When she was a young girl, Fathi Salim, who was born in Sharjah, moved to Mahé, a district of the Union Territory of Puducherry, bordered on all sides by Kerala. The maternal side of her family had roots there, explains Fathi, whose debut novel, Dechoma and the Women of Mahé, originally published in Malayalam by Mathrubhumi Books in 2022, is set mostly in this picturesque coastal town.

While she couldn’t help but notice how the women of this matrilineal Muslim community of Mahé were often pitted against patriarchal systems, facing more than their fair share of restrictions, what really struck her about them was this: the camaraderie between them and the intensity of their relationships with each other, says the Kozhikode-based author and founder of an NGO focused on educating street children. “They had their own world inside, and they were happy in it. If they encountered problems, they would share them with each other and together find solutions,” she says.

Her observations and memories of her time spent with these women in her formative years have been funnelled into her novel, which has recently been translated into English by J Devika. “Dechoma and the Women of Mahe was not only a literary project for me; it was also a reflective journey which took me through some memories of my childhood that made me smile softly from time to time,” says Fathi, who believes that the mutual trust and intimate relationship that the women of Mahé shared were very different from those elsewhere.

Also read: Why Sally Field is perfect for Netflix’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, according to author Shelby Van Pelt

The book, which mainly focuses on the friendship between a young girl, Umaiba, and Dechoma, who works in her home, unfolds in a fragmented, hopscotch manner, delving into the lives of the various women Umaiba encounters. This structure, says Fathi, was a deliberate choice, not an attempt to be experimental. “Women’s stories aren’t lived in straight lines. They’re interrupted, shared, handed off,” she says, pointing out every chapter of the novel is seen through the lens of a different woman. “We don’t inherit one continuous epic. We inherit whispers, warnings, recipes, secrets—chapter by chapter, woman by woman. I believe fragmentation was the only honest structure here.”

Making Umaiba, a preteen girl, the primary protagonist of the novel, was also “not accidental,” says Fathi. “When you write through the eyes of a child, you are gifted with a narrator who hasn’t yet learned what they are supposed to see. Adults view the world through layers of conditioning, trauma, and societal expectations; a child, however, just looks.” By keeping her view clear-eyed and literal, Umaiba notices the absurdities of gender roles and cultural restrictions without the heavy-handed cynicism of an adult. “She doesn’t see ‘the patriarchy’ as an abstract, looming monster; she just tries to understand why wearing glass bangles and kajal is not just good because it attracts men,” she explains, adding that the naive, matter-of-fact honesty with which Umaiba reports things allows nuance to emerge naturally. “The reader is left to sit with the discomfort of those observations, making the critique far more potent than a lecture would be.”

For her, the true heart of the novel lies in navigating identity and finding one’s voice in a world where the lines between love, culture, and oppression are beautifully, devastatingly blurred. Take, for instance, the men in this novel, who are not inherently evil but rather products of their environment, caught in the same cultural machinery, as Fathi puts it. Using Umaiba’s unfiltered perspective as a frame allows the reader to see the men in her life in their totality—as affectionate fathers, tired uncles, or protective brothers who also happen to uphold or benefit from a broken system.

Also read: Author Sian Hughes on exploring the idea of the invisible middle-aged woman

“When there is an act of violence or oppression, the novel explores it not as an isolated act of a ‘bad man’, but as a systemic symptom. The tragedy isn’t just what happens to the women; it’s also the emotional death of the men who feel compelled to inflict it to maintain their standing or honour,” says Fathi, who has previously published short stories in leading Malayalam newspapers and magazines.

Transitioning from writing short stories to a full-fledged novel was not without its challenges, she admits. “Writing a short story needs intense focus and offers quicker gratification. You can hold the entire architecture of a short story in your head at one time,” she says. The novel, on the other hand, is an exercise in stamina and emotional discipline, she feels. “You will live with the same characters and problems for months, if not years. There is a heavy burden of continuity checks and of pushing through the inevitable “middle-of-the-book blues” when the initial spark of inspiration fades.”

It is not the length of the story that causes apprehension, but rather the honesty that the form demands, she clarifies. “I prioritised perfecting each chapter while ensuring Umaiba’s journey was unbroken and resplendent with quotidian interactions with quirky and vibrant women around her.”

While the Malayalam version of the book, Dechomayum Mahile Pennungalum, went on to become both a commercial and critical success, selling over 10,000 copies and winning the K P Kesava Menon Award in 2024, Fathi didn’t think it would interest anyone beyond the state. But her friend, academic and translator, Devika, insisted on getting the book translated, she says. “She told me that it was something that should be done, because the story had the potential to travel,” recalls Fathi, who is deeply grateful to her translator for expertly capturing the story’s canvas and cadence so well. “The process begins not with a glossary, but with an alignment of voice. The translator has to live inside the text until they understand not just what is being said, but the emotional logic behind why it is being said that way.”

Devika, Fathi says, not just managed to retain hyperlocal expressions, but sometimes chose not to translate at all, leaving certain untranslatable words such as terms of endearment, specific culinary items, local flora, or exclamation fully intact. “It forces the reader to step into the character’s world, rather than dragging the character into theirs. The reader might not know the exact dictionary definition of a local phrase instantly, but through the rhythm of the scene, they feel it,” she believes.

Also read: A vibrant portrait of early-2000s Bengaluru: Good Arguments by Deepika Arwind

While Fathi is still basking in the attention of the recently published translation of her first book, her second novel, Bosthi Jeevan, is already out. She describes it as a book “where I have tried to give a glimpse into the sometimes harrowing experiences of the shadowed fringes of Bengal’s marginalised people.” And yes, she is already thinking about yet another women-focused story from Mahé, a place that she is clearly still fascinated by, “tracing the intimate, pathetic journey of a woman navigating the currents of failure in her marriage,” she says