-fiction book.
Why should we all pick up your new book?
One of the kindest descriptions I heard about The Guilt Pill is from my amazing UK editor, Keshini Naidoo, during our first call – “The Guilt Pill is a book that explores important issues with the pulse of a thriller.” My hope is that readers find a story that entertains and provides empathy for caregivers, self-identified people-pleasers, or anyone feeling overwhelmed in their roles.
The Guilt Pill by Saumya Dave was published last Monday (7)
ARUNDHATI ROY’S forthcoming memoir, Mother Mary Comes To Me, is about the author’s close but fraught relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, whose death in 2022 her daughter has likened to “being hit by a truck”.
Mary Roy, who insisted her children call her “Mrs Roy” in school, belonged to the Syrian Christian community. She does not seem a very nice person.
The Financial Times, which interviewed Arundhati at her home in Delhi, reveals: “In an episode to which the writer makes oblique reference early in the book but withholds until later — because of the pain it caused — she returned from boarding school for the holidays, aged 13, to find that Mrs Roy had had her beloved pet dog, Dido, shot and buried as ‘a kind of honour killing’ after Dido mated with an unknown street dog.”
In 1996, someone tipped me off that a publisher had won an auction by paying £1 million for The God of Small Things by an unknown Indian writer. This was unprecedented for a debut novel. But the buzz among the bidders was that the novel was a possible contender for the Booker Prize.
As I was writing my story at the Daily Telegraph, the night editor, Andrew Hutchinson, leant over and quipped: “Writing about your sister again?” As we know, Arundhati Roy did win the Booker in 1997. I had actually met Arundhati two years previously when she had stuck up for Phoolan Devi, the subject of Shekhar Kapur’s movie, Bandit Queen, based on Mala Sen’s biography.
Phoolan had been repeatedly raped by upper class Thakurs (the men were later lined up in the village of Behmai and executed by Phoolan’s gang in 1981). The film was exploitative, claimed Arundhati, because for Phoolan, it was like being raped again. She wrote a piece in Sunday in Calcutta (now Kolkata), headlined, “The Indian rape trick”.
Mala arranged for me to interview Phoolan who was refusing to talk to Channel 4 which was making a documentary in India on the controversial movie. In public, she supported Arundhati, but behind the scenes did a deal with C4 which paid her £40,000.
The FT interview says Arundhati “left home at 16, putting the length of the subcontinent between her mother in Kerala and herself in New Delhi, where she was admitted as one of the few women students at the School of Planning and Architecture. ‘I left in order to be able to continue to love her, because I knew she would destroy me if I stayed,’ she says.
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First edition of The Hobbit sold for £43,000 by Auctioneum in Bristol.
Only 1,500 copies were printed in 1937; few hundred believed to survive.
Book was found during a routine house clearance without a dust jacket.
Bound in light green cloth, it features original black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien.
Copy once belonged to the family library of Oxford botanist Hubert Priestley.
A rare first edition of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit has sold for £43,000 at auction after being discovered during a house clearance in Bristol. The copy, uncovered by Auctioneum, was part of the original 1937 print run of 1,500 copies and is considered “unimaginably rare”, with only a few hundred believed to still exist.
The book was bought by a private collector based in the UK. Auctioneum, which handled the sale, noted that bidding came from across the globe, pushing the final sale price to more than four times the original estimate.
Discovered on an ordinary bookcase
The copy was found without a dust jacket on what was described as a “run-of-the-mill bookcase”. Caitlin Riley, Auctioneum’s rare books specialist, recognised the value immediately upon examining the book.
“It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition,” Riley said. “It’s a wonderful result for a very special book.”
Bound in light green cloth with black lettering, the edition features black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien himself, who was then a professor at the University of Oxford.
Historical connection to Oxford
This laid the foundation for his epic sequel, The Lord of the RingsAuctioneum
Auctioneum said the book was part of the family library of Hubert Priestley, a botanist linked to Oxford and the brother of Sir Raymond Edward Priestley, an Antarctic explorer and geologist. It is believed that the Priestley family had personal or academic ties with Tolkien, and possibly CS Lewis, who was also part of Oxford’s literary circle.
High-value collector’s item
Tolkien’s The Hobbit has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and laid the foundation for his epic sequel, The Lord of the Rings. First editions of The Hobbit are in high demand; in 2015, a copy featuring a handwritten note by Tolkien in Elvish fetched £137,000 at Sotheby’s.
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Reeta Chakrabarti with her ACTA trophy for Best Presenter
REETA CHAKRABARTI is wonderfully eloquent when talking to Eastern Eye about her debut novel, Finding Belle, which she says has been “inspired” by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre “rather than a retelling of the classic published in 1847”.
