500 Words From...is a series of
guest posts from authors, in which they talk about their recently published
books. Here Olivier Lafont, a Frenchman
whose parents moved him to India as a child, and who is well-known in his
adopted home as an actor, screenwriter, and brand-ambassador, discusses his debut novel, Warrior, which was shortlisted
for the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize.
This high-octane, action-packed adventure story sees the hero, Saam, Shiva's
only earthly demigod child, coming out of hiding in today’s Mumbai. Saam, who
has been living as a watch mender, must pick up arms and take to the road, to
protect mankind against his destructive father. Over three
days, Saam journeys across an India torn by unnatural cataclysms, and into
other realms where the disturbances are just as great. To restore peace Saam
must stoke his consuming hunger for war - but at what cost to himself?
So, over to Olivier…
“It was the summer
after I graduated from university in the USA, and I had just made the rather
momentous decision of not staying in America, not going to the UK or France,
but moving back to India instead to live and work there. I came back home to
Delhi, knowing full well that Mumbai, centre of the Indian film industry, was
my eventual destination. I began to write film screenplays so I would have
material in hand when I reached Mumbai, and the first incarnation of Warrior was one of those.
Back then I didn’t quite imagine that Warrior would be published as a novel by Penguin almost a dozen years later. My idea was to write an originally Indian film that would have the same epic scale and special effects as the big Hollywood summer blockbusters of the time. I was also remembering my first Indian influences, from the time when my family moved from France to Delhi when I was seven. I had read Amar Chitra Katha’s The Mahabharata comics with a great sense of wonder, since they felt so familiar to the European mythologies I had grown up with. So when I created the original story of Warrior I wanted it to also have that very intense family conflict at the centre, all set against this massive epic backdrop of a world at war.
I had always had an interest in
Shiva the God of Destruction, and making Saam a son of Shiva brought a specific
tension to their conflict that I found exciting. In Warrior Saam, an immortal demigod, hates his father,
and has turned his back on his divine origins and powers. When the book starts
Saam is settled in Mumbai today, living a peaceful, ordinary existence with the
woman he loves. Cataclysmic omens begin to manifest all over India, unnatural
cyclones, rains of blood, carnivorous mists, all of which point to one horrific
fact: Shiva has begun his dance of destruction, and will annihilate the
universe in the next three days. It falls upon Saam to take up the sword again
and confront his father to stop the final catastrophe.
It took a fair amount of research
to construct the story, since I liberally dipped into my various interests:
history, geography, metallurgy, physics, philosophy … To me Indian thought has always been beautifully
syncretic, merging disparate and even seemingly opposite fields and thoughts
together. I wanted to show these harmonious dichotomies in Warrior as well, so you’ll see my version of
physics and magic working together, amongst other things.
So just in terms of acquiring and
assimilating knowledge, Warrior was a wonderful
journey. I learned a great deal from my research, and hope that I communicated
all my fascinations in a way that is enthralling for readers. Not that I’m
trying to communicate any message to my readers. Far from it, my singular
purpose with Warrior is to tell an
exciting story, and entertain readers of all kinds.”
