PVLF 2025

Interview With Kevin Missal, Author of "Sinbad And The Tomb Of Alexander"

on Oct 13, 2022

Kevin Missal wrote his first book at the age of 14, and at 22, the St Stephens graduate was a bestselling author with the first two books in his Kalki series which were runaway successes. Kevin loves fantasy fiction and has always been a fan of mythology. His books have been featured in publications like the Sunday Guardian, The New Indian Express and Millennium Post. He lives in Gurugram.

Frontlist: You've written several Mythological Fictions till now. According to you, what is the future of Mythological Fiction in India?

Kevin: It's a bright future, and you can see the future right in front of you, especially this season. If you look at it, you can start from the Brahmastra. Then you begin with Adi Purusha, which will be coming in 2023. You can consider the book 'War of Lanka' by Amish Tripathi. You see, other mythology writers will release books around this time.

There's going to be a resurgence, and audible companies have started to work on Mythology. Mythology is a universal genre, especially Hindu mythology, as it discusses themes and concepts that anyone from a 10-year-old to a 100-year-old man can readily understand.

The concept of Mythology is because it's timeless. If I watch the Ramayana on TV, which I used to watch in my childhood days, I would also love to watch it today and never find it boring.

The future of mythology is growing exponentially, and people will invest massive amounts of budgets in it.

Frontlist: You wrote your first book at the age of 14. What inspired you to start writing at such a young age?

Kevin: I don't know where the inception came from. I was constantly exposed to writing because my dad wanted me to be a reader. Hence, I used to play with many action figures when I was 10-11 years old.

I used to make up stories with those action figures. Whenever I used to go and watch a movie, I used to reenact or create more stories. These were the mediums from which inspiration had driven. The affection for storytelling even before writing was there. Then I was exposed to comic books and then books in general; I can also try writing.

As a writer, there's always a hunger to write more, and the story never dies. That's when I continued to write, perseverance kicked in, and things worked out during my book Kalki series.

Frontlist: Why did you decide to write 'Sinbad'? What made you want to write a story about a sailor and add fantasy elements to it? What was your inspiration behind mixing these topics?

Kevin: I've always been a massive fan of Sinbad the Sailor as a Kid, and I used to watch all of Sinbad's movies. I used to watch a lot of fun fantasy movies as well. I was thinking of writing about Aladdin as well.

However, Aladdin books were already available in the market. I wanted to write something not exposed to readers, and the Sinbad character is funny and adventurous. He embodies a lot of swashbuckling action, and one of my favourite movies was Pirates of the Caribbean. So I wanted to give and use that element.

Frontlist: 'Sinbad and The Tomb of Alexander' is a re-imagination of ‘One Thousand and One Nights.’ What would you like to say about it?

Kevin: I took inspiration from ‘One Thousand and One Nights.’ There were two Sinbad that people are aware of, one from ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ and the other from the movies that people have seen. Sinbad was not a very lovely character in ‘One Thousand and One Nights.’ He hated adventurers, someone who didn't like going into the sea and threw his wife into the pit, letting her die.

He was a nasty character in mythology. While in the movies, he showed us this great Savior and seafaring attitude. I was very interested in his character in mythology, what he was to what he had become. Sinbad hated adventure and was too much into food, and loved money. Here Sinbad is like a total hero. I wanted to include both things in one place, especially in the third book, which I'm working on now. In the third book, Sinbad will deal with multiple Sinbad, which means he'll go through a multiverse. He'll be in various realities. And he'll be seeing like other Sinbad.

Frontlist: You're pretty much into Indian mythology. But the Sinbad character comes from Islamic history. What suddenly made you change that you wrote something from Islamic History?

Kevin: I generally didn't want to write something from Islamic History. But since Sinbad was from Islam, I had to. Still, during my History Honours days, I lived Islamic history, I think, the entire Caliphate time. The battles were very intriguing.

The research was already done because I had already given exams on it. I wanted to stay authentic to the characters. By then, India would not have been suited, and people wouldn't have connected to it since Sinbad traditionally is from Islam.

Frontlist: This book is an amalgamation of Mythology and Fantasy. In the future, would you follow this same pursuit, or would you experiment with your genre of writing?

Kevin: Sinbad is more of a passion project. I am sticking to Mythology only, and I won't be doing fantasy, at least for now. My next book, Durga, is very interesting and focuses on collective feminism and this book is absolutely necessary in today's world.

Then the next book that I'm coming out in December - January is Prahlada, the third part of the Samar trilogy. The next one will be Sinbad - Part 3.

Frontlist: In this book, the devil attempts to resurrect himself after being defeated. Is there a reason he wants to conquer the world, or is there no cause, and he just wants to dominate the world?

Kevin: The first instance of the book is that Iblis (Devil) has really risen, and yet the world hasn't ended. The world was supposed to end, and Sinbad was under the impression that he had lost everything. So why hasn't the world ended? What's he up to? So that's the interesting part. And I think, I can't tell, obviously, what Iblis is up to. I think it would be spoiler territory. I like to use tropes which are already existing, like a world-saving trope. Later on, I want things to get twisted.

Frontlist: Everyone has their own perspective on life and sees things through their own lens. The daughter of the King opposes her father and falls in love with a sailor who prevents him from resurrecting. What is the demon king's daughter's perspective on the entire story?

Kevin: Safeena is going through a lot of identity crises. I think that's what makes her attractive because the thing is, she's not someone who's figured it all out. But she wants to give it her best. And after how the second book ended. That book is fascinating. Now you don't know where she's going. And you don't see how she will react, what will be the ending and how the Sinbad and Safina story will transpire. I think our perspective here is that she needs to figure it out. She's giving her best to it and has the people around her to support her.

Frontlist: What advice would you like to give aspiring mythology writers?

Kevin: 1) Write on those characters and concepts which are not known, which are impossible to replicate. Don't go for something which is already done and dusted.

2) Write something that you genuinely believe in. When I write, I truly believe in good vs. evil and how our colleagues talk about atheism. And so, I think it's essential to consider what you're writing and focus on a theme that resonates with you.

3) Make sure you research before writing any concept related to mythology and don't try to disrespect the culture you're writing about.