“I would be lying if I said my mother’s misery has never given me pleasure,” opens Avni Doshi’s debut novel, Burnt Sugar. It’s a bold, gripping, somewhat shocking start to a story about a mother and daughter – Tara and Antara – who cycle through a pattern of memory (and lack of it) and the stories we tell ourselves about motherhood.
Doshi, who was born in New Jersey and lives in Dubai with her partner and children, first published the book under the title Girl in White Cotton in India in 2019. Doshi’s parents are from India, and the writer explains white cotton has symbolic meaning there referring to “death, grief and asceticism, which spoke to multiple aspects of the story,” she says.
“Burnt Sugar captures something sweet and bitter, a tension at the heart of the novel,” Doshi says. “Girl in White Cotton was the working title, and the publisher in India really responded to it. My UK editor wisely pointed out it would mostly be lost on most other audiences.”
Part of the book’s international success comes from its shortlisting for the 2020 Booker Prize (won by Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain). It has sold over 150,000 copies worldwide and has been translated into 26 languages.
“The domestic space offers a specific set of weapons and places for conflicts,” says Doshi. “Beds and dining tables. Sex and food. Food is a fascinating image – it operates symbolically and concretely in this context. It speaks in its own language, it says things which are otherwise inexpressible.”
“Some countries have really taken to the book. Brazil, Greece and Italy to name a few,” the author tells us. “I have a lot of gratitude,” says Doshi of the jump-start the Booker Prize afforded her. “It’s so hard for debut authors to reach audiences. Many wonderful books get overlooked.”
A huge part of its success, though, comes from Doshi’s wry, blunt storytelling of the toxic relationship between the story’s central characters. Told from Antara’s perspective, the book follows her as she cares for her mother who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. As she does so, she recalls how her mother mistreated her when she was younger, including harrowing experiences while living in an ashram when her mother was entangled in a relationship with a guru known as Baba.
A passage in the book reads: “In the early days, I thought I would never be happy in that strange place. I stayed up all night, huddling in a corner by myself. I could cry without sleep, water or food … They said I should do it for Baba. They said I should do it for Ma.”
“Abuse happens within the family most often – by the people with unfettered access to the child,” says Doshi of the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” and the opportunities that presents for abuse. “The more people that look after a child, the more opportunities there are for abuse,” she says.
But abuse isn’t just suffered by children in Burnt Sugar. Decades after living in the ashram, Antara takes her mother into her home and starts to control more of her diet. “I feed Ma sugar daily, and she consumes it like an addict,” says Antara in the book. “She becomes more like another sofa every day.”
“The domestic space offers a specific set of weapons and places for conflicts,” says Doshi. “Beds and dining tables. Sex and food. Food is a fascinating image – it operates symbolically and concretely in this context. It speaks in its own language, it says things which are otherwise inexpressible.”
This is an excerpt from issue 2 of Swill. Grab a copy of Swill today to read the whole thing!
