Ask the Author: Vaseem Khan
Answered Questions (17)
Vaseem Khan
Thanks, Ray ... I grew up on a diet of science fiction so my first inspirations were Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Greg Bear. I later fell in love with literary fiction where writers like John Irving inspire me – A Prayer for Owen Meany is my favourite amongst novels that aspire to the accolade of ‘Great American novel’. I admire writers who write with courage - I read The Fault in our Stars, and haven’t laughed so much in ages, even though John Green was tackling the subject of teens with terminal cancer – he did such a brilliant job. I am, of course, a fan of crime fiction. Ian Rankin’s Rebus series is wonderful. I love Jeffrey Deaver’s quadrapalegic hero Lincoln Rhymes and his partnership with feisty Amelia Sachs. Deaver is brilliant at putting in twists. But Michael Connelly is my favourite – his L.A. based detective Harry Bosch is my kind of crime fighter – grim, gritty and utterly implacable in his mission. That mission is one that Inspector Chopra identifies with. To pursue justice no matter what it takes, no matter what it costs him personally.
Vaseem Khan
a nice review ... I like this this bit in particular: "A town exists with his name "Canning".... I happen to live in London in an area called Canning Town. What a coincidence!
Vaseem Khan
I read a lot! I have quite a large to be read pile which is constantly added to. I just finished reading Abir Mukherjee's excellent historical crime mystery set in India 'A Necessary Evil.' I have on my kindle Red Rising by Pierce Brown, a teen dystopian novel. Deon Meyer's Cobra - a crime series set in South Africa. 'A Great Reckoning' - another brilliant Inspector Gamache novel by Louise Penny ... and I love literary fiction too, so will be looking out for the Man Booker shortlist, some of which I read every year.
Vaseem Khan
Dear Carol ... thank you so much for your kind words ..I couldnt write these books without your support! These books are my own wonderful memories of India, and its so nice when I get to share them with enthusiastic readers like yourself. By the way, if you who would like to know what I'm up to next, then I send out an email newsletter every three months which I call THE READING ELEPHANT BOOKCLUB and which contains updates on book releases, competitions, extracts from upcoming books, etc.
To register it takes a few seconds via my website here: https://vaseemkhan.com/book-club/
best wishes, Vaseem
To register it takes a few seconds via my website here: https://vaseemkhan.com/book-club/
best wishes, Vaseem
Vaseem Khan
Can there be any better fictional crime fighting couple than Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting? The show made Willis a star, and the will-they, won’t-they romance between the pair has become the stuff of legend. Together they ran Blue Moon Investigations, solving weird and wacky cases, combining drama, comedy, romance, and, occasionally, fantasy.
In the modern era the current champs are Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander – the notorious Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Blomkvist is a crusading journalist and Salander a hacking genius, an aggressive introvert, a bisexual Goth, possessor of an eidetic memory and a traumatic childhood. The partnership is daring, unique, and utterly compelling.
In the modern era the current champs are Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander – the notorious Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Blomkvist is a crusading journalist and Salander a hacking genius, an aggressive introvert, a bisexual Goth, possessor of an eidetic memory and a traumatic childhood. The partnership is daring, unique, and utterly compelling.
Vaseem Khan
Hi Gerry, that's an easy one. Ive always wanted to write literary fiction. My first six (unpublished) novels were all literary novels. They covered a range of themes and were set in a variety of locations. They included a novel about an ageing academic in East London coming to grips with a changing world, and a family saga set in Egypt following three generations of a single family. Im still quietly hoping that one day they will be published!
Vaseem Khan
Hi Felicia. Firstly thank you for reading the first two! And yes, I think Satish has done a wonderful job bringing the books to life. Im so glad you liked them both. As far as I have been told by my publisher the third will be out in May 2017 in the UK and July in the US. Im busy editing the final proofs and we recently decided on a cover - which I absolutely love.
By the way, if you’d like to keep up to date with what I'm up to next, I send out an email newsletter every three months which I call THE READING ELEPHANT BOOKCLUB and which contains updates on book releases, competitions and lots of other interesting stuff – for instance, in the next one will be an exclusive extract from book three.
To register it takes a few seconds via my website here: https://vaseemkhan.com/book-club/
Thank you for all your support - the books couldn't be a success without enthusiastic readers like you! Vaseem
By the way, if you’d like to keep up to date with what I'm up to next, I send out an email newsletter every three months which I call THE READING ELEPHANT BOOKCLUB and which contains updates on book releases, competitions and lots of other interesting stuff – for instance, in the next one will be an exclusive extract from book three.
To register it takes a few seconds via my website here: https://vaseemkhan.com/book-club/
Thank you for all your support - the books couldn't be a success without enthusiastic readers like you! Vaseem
Vaseem Khan
hi Lindsey
Thank you for writing to me and telling me you enjoyed the first two books in the Baby Ganesh series. It's a joy to write about India and these characters and a greater joy to receive feedback from enthusiastic readers such as yourself. My aim was always to take readers on this journey to the heart of modern India, particularly Mumbai, so it's really gratifying when people write to tell me they enjoyed the novels. The books could not be successful without your support!
