Burnt Sugar : A Novel ISBN: 9781647002268 Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Abrams, Inc. Digital rights:Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time Subjects: Literature;
Doshi's stunning second novel (after Girl in White Cotton), shortlisted for the Booker Prize, explores the murky, toxic relationship between a mother and daughter living in the Indian city of Pune. Antara, a reflective, recently married artist, notices something is off with her volatile, demanding mother, Tara. Doctors believe it's early-onset dementia but can't find biological evidence of the disease, causing Antara to wonder if her mother is willfully forgetting her. She concludes her mother named her Antara ("Un-Tara") "because she hated herself," setting up a dynamic in which the two women became pitted against each other. She reexamines her early years living in an ashram, where her mother landed after leaving her husband. There, Tara fell in love with the ashram leader but neglected her daughter, not seeing Antara for weeks at a time. The young Antara refused to eat and eventually resigned herself to self-sufficiency to avoid beatings from her mother. Tara's rejection of her daughter continues after Antara's grandparents send her to boarding school against her will and Tara neglects to intervene, and Tara later criticizes Antara's teenage body. Yet by the captivating conclusion, Tara's memory loss proves too much for Antara, causing the daughter to react in ways she never expected. Doshi's portrayal of troubled mother-daughter intimacy is viscerally poetic. This has the heft and expansiveness of a classic 19th-century novel. (Jan.)
Avni Doshi was born in New Jersey in 1982. Her debut novel, Burnt Sugar , was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, and rights have been sold in 21 countries. She studied art history at Barnard College and earned her MA in the history of art at University College, London. She was awarded the Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia and the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize. Doshi lives in Dubai with her family.