To most people in Britain – and indeed across the world – Reeta is the calm, authoritative, reassuring presence on the BBC, which she joined in 1994. Indeed, in March this year she was named “Best Presenter” in Eastern Eye’s Arts, Culture & Theatre Awards (ACTA). After speaking to Eastern Eye last Tuesday (15), she headed back to Broadcasting House to front the BBC’s flagship News at Ten as chief presenter.
A different picture of Reeta emerges as she talks about Finding Belle, which is quite a dark novel that tells of the effect of schizophrenia on Belle, an Indian woman who has met and married a handsome Englishman, Fairfax, in Mombasa, before uprooting to suburban England. The tale is told by their daughter Mivvi, who witnesses the collapse of her parents’ marriage and her mother’s descent into almost a kind of madness. Belle also miscarries. What makes everything worse is Fairfax’s infidelity and cruel refusal to give his wife medical treatment.
Chakrabarti as a seven-year-old in Kolkata
At school, Mivvi is humiliated by a couple of blonde twins, who chant, “Mivvi! Superstar! How many boys have you kissed so far? 24? Maybe more? Ten on the bed and the rest on the floor!”, adding, “Paki! Paki! Blackie, Mivvi, Paki!”
She was “determined to be Daddy’s daughter, not Mama’s,” but, alas, all the soap in the world cannot make her complexion fair and lovely.
Reeta said she has always been a bookworm and read Jane Eyre at the age of eight. Five novels she would take to a desert island would include Jane Eyre, along with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus; Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro; Tender Is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald; and George Eliot’s Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life. She considered herself to be “an author in search of a novel”. During Covid, she realised it was “now and never”.
She said Jane Eyre “is the book I have read most”. When she was growing up, she was “consumed by the romance between Jane and Rochester”.
“But then as I got older, I started to think Rochester is quite a bastard because he locks up his wife in a cellar. She’s ill, very ill, but instead of finding a treatment, he locks her up. Then he leads Jane a merry dance. The themes within Jane Eyre are of secrecy, a marriage where the wife becomes very mentally ill and is hidden away. She’s a shameful secret, and our attitudes to mental illness these days are entirely different. So that’s where my novel comes from. Schizophrenia is a particular form of psychosis whereby somebody, who may lead their lives fairly normally, can have delusions so they hear voices or imagine scenarios that are not real. This is the condition that I decided to give my fictional character, based on the classical reference to Bertha from Jane Eyre.”
Finding Belle “is not ultimately a bleak novel”, she said.
Mivvi, a bright girl at school, goes off to Bristol to study French (Reeta herself read English and French at Exeter College, Oxford) and finds friendship and marriage with an Indian boy, Ashish. After they have a baby, there is a brief sojourn through Kolkata, a city Reeta knows well.
Reeta’s father, Bidhan Kumar Chakrabarti, a junior doctor, and mother, Ruma, a civil servant, arrived in Britain in 1960. Now 90, her father worked for the NHS, ending up as a surgeon. Her mother passed away in 2016. Reeta’s younger sister, Lolita Chakrabarti, is the wellknown actress and writer (she adapted Life of Pi for the West End).
“My father particularly was very ambitious for me,” said Reeta. “He wanted me to be a doctor and continue the tradition because his father was a doctor and his father was a doctor and his father was a doctor. His older brother was a doctor. I was quite happy to continue the line. Then one day, he took me to theatre to see an operation. I was 13, and he was operating, and I remember being very overcome by the environment, and I fainted to his mortification.” However, he was “over the moon” when Reeta got into Oxford.
In Finding Belle, she initially set Mivvi’s childhood in the 1990s but pushed it back into the 1970s at her editor’s suggestion to reflect her own schooldays.
Although born in London, Reeta moved when she was five to Birmingham, where she attended various state schools before joining King Edward VI High School for Girls.
“1970s Britain was a harsher, cruder place when it came to race,” she said. “I was brought up in Birmingham and although I did not experience very harsh racism there was a lot of teasing at school. This was a few years after Enoch Powell’s (1968 ‘Rivers of blood’) speech, the National Front was quite strong there. Football hooliganism was quite tainted by racism. This is the atmosphere I was trying to recreate from my memory of being a child in the 1970s.”
Chakrabarti holding her book Finding Belle
Her parents did consider returning to Kolkata.
