Birth of a Star Daughter
/“Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other belong to themselves.” – Louise Bernikow.
Once upon a time there was a young desi woman growing up in the Midwest. Her heart belonged to magic and her soul felt like it belonged elsewhere. She looked out of her car windows and imagined mythical nagini slithering and swirling in the grass by her parents’ car. Although she dreamed of close female friendships, they just did not seem to last in the way she wanted them to.
Once upon a time there was a young white girl growing up in the Midwest, an awkward dreamer. She looked out windows and imagined she saw gryphons flying, dodging lightpoles as the car went faster. Although she dreamed of close female friendships, they just did not seem to last in the way she wanted them to.
And then Shveta Thakrar met Grace Nuth, thanks to the wondrous spiderweb we call the Internet. Acquaintances became friends, friends met in person and realized they really clicked well, and conversations went from occasional to daily. They shared hopes, dreams, fears, enlightenment, tragedy…they helped each other belong to themselves.
~*~
My extraordinary, stunning, brilliant friend, Shveta writes lush tapestries of fiction and poetry, and has been published in several magazines and anthologies. And then, one day, Shveta wrote a book. And the book was good. And the book was accepted for publication by a well-known publisher. All of her friends celebrated, and then waited. Books take a long time to actually be published. The artist (Charlie Bowater) finished Shveta’s cover illustration, and it was stunning. I was absolutely itching to get a physical copy of the book in my hands. I’d read one of the very first drafts, but I wanted to see how it had changed. When my advanced copy arrived, it made me so extraordinarily happy to see Shveta’s name and photograph (taken by another dear friend, Lindsey Marton!) on the back of the cover. Words cannot express how proud I am of Shveta and how lucky I feel to be her friend.
I read the book, and I loved it so much. In Minal and Sheetal I saw the friendship I’d always longed for growing up. They are honest with each other, talk through their differences, and support each other. It made me so happy to realize that our friendship was like that as well. I gave an example in my last blog of how Shveta has been there for me, listened to me, helped me to see things from a different perspective. We may not always see things the same way, but we appreciate that about each other too.
Shveta’s prose is so beautiful. She manages to somehow be both teen-accessible in her book (which, by the way, is called Star Daughter!) and also describe things you’ve only ever seen before in dreams. She incorporates Hindu mythology into her books with deft agility, making it both a fantasy story for fellow desi readers, and also wholly accessible and loveable for white readers who might not be familiar with the characters and stories she references from Hindu myths.
As a brown, own-voices author, she had to struggle against years of people telling her that they would love for her to write the more traditional magic realism/fantasy/fairy tale fiction we are used to reading, based on European folklore and magical beings. And Shveta refused. She loved fantasy stories growing up, but she knew that there had to be a place for stories written with that same amount of magic, using her own culture and her own history as a touchstone. She never gave up, and now her first novel is here.
It is here, by the way. Star Daughter, by Shveta Thakrar, comes out today, Tuesday August 11th, after many years of love and hard work. The book is physically a thing of beauty, with its gorgeous illustration and gold metallic details, a nice and chunky-size for those of us who love the heft of a good book you can sink your teeth into. And it’s a thing of substance too, of characters you will love, or despise, a plot that you will not predict, and a dreamy, celestial setting. There’s a night market too, filled with all sorts of delights you thought only existed in wishes.
Dear Shveta, I love you so much. And I am so, inexpressibly proud of you and happy for your special day today. Your friendship has helped me find strength to get through so many difficult times, and has made my sides split with laughter and my mouth sore from smiling. Thank you so much for being the Sheetal to my Minal. Thank you also for your gift of imagination you give to us all. May your Star Daughter grow ever brighter.
