The Early Bloomer

Joseph has been compared with novelist Amit Chaudhuri,who incidentally heads creative writing at the University of East Anglia,where Joseph completed her post-graduation in 2008. “He is one of the three writers whose work I admire the most,” she says over the phone from London,“the other two being RK Narayan and Upamanyu Chatterjee.”

The Telegraph’s list,where Joseph appears alongside Zadie Smith and Sarah Hall and the only other Indian on the list,Rana Dasagupta,is meant to counter the New Yorker’s list of 20 under 40. “I’m not quite sure how my book made it to the list. It’s a mystery to me and my editor Mark Richards of Fourth Estate. He said that it might become one of the 20 books to watch out for this summer,not this! It was slightly surreal amd totally unexpected,but it feels great,” says Joseph.

Her novel is set in her hometown Mumbai. The protagonist Mohan is a 50-something letter writer who sits outside the Mumbai GPO and is interested in second-hand books from the Flora Fountain. In his house in a suburban colony,he’s soon joined by his nephew,Ashish,a diffident,sexually uncertain 19-year-old.

Is the heightened literary status frightening? “I am not really worried about that and anyway,it’s too late to run back.” says Joseph,whose writer’s desk is the laptop propped up on her bed.

The novel will be published in India by HarperCollins.