Avni Doshi

Avni Doshi (born 1982) is an American novelist currently based in Dubai. She was born in New Jersey to immigrants from India. She received a BA in Art History from Barnard College in New York, and a master's degree in History of Art from University College London. Her debut novel, Girl in White Cotton, was published in India in 2019. In 2020, it was published in the United Kingdom under the title Burnt Sugar. The novel was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.

Quotes

• ...Ambivalence in a mother is too dangerous for the culture to integrate...
• ...The myths around maternal love and certitude have been, and are being, questioned in literature, and it’s no secret that mother-daughter relationships can be fraught and full of conflict, but somehow the conversation still elicits discomfort...
• ... My understanding of memory, time and duration (which are central themes in the novel) are also completely grounded in my study of art history...
  • Avni Doshi Q&A

• ...Even if you have a relatively good relationship with your mother, the maternal complex is so deep-seated in the psyche, any kind of conflict or difficulty with the mother can lead to a fragmentation of one’s own self...
• ...Motherhood is such a large, expansive word – it almost means nothing...
• ...The more I grow into being a mother, I realise that so much about it has been about tradition, fear, family, pressure – probably a kind of narcissism...
  • Interview with Avni Doshi for The Guardian