The final day of Godrej Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2026 brought writer, playwright and translator Shanta Gokhale into conversation with multilingual actor Sonali Kulkarni for “Booked for Life: The Unbearable Lightness of Reading”. Drawing on Gokhale’s latest works, The Way Home and Of Ancestors and Friends, the conversation explored the books and writers that have influenced her, the experiences that inform her fiction, and the place of language and culture in her writing. Some excerpts:
On language and cultural identity
Reflecting on how her Marathi identity informs her writing, Shanta Gokhale spoke about the relationship between language and cultural identity.
“I can’t take the Marathi-ness out of myself and write in English. I am what I am. The hierarchy of languages we live with is a power hierarchy, with English at the top and Hindi second. But I don’t suffer from that particular complex. I am Marathi. My entire culture is Marathi. Why would I be ashamed of being who I am?”
On the craft of writing
Explaining her approach to dialogue and character development, Shanta Gokhale spoke about the importance of allowing readers to interpret emotions rather than spelling everything out.
“You are not giving the reader the emotion on a plate. You are waiting for them to discover it. You are giving them the space for that discovery. What a character says springs out of an entire situation, and the reader understands those words in that context. If you make the character say ten words more, you are unnecessarily hammering something the reader is sensitive and intelligent enough to have understood.”