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Book Reviewed by:Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, a searing literary debut novel set in India about mothers and daughters, obsession and betrayal.
"I would be lying if I say my mother's misery has never given me pleasure," says Antara, Tara's now-adult daughter.
In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her marriage to join an ashram, and while Tara is busy as a partner to the ashram's spiritual leader, Baba, little Antara is cared for by an older devotee, Kali Mata, an American who came to the ashram after a devastating loss. Tara also embarks on a stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents) and spends years chasing a disheveled, homeless artist, all with young Antara in tow. But now Tara is forgetting things, and Antara is an adult––an artist and married––and must search for a way to make peace with a past that haunts her as she confronts the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.
Sharp as a blade and laced with caustic wit, Burnt Sugar unpicks the slippery, choking cord of memory and myth that binds mother and daughter. Is Tara's memory loss real? Are Antara's memories fair? In vivid and visceral prose, Tibor Jones South Asia Prize–winning writer Avni Doshi tells a story, at once shocking and empathetic, about love and betrayal between a mother and a daughter. A journey into shifting memories, altering identities, and the subjective nature of truth, Burnt Sugar is a stunning and unforgettable debut.
Excerpt
Burnt Sugar
Seven sticks of incense burn by the door. I cough and my mother pops her head out of the kitchen. I can smell that she is frying peanuts with cumin seeds in oil. I slip my feet out of my sneakers, which have stretched at the mouth because they're never unlaced. The floor is cold and smells like lemongrass milk. Light pours in through the east-facing window in the kitchen, and Ma is a silhouette. She dumps a bowl of bloated tapioca balls into the pot and covers it to steam.
'Have you had breakfast?' she asks, and I say I haven't even though I have.
I set the table like we used to, with glasses for water and buttermilk, and no spoon for Ma because she likes to eat with her hands. She brings out chillies, red and powdered, green and chopped. The pot is placed directly on the table, and when she lifts the lid, the cloud that conceals the meal inside evaporates.
I help myself to a large spoonful. The tapioca balls bounce on my plate, leaving a glistening trail behind ...
For those who are mothers, or are contemplating the idea of motherhood, Burnt Sugar may dredge up insecurities, guilt and shortcomings. Antara's own insecurities appear throughout the book and include her concern that she, too, will be unable to control her impulses, and that she will parent as poorly as her mother. While disquieting, however, the novel is surprisingly light in parts, with Doshi infusing wry humor at well-timed moments in her depiction of the nuances of the mother-daughter relationship...continued
Full Review
(850 words)
(Reviewed by Daniela Schofield).
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic
Avni Doshi is a writer of surgical precision and sharp intelligence. This novel of mother-and-daughter resentments and the deep, intimate cuts of ancient family history gleams like a blade—both dangerous and beautiful. I loved it. Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Starling Days
Raw, wise, and cuttingly funny. Tishani Doshi, author of Small Days and Nights
A courageous novel written in spare, gleaming sentences. It made me hold my breath and gather it up again.
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, was born on December 11, 1931 in Kuchwada, India as Chandra Mohan Jain. He was given the name Rajneesh, meaning "god of night," at six months. He took an interest in religion from a young age and eventually found work as a philosophy instructor, but in 1966 resigned from his position at the University of Jabalpur to become a guru and teach meditation. In the early 1970s, he began to induct followers into the order of sannyasis, Hindus who renounce wealth and possessions. However, while sannyasis are traditionally associated with ascetic practices and strict self-discipline, Rajneesh encouraged his followers to enjoy worldly pleasures, without being attached to material goods. In 1971, he took ...
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Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
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