Piu DasGupta
About Author
Our debut author of the month Piu DasGupta introduces her novel, Secrets of the Snakestone.
Piu was born in Calcutta, India and grew up in India and the UK. She studied English at Oxford University and worked in several serious professions and places before following a long-nurtured dream to be a writer in a garret in Paris.
She now lives in Paris although not (thankfully) in a garret, with her family, two cats, and numerous pigeons who flap to the kitchen windowsill for regular snacks. When she finally grows up, she hopes to fulfil her ultimate fantasy and run away to join the circus.
You can find Piu on X @PiuDasGupta1 & Instagram @piudasgupta2023
Interview
Secrets of the Snakestone (Nosy Crow)
March 2024
A stolen gemstone, a secret society and a girl seeking the truth about her missing father.... Secrets of the Snakestone by debut author Piu DasGupta is a rich, pacey story set in the streets and catacombes of 19th century Paris, and with a backstory set in DasGupta's native India.
Piu DasGupta, our debut author of the month, tells us how the catacombs of Paris helped inspire Secrets of the Snakestone, and how she has drawn on her own life for her characters and settings.
Review: 'I found it hugely entertaining and definitely one to share.' Read a Chapter Extract
Q&A with Piu DasGupta, introducing Secrets of the Snakestone
"Children's writing is so much fun, because you can really let your imagination run wild. You can be as crazy as you like!
The only unbreakable rule is never to be boring."
1. Can you tell us about yourself and your life adventures to date?
I was born in Kolkata, India and grew up in India and the UK. I was working as a lawyer in London when I went to Paris one bank holiday weekend, to visit some friends who lived there. I never went back! I started dating one of those friends, who later became my partner. I've lived in Paris for almost twenty years now, it's a city that's become part of my DNA.
2. What brought you into writing for children, and what kinds of books do you like to write?
I write in all sorts of genres - adult and children's, fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry. I think I really like telling stories first and foremost, the format comes later. I was inspired to write children's fiction when I started reading to my own kids. It was a delight to share the classics I had loved as a child with them, but also to discover the many new and brilliant writers.
Children's writing is so much fun, because you can really let your imagination run wild. You can be as crazy as you like! The only unbreakable rule is never to be boring.
'Zélie and Jules embark on a desperate hunt, facing strange riddles, a mysterious circus, and the miles of murky tunnels
that twist beneath the ancient city above...'
3. What happens in your new book, Secrets of the Snakestone?
Secrets of the Snakestone is a twisty gothic adventure for 9+ readers, set in Belle Epoque Paris. It's about a girl called Zélie who is sent from her home in India, for mysterious reasons that become clear later, to work as a maidservant in Paris for a nasty woman called Madame Malaise.
Zélie is often accused of being a witch, but she doesn't believe in magic, until a boy called Jules climbs up from the reeking Parisian sewer and hands her a golden locket he discovered there. The locket once held the magical Snakestone, a cursed gem stolen from India, with potent yet dangerous powers.
Zélie knows that if she can find the Snakestone, she might also find her missing father. But a sinister secret society is equally desperate to get its hands on the stone! With their lives under threat, Zélie and Jules embark on a desperate hunt, facing strange riddles, a mysterious circus, and the miles of murky tunnels that twist beneath the ancient city above...
4. What inspired this story about a precious stone, underground sewers and a secret organisation?
I've always been fascinated by gemstones - as a child, I collected semi-precious stones and spent hours looking up their names and labelling them. I also loved hearing old colonial legends of cursed diamonds stolen from India and transported to Europe - the Hope, the Orlov, and the Koh-i-Noor diamonds in the Crown Jewels, for example. At the Louvre Museum I saw the Régent diamond, mined in India and smuggled to France in someone's shoe! And so, the idea of a cursed gemstone stolen from India and lost on the streets of Paris was born, a stone hunted by a sinister secret society…
'I drew on my experiences of growing up in Calcutta (now Kolkata) to evoke the colours and sounds of India
which permeate the book.'
5. How did your main character, Zélie Dutta, develop? Did you draw on your own childhood to create her?
Zélie is in lots of ways like me - she's of mixed Indian/European descent, loves reading, is obstinate, and quick to jump to conclusions! I drew on my experiences of growing up in Calcutta (now Kolkata) to evoke the colours and sounds of India which permeate the book. Although the primary setting is Paris, India haunts the book in shadowy form like a ghost, through Zélie's memories of home.
6. Why did you want to bring Zélie to Europe, and to Paris, from India? You now live in Paris - what do you love about the city?
I wanted to bring Zélie from India to replicate my, and the diaspora experience generally, of a journey across cultures. Every journey changes you, and although Zélie dislikes Paris and dreams of going home to India, she's not the same person when she returns.
Similarly, every journey in my life has changed me, Paris being no exception. It's a city I've come to love, but my Paris is not a sugar-candy city of romance and macarons. For me, Paris is a gothic and brooding city of twisting alleyways and sinister secrets, where ghosts of the past chatter on street corners. This is the world of Secrets of the Snakestone.
'It was utterly terrifying, and I immediately thought - ooh, what a great location
for a spooky underground adventure!'
7. Can you tell us a little about how you use Paris as the setting of the story, particularly its underground sewers and catacombs?
I discovered the Catacombs of Paris on a visit there with my children. I couldn't believe my eyes - twisting underground passages filled with miles upon miles of bones! When I was there, the group I was with went ahead around a corner, and for a few minutes I was plunged into utter darkness, surrounded by rows of eerie skulls. It was utterly terrifying, and I immediately thought - ooh, what a great location for a spooky underground adventure!
8. What was it like writing an adventure set in the past? What kinds of research did you need to do before writing Secrets of the Snakestone?
I was lucky enough to locate a copy of Baedeker's Guide to Paris from 1895, the year the book is set. I retraced the routes taken by the characters with the guide, and it was fascinating to see how parts of the city had remained virtually unchanged! Baedeker's also gave lots of interesting snippets of information - such as that you could have a cold bath in the Seine for 4 sous. Zélie tells this to Jules when she first meets him, turning up her nose because he works in the sewers and is a bit stinky!
'So many people have asked me if there's going to be a sequel, that I'm thinking of writing one!'
9. Do you have further adventures planned for Zélie, or are you writing other stories? Where and when do you prefer to write?
Secrets of the Snakestone was originally planned as a stand-alone book, but so many people have asked me if there's going to be a sequel, that I'm thinking of writing one! It would be set in the same Gothic Paris, but in a different time period, featuring some of the same (and new) characters.
As to where I write, I generally write in cafés, or at home, where I have a small writing room overlooking the Paris rooftops. It's stuffed full of books - I love to be surrounded by books as I write (in fact, I love to be surrounded by books full stop. I have books in every room of the house - even the bathroom. Books do furnish a room!)
10. What kinds of things do you enjoy doing when you're not writing and are looking for inspiration?
I love reading (like most writers, I expect!). Unsurprisingly, I lean towards the creepy and Gothic - Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca and Neil Gaiman's Coraline are two of my favourite books.
I collect visual images for inspiration - there are certain artists whom I follow on Instagram who give me great ideas for settings, and I also collect ideas on Pinterest moodboards to help construct my worlds.
When I want to completely empty my head of writing-related thoughts, I like to try out new recipes accompanied by music in the kitchen, to inflict on my long-suffering family!
Secrets of the Snakestone
