A mysterious box and a letter discovered after her grandmother’s death set Sanya Malik on a journey into her family’s past in Delhi author Atima Mankotia’s latest novel, All That She Left Behind. Moving across three generations of women, the book explores the complicated relationships between mothers, daughters and grandmothers, while examining how memories, secrets and experiences are passed down through families.
Set against the backdrop of Atrauli, Mankotia’s maternal ancestral town, Kannauj and pre-Independence India, the novel brings together elements of mystery and psychological thriller with an exploration of family relationships. For the author, the two have long been intertwined interests.
“I have always been fascinated by relationships — their drama, their emotional complexity, the things people say and, sometimes, the things they leave unsaid,” she says. Growing up, Mankotia was drawn to the works of Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, developing an early interest in mysteries and the anticipation of solving them before reaching the final page. With this book, she wanted to bring together that sense of intrigue with the complexities of human relationships. “Ultimately, I wanted to write the kind of book I love reading: a mystery wrapped in complex relationships,” she adds.
The novel marks a continuation of Mankotia’s engagement with women's experiences, following her earlier works Staring at the Square Moon, which examines the physical, sexual and emotional abuse women experience, and Better Than Sex, a social satire exploring everyday experiences that reveal larger social structures. Her latest work takes a different approach, placing a woman-centred narrative within the framework of a mystery.
The latest book explores three women from different generations, each navigating the expectations and limitations of her time. While the grandmother has had fewer choices, the mother has greater agency but remains influenced by what she has inherited. The granddaughter, meanwhile, grows up believing she can chart her own course, only to discover that individual choices do not necessarily offer complete freedom from the past.
Mankotia was interested in allowing each character to exist beyond her familial role, with distinct desires, fears and contradictions. “What one woman sees as protection, another may experience as control. What one generation accepts as tradition, the next may question,” she says.
One of the central themes running through the narrative is generational trauma and the ways in which experiences are unconsciously carried forward. According to Mankotia, families pass on more than traditions, values and memories. They can also transmit anxieties, fears, expectations and silences.
This is particularly evident in mother-daughter relationships, where affection and conflict often coexist. Drawing from her observations as both a daughter and a mother, the author reflects on how parents may become over-invested in their children's lives, hoping to protect them from mistakes they themselves have made. However, such intentions can sometimes become another form of expectation.
“I do not think breaking a cycle is as simple as deciding to do so. We first have to recognise what we have inherited,” she says, adding that each generation must learn to preserve what is meaningful while questioning the patterns that continue to cause hurt.