Some weeks ago, when I was in Delhi, I'd made a plan with fellow writer, Janice Pariat, to view the second part of Vivan Sundaram's retrospective at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. The day was meant to conclude with drinks at Aurobindo Market so that we could go shopping before at Midlands, among the city's best independent bookstores. The owner, always super friendly and generous with debut or young authors, showed Janice a copy of her recent book, The Nine-Chambered Heart, to reassure her that he'd got it on the shelves.

As we were browsing, I was telling Janice about my recent introduction to Diane Athill, thanks to my designer friend, Rukminee Guha Thakurta who gifted me a copy of her Somewhere Towards the End for my birthday. We soon launched into a discussion on how we'd both been tripping on the memoir as a genre, and how so many female writers have been expanding the boundaries of the form, both linguistically and structurally. She mentioned she was currently falling in love with Deborah Levy, Joan Didion and Marguerite Duras. All the while we continued browsing.