Incredible adventures, incredible journeys – India and beyond
Incredible India is a new book with words by best-selling author Jasbinder Bilan, celebrating the rich history and culture of India. Jasbinder spoke to Pen&inc. about her fiction and her involvement with Incredible India and why it is so important to bring the story of the country to life for children and young people.
Can you give us a brief introduction to you and your work. I’m Jasbinder Bilan, author of middle- grade adventures: Asha and the Spirit Bird, Tamarind and the Star of Ishta, Aarti and the Blue Gods and India Incredible India, my first non-fiction title. I was born close to the foothills of the Himalaya in rural Punjab on our family farm. When I was 18-months-old, my family moved to Nottingham, where I was brought up. In my work I love creating exciting real-world adventures with a sprinkle of magic that feature brave determined heroes. My debut Asha and the Spirit Bird won The Times /Chicken House Prize 2017 and went on to win the Costa Children’s Book Award 2019. Tamarind and the Star of Ishta won the Indie Book Awards 2021.
Strong girls and adventure feature centre stage in Asha, Tamarind and Aarti – how important is it for you that your readers see these characters and feel that sense of adventure and agency, especially given their South Asian heritage? I think it’s hugely important that all children see themselves reflected in the books they read and when I write I do so from the heart of my eleven-year- old self. I love creating characters that won’t say no to the call of adventure, characters who are complex, kind and
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courageous even though they are also far from perfect. It’s really important to me that Asha, Tamarind and Aarti form great friendships and they are balanced in each story by a boy character – so they have a wide appeal.
My books are also a window into another world, allowing all children to leap through and experience life from a fresh point of view and to go somewhere they might not ordinarily go. I want to show everyone that girls like Asha, Tamarind and Aarti have agency and go on incredible adventures. These are books for all readers and it’s crucial children regardless of background are encouraged to read books like mine, that have characters which reflect our contemporary society. This helps them to develop empathy, challenge stereotypes and realise that these girls are pretty incredible and worth going on an adventure with!
Did you see these types of characters as you were growing up? And, if not, was it something you were aware of at the time – or did you realise later. How does that experience feed into your own writing now?
As a little girl growing up in Nottingham, I was an avid reader and a member of the local library. I don’t
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think I was really aware that none of the books I read reflected my roots or showed someone like me having adventures and fun. In one sense that’s the beauty of reading – I never thought that I was excluded from the incredible worlds of the books I read. It was only when I became an adult and a writer that I became aware of this situation. When you only see white characters in stories you begin to think that stories can only
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