Kavitha walks out when it’s dark. ‘I know you must be hungry now,’ she says. We walk up the path together, trying not to get thorns in our feet, holding each other up as the breeze blows by. We pause at the edge of the lawn and look at the house with its blue doors flung open. Soft lights gleam from every room. We don’t say it aloud, but we look at each other and know we can keep doing this. We can keep being who we are.

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to Angela Dorazio for the gift of Canonica where the idea for this novel began. To Jasmine Dellal, Vikrom Mathur, Editta Dal Lago, and Patrick and Fiona Clements for providing salubrious roofs under which parts of it could be written. To Art Omi: Writers for a timely residency equipped with ping-pong table. To Jin Auh and Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency. To Faiza Sultan Khan and Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury. Thanks as well to Manu Joseph and Carlo Pizzati for reading early drafts. To Mandira Moddie for all her support, canine and otherwise. And to Eira and Vinod, goes without saying.

A Note on the Author

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Tishani Doshi was born in Chennai. She is an award-winning poet, journalist, essayist and novelist. Doshi has published seven books of fiction and poetry, most recently Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods in 2018. She is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award for Poetry, winner of the All-India Poetry Competition, and her first book, Countries of the Body, won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2006. Her debut novel, The Pleasure Seekers, was shortlisted for the Hindu Literary Prize and long listed for the Orange Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Doshi is also a professional dancer with the Chandralekha Troupe. She lives in Tamil Nadu, India, with her husband and three dogs.

tishanidoshi.com

A Note on the Type

A NOTE ON THE TYPE

The text of this book is set in Perpetua. This typeface is an adaptation of a style of letter that had been popularised for monumental work in stone by Eric Gill. Large-scale drawings by Gill were given to Charles Malin, a Parisian punch-cutter, and his hand-cut punches were the basis for the font issued by Monotype. First used in a private translation called ‘The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity’, the italic was originally called Felicity.

Also by Tishani Doshi

ALSO BY TISHANI DOSHI

Fiction

The Pleasure Seekers

Fountainville

Poetry

Countries of the Body

Everything Begins Elsewhere

Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods

Other

The Adulterous Citizen