“We made two attempts to live there,” she remembered, “once just for a few months, then for 18 months. When I was 15, we went back to Kolkata. Until I was 16 and a half, I went to the international school there. I did my O levels there. So, I know Kolkata quite well. I still go back quite regularly now. My uncles, aunties, and cousins are all there. And the descriptions that I have of Kolkata towards the end of the novel are very much my accumulated feelings about the city.” In Kolkata she is happy not to be treated as the big BBC star from London but instead, “I am somebody’s niece, the eldest in our group of cousins. These are important relationships for me. My uncles range from their late seventies to mid-nineties. I feel close to them. I feel my Bengali identity increasingly strongly.”In the 1970s, she, like other Asians or Afro-Caribbeans, felt “a strong need to assimilate and be British. I see younger colleagues who don’t feel the need to assimilate in quite the same way. They can have mixed dual heritage much more openly. I can, too, now. Is that a function of changing society or is that because I am older and more confident? I am at the stage where my Indian heritage is very important to me, and so I go back frequently. My three children are British. I use the word British (rather than English) because my husband is Scottish. My children were born here. They are mixed race. They are part of the new Britain.
Chakrabarti at Exeter College, Oxford
“When I was a child, I used to be teased for having Chakrabarti as a surname. It’s now part of the national fabric. People know how to spell it as well.”
She would encourage young people, especially Asians, to go into journalism: “It’s a fantastic career. Some people say it’s an uncertain career, but I’m a great optimist. Each generation remakes an industry for themselves, don’t they? We’re some way from being as integrated and as equal as we should be, but we are so much better than we used to be. I’m, by and large, very proud of the way in which the country has developed.”
n Finding Belle is published by HarperCollins. £16.9
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The controversy, now widely referred to as The Salt Path scandal
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn calls media claims “highly misleading”
Allegations published in The Observer raise doubts about key memoir details
PSPA charity ends relationship with Winn and her husband Moth
Winn pulls out of Saltlines tour but is still scheduled for literary events
Author rejects claims as legal advice sought
Raynor Winn, the author of the best-selling memoir The Salt Path, has strongly denied accusations that parts of her book are fabricated, describing recent media coverage as “highly misleading” and confirming that she and her husband are taking legal advice.
The controversy, now widely referred to as The Salt Path scandal, follows an Observer report that disputes aspects of the memoir’s central narrative, including the timeline and medical diagnosis that prompted the journey at the heart of the book.
Winn has previously said that the story is based on detailed notes taken during a 630-mile walk along the South West Coast Path, undertaken after the couple lost their farm and Moth, her husband, was diagnosed with the neurological condition Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
Memoir defended as a “true story”
In a statement to Sky News, Winn said: “The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey.”
She added that, due to legal advice, the couple would not be making further public comment at this time.
PSPA severs ties over unanswered questions
In response to the media coverage, the Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Association (PSPA), which supports individuals affected by CBD and similar conditions, confirmed it had “terminated” its relationship with Raynor and Moth.
In a message to its supporters, the charity said: “Many questions currently remain unanswered,” referencing the uncertainty raised by The Salt Path scandal and the need for clarity.
Tour appearances cancelled
Winn had been due to appear throughout the summer as part of Saltlines, a spoken-word and music collaboration with the Gigspanner Big Band. However, the band announced via social media that she would no longer take part in the tour.
Despite this, she remains listed for several upcoming events including literary festivals, creative writing courses, and author Q&As.
A publishing success and a film adaptation
Since its publication in 2018, The Salt Path has sold over a million copies worldwide and spent almost two years on The Sunday Times bestseller list. It is described by publisher Penguin as “an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story.”
The memoir is the first in a planned series of four books centred on nature, walking, and overcoming adversity. The fourth instalment is due to be released in October 2025.
In 2023, a film adaptation starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs was shot across various UK coastal regions and released earlier this year.
Film companies respond to controversy
The producers of the film, Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features, issued a statement distancing the production from the allegations. “The allegations made in The Observer relate to the book and are a matter for the author Raynor Winn,” they said. “We have passed any correspondence relating to the article to Raynor and her agent.”
They added that no claims had been raised at the time of optioning or during production and that standard due diligence was undertaken before adapting the memoir.
Actor Jason Isaacs, who plays Moth in the film, previously told Sky News he had spoken with the couple before filming and described them as “humble” and uninterested in seeking the spotlight. He also called the film “a true, beautiful, real-life love story” and hoped it would encourage empathy toward homeless people.
Publisher contacted for comment
Sky News has contacted Penguin, which published The Salt Path as well as two of Winn’s follow-up works, for comment regarding the allegations now being described as part of The Salt Path scandal.
