Boris Akunin: A woman who has had enough

Ten or so years ago, I wrote a novel, for which I needed a young villain that could shut any man, and murder committer with a graceful ease of a cat catching a fly.

Just at that time, as if to order, in international news flashed Indian name “Queen of bandits”, and I thought: that’s my source of inspiration. Dozens of corpses, fifty criminal cases – a joke right? But when immersed in the subject, I realized: no, it’s another story. And it is about something else. Not about the cold-blooded artist’s death, but about the woman who once had enough.

She was born in 1963 in a poor village of Uttar Pradesh. She had a hard and adventurous life and in July 21, 2001, just as I was searching a female killer, Phulan Devi was attacked outside her home by three masked men. Stabbed five bullets, shot a bodyguard.