A Powerful Tale of Two Women, Two Eras, and One Enduring Legacy.
Sydney, Australia – Etched in Gold, the debut historical novel by Sydney-based writer Uma Srinivasan, brings alive a forgotten chapter of South Indian history through the intertwining lives of two courageous women—one from 1610, the other from 2010—each seeking liberation through music, memory, and voice.
Set in Tanjore, 1610, the novel follows Amba, a gifted composer and temple musician, yearning to break free from the constraints of her role. Her life takes a dramatic turn when a Danish ship docks in Tanjore and she catches the eye of King Raghu Nayaka. Drawn into a world of politics, power, and peril, Amba documents the king’s reign—an extraordinary act for a woman of her time—on palm leaves, leaving behind a rare Sanskrit biography of a South Indian ruler.
Four centuries later, Maya, a contemporary musician from Chennai, finds herself creatively stifled in Sydney. On a soul-searching trip through Tanjore, Maya discovers Amba’s forgotten manuscript. The resilience and artistry of this historical figure emboldens Maya to reclaim her own voice and present a bold fusion of South Indian ragas and Western classical music at a Sydney festival.
With echoes of lost trade alliances between Tanjore and Denmark, a Danish fort standing sentinel on India’s Coromandel Coast, and the rediscovery of female authorship buried in history, Etched in Gold is a novel about cultural memory, artistic defiance, and the enduring legacy of women’s voices.
Historical, Literary, South Indian History, History On Lost Surfaces, Dual Timeline
About The Author
Dr Uma Srinivasan writes from the land of the Wangal people in Sydney, Australia.
Born in the temple town of Chidambaram and raised in Mysore, she enjoyed a fulfilling career as a Computer Scientist in both India and Australia before turning to writing full-time.
Her journey into historical fiction began with the English translation of her mother’s Tamil novel, Nandinayakan: A Temple Builder, published in 2015. In 2024, Uma also co-authored the children’s book Chaos in the Gym with her granddaughter, Anika Kuber.
Etched in Gold is her first major historical fiction. Uma is passionate about history written on lost surfaces. Her next work focusses on history recorded on south Indian textile prints
