Manjiri Prabhu interviewed by Boyd Tonkin

Pioneering Indian mystery writer and filmmaker Manjiri Prabhu talks about her latest novel, Legend of the Snow Queen, a love story and a tale of international conspiracy.

Investigative journalist Re Parker is faced with a dead body and a cryptic message, a hotel about to celebrate the 180th birthday of Sisi, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, and a peace treaty between five European nations about to be signed in the empress’s honour.  A message threatens to disrupt the treaty unless the empress walks the Sisi route again and retrieves a ‘soul-song’. But Sisi has been dead for more than 100 years.

Prabhu is a Pune-based English author, filmmaker and founder-director of Pune International Literary Festival and International Festival of Spiritual India (for Humanity & Wisdom). She is regarded as a pioneer among Indian women writers of mystery fiction and has completed 52 years in the world of writing. Her novels include The Cosmic Clues and The Astral Alibi. She has directed more than 200 children’s television programmes and more than 50 short fiction and travel films.