On the final day of Godrej Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest 2026, writer, playwright and translator Shanta Gokhale sat down with actor Sonali Kulkarni for “Booked for Life: The Unbearable Lightness of Reading”. Drawing on her latest works, The Way Home and Of Ancestors and Friends, the conversation moved through the books and writers that have shaped her, the experiences behind her fiction and the place of language in her work.
Writing as who she is
Gokhale spoke about how her Marathi roots shape everything she writes, even in English. “I can’t take the Marathi-ness out of myself and write in English. I am what I am,” she said. “I am Marathi. My entire culture is Marathi. Why would I be ashamed of being who I am?”
Leaving room for the reader
On dialogue and character, she explained why she trusts readers to find the emotion for themselves: “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.”
Read more from the festival in our Mumbai LitFest 2026 wrap-up and award winners.
Disclaimer: The images used in this article have been provided to The Daily Brunch by Godrej Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest.
