BURNT SUGAR
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.
This is a love story and a story about betrayal—not between lovers but between a mother and a daughter. . . . In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her arranged marriage to join an ashram, embarked on a stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing a disheveled,
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.
This is a love story and a story about betrayal—not between lovers but between a mother and a daughter. . . . In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her arranged marriage to join an ashram, embarked on a stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing a disheveled, homeless “artist,” all with little 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, Avni Doshi tells a story at once shocking and empathetic of a mother-daughter relationship and a daughter’s search for self. A journey into shifting memories, altering identities, and the subjective nature of truth, Burnt Sugar is the stunning and unforgettable debut of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.
- The Overlook Press
- Paperback
- March 2022
- 240 Pages
- 9781419752933
Buy the Book
$16.00
About Avni Doshi
Avni Doshi was born in New Jersey. She received her BA in art history from Barnard College and her MA in history of art at University College, London. While working as an art writer and curator in India, Doshi began writing fiction. She has been awarded the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize and a Charles Pick Fellowship. Her debut novel, Burnt Sugar, was shortlisted for the prestigious TATA Literature Award upon its publication in India and has now been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Avni Doshi currently lives in Dubai with her family.
Praise
“Avni Doshi isn’t just a talented writer, she is an artist. She knows the difference between a line and shade — both start the same way, but intention and style inform their difference. Doshi’s sentences are sharply drawn and devastatingly precise. There is never a wasted word, no debris, no flourish to hide behind. A voice this unadorned, and blunt, is so hauntingly stubborn and original, you want to hear from it again and again.”–New York Times Book Review
“Burnt Sugar is a work of extraordinary insight, courage and sophistication…It’s not that Doshi has written something no one has ever thought before; it’s that she’s written something no one has ever expressed so exquisitely — and so baldly.”–The Washington Post
“I read Burnt Sugar with awe, fury and compassion, electrified by the question of whether time does heal all wounds, and whether it even should.”–editor, NPR Morning Edition, Catherine Whelan
“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.” –author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert
“Impressively assured…It’s the mother’s selfishness and instability that makes Antara such a complex character, hypersensitive, anxious and filled with rage.”–The San Francisco Chronicle
“It’s rare that I read a novel so outrageous in both form and content, without either one feeling overdone, or like an afterthought. Doshi’s prose is sensual at every turn, blistering even when it really doesn’t need to be; it feels almost like being in a fever dream (or a sugar-addled coma, perhaps). And the story too is audacious, a scalpel-sharp portrait of a mother and daughter and what I can only describe as their competing realities. I don’t want to say any more here, because the surprises work well in this novel, but suffice it to say that it is very good, and a book I will be thinking about for a long time.”–LitHub
Discussion Questions
1. In what ways does Tara go against societal expectations of her as a daughter and wife?
2. Discuss Tara and Antara’s differing memories from their time at the ashram.
• Tara’s recollection of Antara’s response to her father: “You used to cry for him day and night, not eat, not drink. Papa, Papa, Papa. He was the only one you wanted… . You made me feel like shit.”
• Antara’s recollection of living in the ashram, longing for her mother, despite having Kali Mata as a surrogate, when Tara responds to the news that Antara had not been eating: “She throws me down on the bed, and my head feels the hard wood beneath the mattress. I cry out but Ma has climbed on top of me, is holding me, my arms and legs incapacitated, and the flailing I feel, the pain stops short and tolls back inside, turning over on itself. Her hand hits the side of my face, and like lightening, I see the streak before I hear the sound…. You better eat when you are told.”
3. How does Antara’s childhood longing for her mother manifest itself when she is an adult?
4. The primary relationship in Burnt Sugar is that between Antara and Tara, but there are other parent-offspring relationships portrayed throughout the story. Discuss how they are different or the same.
5. What holds Dilip and Antara’s marriage together?
6. How is the institution of marriage presented?
7. Why does Tara have such hatred of Antara’s art?
8. How aware is Tara that she has early-stage Alzheimer’s?
9. “Ma doesn’t come to the house often. She says the main hall disturbs her, especially the mirrors that cover each wall, reflecting everything in multiple directions.” There are other descriptions of the mirrors in Dilip and Antara’s home. Discuss their possible meanings.
10. What is Antara looking for in her relationship with Reza?
11. After the birth of her daughter, Anikka, Antara reflects on her relationship with her mother: “Maybe we would have been better off if I had never been diagnosed as her undoing. How do I stop from making the same mistake? How do I protect this little girl from the same burden? Maybe that’s impossible? Maybe this is all wishful thinking.” How is Antara different from her mother?
12. Considering Antara’s relationship with Purvi and the sexual tension that is part of it, what can be made of Antara’s statement, “Suddenly, I don’t like having Purvi here, don’t want her in the house. She reminds me of too many things we have done together. I don’t want her around my daughter.”
13. Are there universal themes in Burnt Sugar about mother-daughter relationships? If so, what are they?
14. Actual burnt sugar is used in cooking to flavor various dishes, some savory and some sweet. What message about the story is relayed through the title?
15. How is Pune, India, portrayed?
16. How is the United States portrayed?