<p>Early in the book, the unnamed protagonist of Stone Yard Devotional (Sceptre, 2023) notes the following about being inside a church. She says, “It’s impossible to see out”. Then, how does one “see the world beyond”? Via the church’s doors, she reflects.</p>.<p>When Simone says that it is a rather “clumsy metaphor”, one is immediately reminded of several such innocent reflections about one’s circumstances. Often, things can appear silly yet profound. A case in point is how the protagonist concludes this thought: “The beauty of being here is largely the silence, after all. Not having to explain, or endlessly converse.” Now, here’s Charlotte Wood’s trademark in this conclusion: her distinct ability to present characters having conversations with themselves in private that speak of a larger silencing, isolation, and aloneness. The meaning isn’t forced; it’s there for readers to discover.</p>.<p>The author, who was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize with her seventh novel and is on the longlist of the 2025 International Dublin Literary Award, was at the Jaipur Literature Festival recently. In a conversation with DHoS, she spoke about her other award-winning title and how layered grief can be. Edited excerpts:</p>.'The Sufi Storyteller' book review: Acts of preservation and rebellion.<p><strong>When you set your characters in a space that’s enclosed, the narrativisation can become static. How can you be inventive in a novel that may appear static?</strong></p>.<p>This was a particular problem with Stone Yard Devotional because the women in the book are in this cloistered monastery, the point of which is stillness and silence, and just a repeated everyday rhythm with no variety or change. But you need to have change and momentum along a narrative path in a novel. In the beginning, it was a big struggle for me to find where this movement or energy was going to come from. I did it partly with different timeframes.</p>.<p><strong>In The Natural Way of Things, you give insights into the unspeakable horror in the lives of these 10 women who have been held captive. How do you ensure that subject matters like these are not trivialised by a voyeuristic gaze?</strong></p>.<p>That was a really big question for me when I was writing The Natural Way of Things — how to write about the misogynistic behaviour of men and our culture without becoming titillating about it. I had to write it so that it felt upsetting and real, but not to the point where I felt that I was being misogynistic. I had some rules for myself that I would not write about anything graphic about sexual violence, and I think what made that book work was that there was always the threat of that, which could also be just as titillating. So it was difficult, and I’m not sure if I got it right. </p>.<p><strong>In weaving themes like environmental degradation alongside personal tragedies, Stone Yard Devotional becomes a story where there’s grieving for Mother Nature. Was it a conscious decision?</strong></p>.<p>I don’t want to write books that have messages with a capital M. I don’t want to tell anybody what they should think or feel about things. The Natural Way of Things was quite a didactic, sledgehammer kind of book. And I’m glad that I wrote that book because it came out of rage. I didn’t want to write another book like that; instead, I wanted to [explore] a much more morally complex world.</p>.<p class="bodytext">And you’re right in pointing out what’s called ‘Solastalgia’, which is climate grief — a kind of syndrome where you grieve the natural world — with Stone Yard Devotional. [This] was less consciously controlled, though. I didn’t want to wrestle with this idea or control the novel too hard, so what I was doing was: let this happen, or don’t make it happen. And when you let your subconscious come to the fore, it makes those connections without you even realising it. You know, I didn’t think I knew I was writing about my mother and my grief, but I didn’t make the connection with climate grief consciously. But my unconscious was somehow doing it for me. It has taken me a long time to realise that I can trust the unconscious to do this important work that gives depth to the work.</p>
<p>Early in the book, the unnamed protagonist of Stone Yard Devotional (Sceptre, 2023) notes the following about being inside a church. She says, “It’s impossible to see out”. Then, how does one “see the world beyond”? Via the church’s doors, she reflects.</p>.<p>When Simone says that it is a rather “clumsy metaphor”, one is immediately reminded of several such innocent reflections about one’s circumstances. Often, things can appear silly yet profound. A case in point is how the protagonist concludes this thought: “The beauty of being here is largely the silence, after all. Not having to explain, or endlessly converse.” Now, here’s Charlotte Wood’s trademark in this conclusion: her distinct ability to present characters having conversations with themselves in private that speak of a larger silencing, isolation, and aloneness. The meaning isn’t forced; it’s there for readers to discover.</p>.<p>The author, who was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize with her seventh novel and is on the longlist of the 2025 International Dublin Literary Award, was at the Jaipur Literature Festival recently. In a conversation with DHoS, she spoke about her other award-winning title and how layered grief can be. Edited excerpts:</p>.'The Sufi Storyteller' book review: Acts of preservation and rebellion.<p><strong>When you set your characters in a space that’s enclosed, the narrativisation can become static. How can you be inventive in a novel that may appear static?</strong></p>.<p>This was a particular problem with Stone Yard Devotional because the women in the book are in this cloistered monastery, the point of which is stillness and silence, and just a repeated everyday rhythm with no variety or change. But you need to have change and momentum along a narrative path in a novel. In the beginning, it was a big struggle for me to find where this movement or energy was going to come from. I did it partly with different timeframes.</p>.<p><strong>In The Natural Way of Things, you give insights into the unspeakable horror in the lives of these 10 women who have been held captive. How do you ensure that subject matters like these are not trivialised by a voyeuristic gaze?</strong></p>.<p>That was a really big question for me when I was writing The Natural Way of Things — how to write about the misogynistic behaviour of men and our culture without becoming titillating about it. I had to write it so that it felt upsetting and real, but not to the point where I felt that I was being misogynistic. I had some rules for myself that I would not write about anything graphic about sexual violence, and I think what made that book work was that there was always the threat of that, which could also be just as titillating. So it was difficult, and I’m not sure if I got it right. </p>.<p><strong>In weaving themes like environmental degradation alongside personal tragedies, Stone Yard Devotional becomes a story where there’s grieving for Mother Nature. Was it a conscious decision?</strong></p>.<p>I don’t want to write books that have messages with a capital M. I don’t want to tell anybody what they should think or feel about things. The Natural Way of Things was quite a didactic, sledgehammer kind of book. And I’m glad that I wrote that book because it came out of rage. I didn’t want to write another book like that; instead, I wanted to [explore] a much more morally complex world.</p>.<p class="bodytext">And you’re right in pointing out what’s called ‘Solastalgia’, which is climate grief — a kind of syndrome where you grieve the natural world — with Stone Yard Devotional. [This] was less consciously controlled, though. I didn’t want to wrestle with this idea or control the novel too hard, so what I was doing was: let this happen, or don’t make it happen. And when you let your subconscious come to the fore, it makes those connections without you even realising it. You know, I didn’t think I knew I was writing about my mother and my grief, but I didn’t make the connection with climate grief consciously. But my unconscious was somehow doing it for me. It has taken me a long time to realise that I can trust the unconscious to do this important work that gives depth to the work.</p>