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Archivist of the Human Heart

58:27 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Poet Nikita Gill turns rejection, a viral pile-on and misdiagnosed pain into her life's work.

  1. Rejection is a return, not a verdictDean Atta taught her that rejected work is returned, meaning it has another home or needs more work.
  2. Success arrives late, and that is normalGill hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list with her tenth book, ten years into publishing.
  3. Apologise, make amends, then walk awayShe says the internet looks for a boundary to hate you for, so accountability should end with leaving the fight.
Executive Summary AI
  • Elizabeth Day introduces Nikita Gill, born in Belfast, raised in Kashmir and New Delhi, first published aged 12, later a number one New York Times bestseller whose trilogy's second installment, Styx, The River, is out this autumn.2:32
  • Gill describes a childhood shaped by militarised places, curfews and six or seven bomb scares at the British school in New Delhi over four years, which she only understood as unusual after moving to Britain 15 years ago.10:06
  • She recounts the worst fight of her family's life when she left India to write, seven years of rejections dismissed as "too accessible", and working as a cleaner and carer at the same university where she had studied.19:05
  • A BuzzFeed article took her from about 5,000 to 25,000 Instagram followers overnight and also made her Twitter's main character, and after a comment that people followed her for her looks she did not post a photo of herself for eight or nine years.34:44
  • Her final failure is years of being told her back pain was posture before a scan found scoliosis, and painful cystic acne before a dermatologist sent her for the test that found polycystic ovaries, a condition she says takes ten years to diagnose.46:21
Key Quote
“They're not supposed to be, that's not supposed to be a reason you get a day off school.”
— Nikita Gill10:51
Key Quote
“And the void teaches you so much as a writer.”
— Nikita Gill28:01
Key Quote
“He says, I'm so proud of you, Beta.”
— Nikita Gill30:28