Writing is, at its Core, Storytelling and Communication

Diksha Basu in conversation with Moni Mohsin

If you’re the sort of person who thinks literature has to be serious to be smart, Moni Mohsin and Diksha Basu are here to lovingly roast you into submission.

Moni, with her legendary Diary of a Social Butterfly columns, has been chronicling the “burgers” of Pakistan with biting satire for years—think Jane Austen in Lahore, but with way more contemporary pizzazz. Diksha, meanwhile, gave us The Windfall and Destination Wedding, novels that peel back the gilded curtain on South Asia’s aspirational middle class with wit, heart, and a healthy dose of champagne.

When these two writers got together in conversation for South Asia Speaks, the result was sparkling, sharp, and laugh-out-loud funny—but also tender, thoughtful, and gorgeously real. Below, we’ve kept the best of their exchange in a punchy Q&A format. Read on for insights about the great machine of the literary industry and the demands it makes upon female writers of colour.