What if the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence? What if the story you're too afraid to write is exactly the one the world needs to read? Two longlisted authors walked into this conversation carrying 17 years of publishing and one debut novel between them and somehow, both felt like impostors. @ashwinsanghi (The Ayodhya Alliance) and @arpitagarwal1 (Raw Material) write in completely different worlds, one weaving ancient civilisational mystery into a present-day thriller, the other reversing the Western spy genre lens to put India at the centre. But they arrive at the same place: Indian storytelling has always had the content. What it needs now is the franchise. From the discipline of writing around a career, to the confidence of an unapologetically Indian voice, to a civilisational archive that was shaping global narratives 2,000 years ago, this conversation covers a lot of ground. This conversation comes as a part of the IGF Archer Amish Award for Storytellers (Second Edition), a $25,000 literary prize judged by celebrated authors Jeffrey Archer (@Jeffrey_Archer) and Amish Tripathi (@authoramish), to celebrate talent and the evolution of modern Indian voices. More conversations with the longlisted authors coming soon. #IGFArcherAmishAward #IndianFiction #IndianAuthors #TheIndiaStory #ModernIndianVoices #AshwinSanghi #ArpitAgarwal
