“This is a marvelously observant memoir, not only of Shah’s parents’ generation and their arrival in the United States, but also of her own generation’s search for love, for a notion of home and belonging. While this memoir is frequently heart-breaking, it also dazzles with incandescent humor. One of the most nuanced, wise and tender portraits of immigration I have ever read.”

- Kiran Desai, Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss

“Each of these pieces captures what it means to be a citizen of a country that may never claim you as its own, to imagine your own brilliant fullness beyond its peripheral gaze.”

- Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

“If a queer text is an unsettled one, crossing cultures, crossing genres then this book of essays rescripts what we think we know about identity—Indian American and other. A phenomenal first book that travels decades in its excavation, Sejal Shah’s This Is One Way to Dance was well worth the wait. The body in ecstatic dance is a bridge and also an estuary in this prose, equally ecstatic in its precision and its vulnerability—a collection that calls us from any depth. Shah is a master story teller who keeps us knowing differently. This Is One Way to Dance is bold and brave. A collection for a new century.”

- Dawn Lundy Martin, author of Good Stock Strange Blood

“You’ll find that these meditative memoranda don’t end when they are over but continue to work their magic, an alchemy that transubstantiates both memory and memoir. Here are the maps for here, steps stenciled on the finished dance floor, a Little Giddings rag that brings us back to where we started and there to know the place for the very first time.”

- Michael Martone, author of Brooding

“Sejal Shah’s lyrical This Is One Way to Dance deftly explores what it means to be “American” in our increasingly diverse nation. The writing is vivid, Shah’s observations are nimble and wise, and the result is a book that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking.”

- Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire

“This is a sensitive, poignant collection.”

- Kirkus Reviews

“The poetic, probing debut from short story writer and essayist Shah forcefully tackles the complicated intersection of identity, language, movement, family, place, and race.”

- Publishers Weekly 

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

'Exquisitely written, painfully exhilarating, impossible to put down... Come for the effortlessly stylish writing, stay for the boiling wrath' Observer

'Utterly compelling, unflinching, written with poignancy and memorability' The Booker Prize Judges 2020

'An unsettling, sinewy debut, startling in its venom and disarming in its humour from the very first sentence' Guardian

'A corrosive, compulsive debut' Daily Telegraph (*****)

'Scouringly brilliant, a blazing debut with words that glitter sharp as shards of broken mirror' Buro.

“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.”

-  Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic

“Acerbic, full of wit and cool intelligence, but also brilliantly poetic and passionate—every sentence is a coiled spring.”

-  Olivia Sudjic, author of Exposure and Sympathy

“Burnt Sugar is absolutely exquisite.”

-  Diksha Basu, author of Destination Wedding

“Avni Doshi writes fearlessly, with a cruel, almost terrifying intelligence. I was discomfited and exhilarated by it.”

-  Meng Jin, author of Little Gods

“A courageous novel written in spare, gleaming sentences. It made me hold my breath and gather it up again.”

-  Tishani Doshi, author of Small Days and Nights

“Raw, wise, and cuttingly funny.”

-  Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Starling Days

“Burnt Sugar is an unsettling, sinewy debut, startling in its venom and disarming in its humor from the very first sentence.”

-  Guardian

“Doshi’s prose is arresting and her ideas fiercely intelligent.”

-  Sunday Times

“Doshi’s visceral debut is a no-holds-barred excavation of how hate can both poison and sustain.”

-  Daily Mail

“A corrosive, compulsive debut.”

-  Daily Telegraph

"Sopan Deb hilariously and truthfully lets us in on the ups, downs, lefts, and rights of trying to understand - as a standup comedian and a journalist - the two grown-up strangers who raised him. It's a crazy story, but you know. Good crazy. Funny crazy. Read-this-book crazy."

-  Pete Holmes, comedian, podcast host, and author of Comedy Sex God

"As a man who has both been a performer and covered performance, Sopan Deb now paints his most important picture yet, the self-portrait."

-  Roy Wood Jr., comedian and correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

"Both moving and hilarious, Missed Translations is not just about exploring culture, family, and love, but about understanding where one comes from in the deepest possible way. It's a wonderful journey."

-  Jake Tapper, CNN host and author of The Hellfire Club

"I was moved by the ways in which Sopan Deb taps into both the darkness and light that permeate a story about love, family, and understanding. He's a masterful storyteller, and I'm thankful for his bravery and willingness to share the kind of human story that we too often prefer to keep to ourselves."

