Not limited by genres

Their books might be slotted under strict genres, but writers Anuja Chauhan, Samit Basu and Zac O’Yeah don’t let the ‘genre-fication’ of their work act as any deterrent. “For me there are only two genres of books - Gleam or Glaze. Does the reader’s eyes gleam or glaze while reading my book, that matters to me,” was Basu’s reaction while Anuja Chauhan believes that “genres really do not matter to the reader”.“When I’m asked about what kind of books I write, I say I write bestsellers. Slotting books into genres is more a publisher’s thing than a writer’s thing,” she added.
Conversely, getting slotted into a genre helped O’Yeah, a lover of thriller novels, find his groove “after being misguided by my creative writing teachers to write serious fiction”. He said, “After I wrote a dark and depressing first novel, which was not received well, that’s when I realised it was a better idea to create my voice within the crime fiction category.”
While it may be a writer’s prerogative to write what she wants without subscribing to the dictates of any genre, surely, their readers’ expectations are factored in somewhere? Samit Basu said, “The challenge for me is not about concerning myself with my reader’s expectations. It’s more to do with what I want to do next. I’m on my ninth book and as a writer, my objective is to continue to maintain this momentum when I’m working on my 12th or 13th book as well.” While writing for Chauhan is a personal experience where she’s writing it for herself first, she admits to hating it when “my favourite authors switch genres and write something different.”