In an exclusive conversation with NewsX in its special segment, NewsX A-list, Author Sabarna Roy shares his literary career and works and how he turned out to become an author.
Sabarna Roy shares with us how he started writing from an early age. “I wrote poems in English and Bengali during my university years between 1984 and 1988. In 1986, my first book which was an anthology of English poems titled Pain was published and it created a stir in the student community of Kolkata. At the end of 1988. I joined the corporate sector and wrote on and off between 2000 to 2005 and I was an oral storyteller.”
Roy talks about the turning point in July 2007 where he felt if he did not write, he might not be able to survive and then started writing very seriously. Roy’s first book titled Pentacles was published in 2010. Talking about how he found his root in literature and writing Roy tells since an early childhood he was interested in interdisciplinary learning. “My engineering studies did not stop me from reading literature, history or other social sciences or to juggle between two professions of being a senior engineering professional and an author seamlessly. If you have the right kind of passion, you will find time otherwise not.”
Sharing his literary feat and published works till date, Roy further adds the themes and subjects he dealt with. “Actually, I have six literary works, till date. They have been critically acclaimed and bestsellers at some point in time. I mostly write about love loss, happiness defeats surrounding my city of Calcutta, or Kolkata in the time span between the 1970s and the present time. In the specific city, the very right, one can find the universal and concerning themes that cities all across the globe are undergoing because of aggressive most modern urbanization.”
Many critics while appreciating his work said that there are so many different layers. Sabarna Roy has captured human emotion, human behaviour very realistically. Talking about his writings and their underlying themes, Roy very beautifully elaborated on many issues any individual might currently be facing. “The underlying theme of my writing is how an individual is being pushed to an order in the rapid hyper modernization and hyper-consumerism. Apart from human and societal decay I also write about ecological and environmental degradation, very passionately.”
Sabarna Roy has published a technical book titled Articles on Ductile Iron Pipelines and Framework Agreement Contracting Methodology where he attempted to elaborate various issues in irrigation application.
Roy to his credit is also a renowned International speaker on matters of ecology on environmental issues. “I must say that I’m a strong believer in the fact that the havoc and mass destruction that has been unleashed on the ecology and environment by humankind in the last 250 years has not happened in the preceding 5000 years of existence. It is time to wake up. Climate change is for real. I’m a strong believer in the Paris Climate accord. It is incumbent on all of us as individuals, communities or nations to incrementally escalate carbon footprint. speak on the subjects, very passionately.”
Sabarna Roy was awarded the Literoma Laureate Award for fiction in 2019 and Literoma Star Achiever Award for 2020. On a concluding note, Roy tells us about his upcoming book which focuses on the pandemic. “I’m presently writing a book on the pandemic and I wish to publish this book around the spring of 2021. This is a book on the human story during the pandemic as I have seen it.”