Since I decided to write only desi characters back in 2006, in fact, and it’s so, so wonderful to finally see the fruits of all our efforts ripening. Shveta: Along with many other marginalized authors, I’ve been pushing for this for a long time. What are your thoughts on this? Where do we still need to improve?

And finally, that the enchanted Night Market might be just around the corner, so keep an eye out! The movement for diverse booksīrianna: There has been an exciting move in publishing lately to increase the number of fantasy books based on non-Western mythology. That Hindu mythology (as in “sacred stories,” not “lies”) is really rich and worth exploring, whether or not you practice the faith. That female friendship is fabulous, and there’s room for us to love one another instead of being in cutthroat competition. Let’s see! That there’s a place for every single person, and you matter just the way you are. I wrote this story to be enjoyed by anyone of any background, but I wrote it for the teen girl I was, isolated in a farm town in the American Midwest with no one to tell her she was beautiful and wonderful in her brown skin with her Sanskrit name.īrianna: What is something you hope readers will take away from reading Star Daughter? Seeing that distilled on the cover in the form of Sheetal (the gorgeous illustration is by Charlie Bowater and the equally stunning design by Corina Lupp) and hearing how excited desi readers are to feel seen by it makes my heart sing (in the notes of starsong, of course). Shveta: Honestly, how unapologetically desi and Hindu it is while also being fantastical. How Star Daughter is unapologetically desi and Hinduīrianna: What is it about this book that matters most to you? I’d never seen myself in a book that way before, and I was determined to do the same for other readers-but with magic. I read and fell in love with Neil Gaiman’s and Charles Vess’s illustrated novel Stardust back in 2002 and, after later watching the movie in 2007, thought that stars as people should come in all skin tones and finally, I never forgot how touched I was to find Tanuja Desai Hidier’s contemporary YA novel Born Confused when I was in my early twenties. Shveta: A few different things swirled into one big, colorful ball of an origin story: I wanted to write a contemporary fantasy using Hindu mythology and folklore the way Holly Black uses fairylore in her YA novels.

Contemporary fantasy with Hindu mythologyīrianna: What was your initial inspiration for Star Daughter? We sat down with her to discuss this beautiful book inspired by Hindu mythology, and the exciting, recent movement of publishing more non-European fantasy books.

Shveta Thakrar’s debut YA fantasy novel, Star Daughter, just released yesterday.

Star daughter by shveta thakrar