Lakshmi's Secret Diary is a remarkable Indian Francophone novel set in Pondicherry, the former capital of French India, that tells the story of Lakshmi the temple elephant's attempt to escape her fate.
Ari Gautier is an Indian Francophone writer and poet from the former French Indian territory of Pondicherry, now based in Norway. One of the few contemporary Indian writers who adopts French as a primary literary language, he is also the author of the novel Le Thinnai and the short story collection Nocturne Pondichéry.Sheela Mahadevan is lecturer in French and Francophone studies at the University of Liverpool.
