Published in 2020
234 pages
Avni Doshi was born in New Jersey. She completed her BA in art history from Barnard College and her MA in the history of art from University College London. Avni has been awarded the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize and a Charles Pick Fellowship. She lives in Dubai.
What is this book about?
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2020: A searing, compulsively readable story of mothers and daughters, memory and madness, love and betrayal
‘Arresting and fiercely intelligent, disarmingly witty and frank’ Sunday Times
‘Utterly compelling, unflinching, written with poignancy and memorability’ The Booker Prize Judges 2020
In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her arranged marriage to join an ashram, took a hapless artist for a lover, rebelled against every social expectation of a good Indian woman – all with her young child in tow. Years on, she is an old woman with a fading memory, mixing up her maid’s wages and leaving the gas on all night, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a mother who never seemed to care for her.
This is a poisoned love story. But not between lovers – between mother and daughter. Sharp as a blade and laced with caustic wit, Burnt Sugar gradually untangles the knot of memory and myth that bind two women together, revealing the truth that lies beneath.