And yes I am writing more in the series. I am just finishing up the drafts to the third - about the kidnapping of a Bollywood film star, and then Ill being work on the fourth! The publishers are keeping me busy, thanks to all you readers who have helped make the first two so successful.
By the way, if you’d like to keep up to date with what I'm up to next, I send out an email newsletter every three months which I call THE READING ELEPHANT BOOKCLUB and which contains updates on book releases, competitions and lots of other interesting stuff – for instance, in the next one will be an exclusive extract from book three!.
To register it takes a few seconds via my website here:
https://vaseemkhan.com/book-club/
Do pass on to anyone you think may be interested!
warm regards
Vaseem, London
hi Lindsey
Thank you for writing to me and telling me you enjoyed the first two books in the Baby Ganesh series. It's a joy to write about India and these characters and a greater joy to receive feedback from enthusiastic readers such as yourself. My aim was always to take readers on this journey to the heart of modern India, particularly Mumbai, so it's really gratifying when people write to tell me they enjoyed the novels. The books could not be successful without your support!
And yes I am writing more in the series. I am just finishing up the drafts to the third - about the kidnapping of a Bollywood film star, and then Ill being work on the fourth! The publishers are keeping me busy, thanks to all you readers who have helped make the first two so successful.
By the way, if you’d like to keep up to date with what I'm up to next, I send out an email newsletter every three months which I call THE READING ELEPHANT BOOKCLUB and which contains updates on book releases, competitions and lots of other interesting stuff – for instance, in the next one will be an exclusive extract from book three!.
To register it takes a few seconds via my website here:
https://vaseemkhan.com/book-club/
Do pass on to anyone you think may be interested!
warm regards
Vaseem, London
Vaseem Khan
hi Denise, so glad you enjoyed the books. Alas these days I don't get to go to India as much as Id like to. But, as my wife is Indian, and some of my closest friends still live there, I do keep up with the 'Indian news' on a daily basis and all things going on there. I eat Indian food almost every day so no change there. Is Ganesha my best friend? Hmm ... well, let me put it this way - Ganesha is a symbol of the warmth, friendship and love that I received from the many many people I encountered during my ten wonderful years living in India. He reminds me continually that India is vast, mysterious, continually changing, and yet always, at heart, a place of exoticism. And I do love elephants, so long live little Ganesha, I say!
Vaseem Khan
Hi Afshaan,
I am now 42. i went to India aged 23 and returned 10 years later - so I actually spent a decade in India during my most impressionable adult years which is quite a long time. The reason I write about India is because those were the best years of my life. I fell in love with the country, the people and the city of Mumbai. My life there is fondly remembered each and every day - my wife is actually a Mumbaiker who has moved to the UK with me. All my old friends from India are in touch with me on various social media groups - so in many ways it feels like I have never left. As a writer I wanted to explore those wonderful memories; I also knew that there were many people in the west who might like to know what modern India is like and so I decided to take them on this journey with me via my books.
Hope that answers your question. Warm regards, Vaseem
I am now 42. i went to India aged 23 and returned 10 years later - so I actually spent a decade in India during my most impressionable adult years which is quite a long time. The reason I write about India is because those were the best years of my life. I fell in love with the country, the people and the city of Mumbai. My life there is fondly remembered each and every day - my wife is actually a Mumbaiker who has moved to the UK with me. All my old friends from India are in touch with me on various social media groups - so in many ways it feels like I have never left. As a writer I wanted to explore those wonderful memories; I also knew that there were many people in the west who might like to know what modern India is like and so I decided to take them on this journey with me via my books.
Hope that answers your question. Warm regards, Vaseem
Vaseem Khan
Hi Maria
i like the question. i haven't read the mountain shadow, and thats because my view on sequels that are not really part of a series (if you see what i mean) has been tainted by the frankly awful - but massively overpraised - sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. you may disagree, but i thought it was woeful. secondly, although i loved shantaram, i did feel that a stronger editor might have chopped out about 300 pages which would have made it a sharper read - and i certainly didn't buy the whole going to afghanistan bit at the end - pure tosh. so these things coloured my decision ... but if you tell me its utterly incredible i could be persuaded to change my mind! (apologies for bad punctuation but I've been writing all day and haven't the energy!) happy new year.
p.s. the best genuine sequel i have read is The Lord of the Rings - which was actually a sequel to the Hobbit!
i like the question. i haven't read the mountain shadow, and thats because my view on sequels that are not really part of a series (if you see what i mean) has been tainted by the frankly awful - but massively overpraised - sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. you may disagree, but i thought it was woeful. secondly, although i loved shantaram, i did feel that a stronger editor might have chopped out about 300 pages which would have made it a sharper read - and i certainly didn't buy the whole going to afghanistan bit at the end - pure tosh. so these things coloured my decision ... but if you tell me its utterly incredible i could be persuaded to change my mind! (apologies for bad punctuation but I've been writing all day and haven't the energy!) happy new year.
p.s. the best genuine sequel i have read is The Lord of the Rings - which was actually a sequel to the Hobbit!
