Bindu Suresh’s novel, The Road Between Us, has been longlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize.

Bindu is the author of the novella 26 Knots (2019). A former journalist, she has written hundreds of articles for various newspapers, including the Montreal Gazette and the Buenos Aires Herald. She has a degree in literature from Columbia University and a medical degree from McGill University, and currently works full-time as a pediatrician. She currently lives in Montreal with her husband, her seven-year-old daughter, and her five-year-old son.

What’s the first piece of writing you had published?

I dabbled in poetry as a teenager before moving definitively into fiction in university. The first piece of writing I had published was the first short story I ever wrote, when I was 18, in Room Magazine.

When did you first come up with the idea for your book?

When I sat down on day one in front of a blank page! I started with the idea of a woman calling a man from her past to ask for a favour. I knew their relationship had been fraught (though not how, or why) and that there was an unwillingness or reticence on her part in having to ask him. This is still the first page of the novel. And then I added more to their story, bit by bit, and brought in the other characters and plotlines as the novel developed.

What advice would you have for someone struggling to make time to write?

First, I would say that I totally get it. I work full-time as a pediatrician in an emergency setting and have two young kids, so writing time always seems to be what gets cut. My solution has been to be really rigorous with the time I have. As a shift worker, sometimes I work in the mornings and sometimes in the evenings, sometimes on weekdays and sometimes on weekends. If I have a number of day shifts in a row, I’ll take advantage of the steady schedule and write in the early morning, say at 5 a.m., before my kids are awake. If I work an evening shift, I can write in the morning when they’re at school. I’ve also learned to start with writing as my first work of the day and leave less intellect-requiring tasks (folding laundry, answering emails…) for the evening. That way, my most energetic self is put towards the work that is most important to me.

What’s the last great book you read by a Canadian author?

Souvankham Thammavongsa’s (yes, a fellow longlistee!) How to Pronounce Knife, which has been out for years, but which I read only recently. I really loved it!

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

For as long as I can remember. It’s probably assumed that I was a doctor first and then came to writing later in life, but the opposite is true. My undergraduate degree is in literature, and my first jobs were in print journalism (for newsweeklies in Ottawa and Calgary, and then the Montreal Gazette, and then the Buenos Aires Herald). In my early twenties, I realized I wasn’t suited for journalism (I liked the writing part, but didn’t have the drive to ‘go and get the story’ that my colleagues had, and which I so admired). So, I was 22, with a few short stories under my belt, just starting to write my first novel. But I knew I needed a job other than writing fiction—to support my writing of fiction—and so I considered the question from scratch. I knew I’d spend at least 40 hours a week doing this other job, and so I wanted to make a considered choice: I wanted a ‘day career’ that was interesting, intellectually stimulating, and helpful to others, so I decided to become a doctor. It sounds like a weird choice, I know. It meant I didn’t write a word for ten years while I went through medical school, residency, and then fellowship, but now I really am able to do both. And I love both—I would still work as a doctor even if I became the most successful writer in the world (though I’d probably drop to part-time!).

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