Chennai-bred author wins Singapore award

Aditi’s family is based in Chennai, her father being a banker. She has a Master’s degree in English from the University of Madras, and went on to get a post-graduate degree from the prestigious IIM Ahmedabad. Despite a successful career in finance, she took a break from work to pen her first novel, A Whole Summer Long, which was launched in Chennai in 2012. 

Talking about her award-winning manuscript, she is quoted as having said, “I was chatting with a friend about how there are only a few female superheroes, and from there we went on to what kind of female superhero we’d like to see. The idea just stuck with me and I wanted to write about a girl who doesn’t have any superpowers apart from her smartness and resourcefulness.” 

She submitted her manuscript hours before deadline last September, taking out time at nights and on weekends write. “There were times when I thought I’d never be able to meet the deadline, though I managed it in the end,” said Aditi who has been living in Singapore for the past three years with her engineer husband. 

“I’ve always loved reading and I think writing was a natural progression from that. My earliest serious ambition was to be an author and that stayed with me through everything else I’ve done,” she said. “It’s a real page-turner. I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s also a book that has a subtext of interest in the deep history of India, so the book has a contemporary feel, but it is also rooted in an interest in and love of Indian history,” American historian and author Leonard Marcus, one of the judges for the award, said.

The Scholastic Asian Book Award (SABA) is the joint initiative of the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) and Scholastic Asia. 

The manuscript, to be published by Scholastic Asia, follows Codex “linguist, mathematician and all-round” geek, as she works with Agent Lila Raman to decipher the mysterious script of the Indus Valley civilization, the report said. 

“It can be a challenge... But I wouldn’t change it. I enjoy my job and I love writing,” Aditi said.