-  Kal Penn, comedian and actor

"A sympathetic portrait of South Asians who are neither crazy and rich nor humorless nerds...Memoirs by children of immigrants often fault clueless parents; this one is refreshing for Deb's realization that--whatever his elders' missteps--he needed "to take some responsibility for my part in our family's disconnect" for things to change."

-  Kirkus Reviews

"While his topic is serious, Deb's writing is breezy and witty, and his earnestness will sweep readers up into this charmer of a memoir."

-  Booklist

"A delightful memoir of people and place that will draw in Deb's fans and attract plenty of new ones."

-  Library Journal (starred review)

Journalist, comic Sopan Deb handles hard truths of immigration, family with humor in ‘Missed Translations’

-  Seattle Times

A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK and one of the most anticipated books of summer 2020

-  New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, O, Elle, The Millions, and Lit Hub

“Riveting…This is a novel of our pandemic times, an exploration of precarity in all its forms…Majumdar excels at depicting the workings of power on the powerless… Fate has rarely been so many-faced, so muscular, so mercurial, or so mesmerizing as it is in A Burning.”

-  The New York Times Book Review [cover]

“Powerful… propulsive…This is a book to relish for its details, for the caress of the writer’s gaze against the world… The interplay of choice and circumstance has always been the playing field of great fiction, and on this terrain, a powerful new writer stakes her claim.”

-  Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

“The must-read novel of the summer… This all-consuming story rages along, bright and scalding… Majumdar demonstrates an uncanny ability to capture the vast scope of a tumultuous society by attending to the hopes and fears of people living on the margins. The effect is transporting, often thrilling, finally harrowing… Majumdar’s outrage is matched only by her sympathy for these ordinary people… [A Burning] is a damning critique of a culture that generates constant upheaval but no systemic change.”

-  Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“Immersive…masterly… the elements of a thriller are transmuted into prismatic portraiture… A Burning has a similar urgency of appeal [to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.] Its characters are at the very front of the stage, and we can feel their breath… Her spare plot moves with arrowlike determination…I can’t remember when I last read a novel that so quickly dismantled the ordinary skepticism that attends the reading of made-up stories. Early Naipaul comes to mind as a precursor, and perhaps Akhil Sharma’s stupendously vivid novel Family Life… It’s only at the end of this brief, brave novel that one becomes fully aware of how broad its judgments have been, how fierce and absolute its condemnations. Through the gaps that open up among and behind these three characters, a large Indian panoply emerges.”

- James Wood, The New Yorker

“Powerful…a gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary… It’s hard not to feel intense heartache while reading A Burning. Majumdar’s powerful debut is carefully crafted for maximum impact, carving out the most urgent parts of its characters for the whole world to see. This novel rightfully commands attention.”

-  USA Today

“In her captivating debut novel A Burning, Megha Majumdar presents a powerful corrective to the political narratives that have dominated in contemporary India.”

-  Time

“Propulsive…ambitious…beautiful and supple…heartbreaking.”

-  The Boston Globe

“Remarkable…Early buzz is already comparing A BURNING to the work of modern literary stars . . . but the voice—or voices—here are entirely Majumdar’s own.”

-  Entertainment Weekly

“Combines fast-paced plotting with the kind of atmospheric detail one might find in the work of Jhumpa Lahiri or Daniyal Mueenuddin. . . A highly compelling read”

-  Vogue

“Majumdar’s explosive first novel is an intimate epic”

-  O Magazine

“Unforgettable”

-  Harper’s Bazaar

“A Burning by Megha Majumdar is quietly beautiful and devastating. Its tone and pacing are measured perfectly. It is as funny as it is sad. This book won’t let you go, and you won’t want it to end.”

-  Tommy Orange

“Megha Majumdar’s soon-to-be published A Burning is the best debut novel I have come across in a long time. Somehow Majumdar succeeds in capturing the boundless energy and starry-eyed hopefulness of the country’s youth. A Burning signals the arrival of a new voice of immense talent and promise.”

-  Amitav Ghosh

“Polyphonic…Lovely is a particular gem…brilliant” 

-  Kirkus Reviews

“This is a novel of now: a beautifully constructed literary thriller from a rare and powerful new voice.”

-  Colum McCann