Boston-based author Sena Desai Gopal is a long-time journalist and first-time novelist. She’s set her debut novel ‘The 86th Village’ in her ancestral village in Karnataka which has been devastated by flooding caused by the Upper Krishna dam project. Hundreds of villages have already been completely submerged, and Sena’s beloved hometown is next. She's taken her skills as a science and travel journalist to the world of fiction in creating what Criminal Element calls one of the “Most Anticipated Mysteries and Thrillers of 2022”.

Join me as Sena and I chat about her idyllic childhood in the village where her novel is set, what large mega-dams often mean for marginalized local communities, and her journalism work on beef exports from India, kebabs in Turkey and much more! Listen now on your favorite podcast app, Spotify or www.theindianedit.com and please take a second to rate us wherever you’re listening so the voices of these inspiring women can be heard all over the world!

SHOWNOTES FOR EPISODE 70:

Find Sena at her website and on instagram

Get yourself a copy of The 86th Village on Bookshop.org and on Amazon.com

Hear more about dams from the BBC or the hilarious and sharp Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness on “Are Dams Cute… Or Not So Cute? with Professor Heather Randell” on the Getting Curious podcast

Sena’s recipes from Peru

BOOKS and MORE:

Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Immigrant Daughter: Stories You Never Told Me by Catherine Kapphahn