Parini Shroff discusses her debut novel, The Bandit Queens

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Parini Shroff has always wanted to be an author. She has been writing stories since she was seven years old and even changed her science major to creative writing, without telling her parents. Now, she is a published author, and she joins us from California to discuss her novel The Bandit Queens. Zoe chats to her about balancing dark humour with serious issues, and just how much of her characters are based on family and friends... BOOK BLURB For Geeta, life as a widow is more peaceful than life as a wife. Until the other women in her village decide they want to be widows, too. Geeta is believed to have killed her vanished husband - a rumour she hasn't bothered trying to correct, because a reputation like that can keep a single woman safe in rural India. But when she's approached for help in ridding another wife of her abusive drunk of a husband, her reluctant agreement sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of all the women in the village.