Vaseem Khan
I have loved literature since I was a boy. I grew up on a diet of science fiction so my first inspirations were Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Greg Bear. I actually wrote a heap of SF stories in my teens – I still have the handwritten drafts. I later fell in love with literary fiction where writers like John Irving inspire me – A Prayer for Owen Meany is my favourite ‘Great American novel’. I admire writers who write with courage – I just read The Help by Kathryn Stockett – about the lives of African-American maids in the American South in the 1960s – and thought it was incredible; the month before I read The Fault in our Stars, and haven’t laughed so much in ages, even though John Green was tackling the subject of teens with terminal cancer – he did such a brilliant job. I got hooked on crime fiction in my twenties and this eventually inspired me to write crime novels. Ian Rankin’s Rebus series is wonderful – I am in awe of how he effortlessly creates a character like Rebus who has so many flaws and yet we are beguiled by him. I love Jeffrey Deaver’s quadrapalegic hero Lincoln Rhymes and his partnership with feisty Amelia Sachs. Deaver is brilliant at putting in twists and I think every young crime author can learn from him. America’s Michael Connelly is my favourite – his L.A. based detective Harry Bosch is my kind of crime fighter – grim, gritty and utterly implacable in his mission. Inspiration is everywhere. If you enjoy writing you will never be short of ideas or motivation.
Vaseem Khan
You could say that 'The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra' was born on the first day I set foot in India. I first went there aged 23. My father was born in India but moved to Pakistan as a boy during Partition. My mother was born in Pakistan and they both came to the UK 40 years ago. I grew up hearing about India and in 1997 the company I was working for secured a contract to work with a 5-star hotel chain based in Mumbai. I remember vividly walking out from Bombay airport, into a wall of sizzling hot air, something I’d never experienced in the east end of London where I grew up. The first thing I saw was a number of lepers and beggars milling about the taxi rank. At the first traffic junction we stopped at there was a thumping on the window. I turned to see a tall well-built gentleman in a sari. My first eunuch. I turned back to the road and there, lumbering through the traffic as cool as you please was an enormous grey Indian elephant with a mahout on its back. This surreal sight stuck with me and eventually became a part of the novel I wrote when I returned to England ten years later.
Vaseem Khan
As I await the hardback release of 'The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra' on August 13th 2015, I am busy working on the next books in the series. I have just completed the draft for the second adventure, which is about the theft of the world’s most famous diamond – the Kohinoor, which was originally mined in India and then ‘presented’ to the British during the days of the Raj. The Kohinoor is currently part of the British Crown Jewels. In the novel the Crown Jewels have been brought to India for a special exhibition. A daring robbery sees the Kohinoor stolen and Inspector Chopra and his partner in ccrime-solving, baby elephant Ganesha are called in to try and recover the great diamond. After that Chopra and Ganesha will be on the trail of a kidnapped Bollywood star, and then, in the fourth episode, they will be travelling outside of Mumbai to Chopra’s ancestral village in Punjab, North India, to try to unravel the mystery of Ganesha’s origins and the disappearance of Chopra’s Uncle Bansi.
Vaseem Khan
For a debut author getting published in today’s fast-changing and challenging publishing environment is harder than the proverbial camel (or camel 2indeed baby elephant) squeezing through the eye of a needle. For me it has taken almost a quarter of a century. The best advice I can give any young writer is to write, write and then, when you’re absolutely sick of it, write some more. The globally bestselling literary author John Irving reveals that a defining moment for him came when another novelist pointed out that ‘anything else you do is going to be vaguely unsatisfying.’ Thus the first thing any writer needs to do is make the mental adjustment from saying I’d like to be a writer to saying I am a writer. The real question you should ask is ‘am I good enough?’. In other words: is my writing of a sufficient standard to put together a well written novel in the genre I want to write in? To answer this you need to be brutally honest with yourselves. Most of us are not.. I wrote my first novel aged 17. I thought it would be a runaway bestseller … it wasn’t. I wrote for 23 years before an agent accepted me. I had a great career in the real world in the meantime, which made it difficult to find time to write but I kept at it, never wavering from my end goal of getting published. I estimate I wrote well over a million words during that period – and completed half-a-dozen novels, garnering more rejection letters than I care to mention. Looking back at my early work I can see how I have become a vastly better writer in terms of the actual quality of the writing but also in terms of pace, plot and characterisation. Unless you are one of the lucky ones who hit instant success your road as a writer will be similar. Never give up.
Vaseem Khan
Who doesn't have a creative side? Writing allows me to express that side of my personality. Sometimes writing is like trying to fight your way out of a dark cellar, with a blindfold on; you can't see where the plot is going, you can't relate to the characters you've created. At other times, the plot is a wild bull you somehow found yourself on, and all you can do is cling on for dear life. That's when writing brings unalloyed joy. And the best part? When readers pat you on the back and quietly tell you 'That'll do. That made my day.'
Vaseem Khan
By playing cricket! I've found that if I'm stuck the lazy uncomplicated somnolence of a game of cricket gets my brain working again. I'm often standing in the outfield when a ball whizzes past me. With my mind full of plot and character I usually don't notice until the bowler starts screaming at me to get after the ball. Whoops.
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