When Jasbinder Bilan first paused her teaching career to pursue a creative writing degree, she had no idea it would lead to a life-changing breakthrough. What began as a leap of faith became a journey filled with hope, rejection and ultimately triumph. Inspired by her beloved grandmother and her Indian roots, Bilan poured her soul into her debut manuscript Song of the Mountain. Though the publishing world was not immediately ready for her story, perseverance paid off when she won the 2016 Times Chicken House Prize, launching her celebrated writing career. Now, following the success of her Costa Award-winning Asha and the Spirit Bird, Bilan returns with a powerful new historical adventure, Naeli and the Secret Song. In this exclusive interview, she speaks about the emotional inspiration behind the book, her love for young readers and the importance of believing in your voice — no matter how long it takes to be heard.
What first connected you to writing? It was stories more than writing that were my first love. My grandmother, Majee, was the storyteller in our house and it was those bonding moments that sparked my love for creating my own stories. She told me lots of Indian folk tales at bedtime, but she also shared stories of our life in India on the farm near the foothills of the Himalaya. So, I grew up feeling connected to a place that I then filled with my imagination. As a little girl I loved drawing and writing, and always wanted to be a writer, but it took me a long time to make that dream come true.
What led you towards writing children’s books in particular? Although I did not become a published author straight away, I became an English teacher. I was surrounded by children’s literature and of course by young people, so it felt like a natural fit to want to write stories for this age group. At each stage of development there are challenges, and the wonderful thing about stories is that as an author you can really help young people navigate an increasingly complex and difficult world. In each of my stories I create empathy and show my readers how they can be a little braver in their own worlds.
Which of your books is closest to your heart? It has to be Asha and the Spirit Bird, because it is the book that made me a published author and the one inspired by my Majee, who I was very close to. It is also a celebration of my family roots.
Tell us about your new book. My latest book, Naeli and the Secret Song, is another historical adventure with a musical twist. It is set in both Hyderabad, India, and England towards the middle of the 19th century. It follows my main character Naeli as she bravely boards a ship bound for Southampton, in search of her English father. The story has many twists and turns as she explores gas-lit London, armed with her precious violin. With help from a newfound friend, Jack, she follows faint clues that take her as far as the wilds of Northumberland. It is the song her papa taught her that propels her on her quest, and the strange Uncle Daniel she needs to escape.
Naeli and the secret song
What inspired the story? As with many of my stories, the inspiration comes from a very real source. India and Britain have been connected for many hundreds of years, and these connections, as well as being economic, have also been personal. I came across a collection of letters written by a girl called Mary Wilson. She was the daughter of Sir Henry Russell, an officer in the Indian Army. Her mother was Indian. When Sir Henry moved back to England, he arranged for Mary to go too, but he hid his identity from her. Although he supported her financially, he did not want her to know he was her father. These letters show how desperate she was to know him.
What happened next? This gave me the idea for the story. I also wanted to shine a light on the love between the two nations. Hyderabad was a city full of music and literature, and culture is a great connector, so Naeli’s parents were brought together by their passion for music.
You always come up with really interesting titles. What inspired this one? I was looking for a way into this story and came up with the idea of a family mystery hidden by a secret song. There are also misunderstandings in the story, family jealousies and some dastardly goings-on.
Is there a key message you want to convey with this particular book? I wanted to show that the connections between India and Britain are long and strong. As well as the complexities of colonialism, this book explores the things that brought people together at the time. It also highlights the fact that Victorian Britain was a diverse place. I hope readers will see that period in history in a fresh light.
What, according to you, makes for a great children’s book? I would say having characters the reader can identify with and root for. It has to be a page-turner and have an adventure at its heart. I also think there should be a surprise that takes readers to a place they have not been before and makes them think.
What advice would you give parents selecting a book for their children? Try to let the child pick their own books rather than choosing for them. In this way they will develop their own tastes. Reading together is fantastic too. Parents also need to be role models – having family time when everyone reads is something to aim for.
What inspires you creatively? I get my inspiration from lots of different places. I like to have an open mind, walk in nature, visit places and let my mind wander. I find walking my dog is a great way to relax and I usually start thinking of a new story. I have so many ideas — my only problem is finding the time to write them all!
Why do you love being a writer? It was my childhood dream and I never thought someone like me could become a writer. I think of this and realise that if you want to do something, you just have to knock down the obstacles, not take no for an answer and keep going. It is my dream job and I love all the different aspects, especially meeting my readers. I have been lucky enough to have many ‘pinch me’ moments, such as being invited to Buckingham Palace and doing events for Queen Camilla.
Naeli and the Secret Song by Jasbinder Bilan (£7.99, Chicken House) is available now.