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White Dancing Elephants

Stories

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White Dancing Elephants

By: Chaya Bhuvaneswar
Narrated by: Priya Ayyar
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About this listen

Winner of the 2017 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize.

A woman grieves a miscarriage, haunted by the Buddha's birth. An artist with schizophrenia tries to survive hatred and indifference in small-town India by turning to the beauty of sculpture and dance. Orphans in India get pulled into a strange "rescue" mission aimed at stripping their mysterious powers. A brief but intense affair between two women culminates in regret and betrayal. A boy seeks memories of his sister in the legend of a woman who weds death. And fragments of history, from child brickmakers to slaves in Renaissance Portugal, are held up in brief fictions, burnished, made dazzling and unforgettable.

In 16 remarkable stories, Chaya Bhuvaneswar spotlights diverse women of color - cunning, bold, and resolute - facing sexual harassment and racial violence, and occasionally inflicting that violence on each other. Winner of the 2017 Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize, White Dancing Elephants marks the emergence of a new and original voice in fiction and explores feminist, queer, religious, and immigrant stories with precision, drama, and compassion.

A Southern Living Magazine pick of most anticipated fall titles. A BookRiot pick of most anticipated fall indie titles. A Millions.com pick of anticipated titles for the second half of 2018. Winner of the 2017 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize. A Literary Hub pick of ultimate fall books.

©2018 Chaya Bhuvaneswar (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Anthologies Anthologies & Short Stories Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Short Stories United States Women's Fiction World Literature Elephant

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A very broad-reaching and interesting selection of short stories that essentially take, as their canvas, the life, loves and experiences of a young woman of South Asian origin, now based in America. Chaya Bhuvaneswar' writing is credible, honest, poignant and brings the reader capably into her character's worlds, touching on cultural challenges, sexual experiences, mental health issues, childbearing (and not child bearing), the condundrum of the artist in an increasingly secular and commercialised world and a whole lot more. Whiplash smart and impressively assured, I would seek out this author again. The reading of the work is also very capably interpreted by its narrator, Priya Ayyar,

Smart, compelling and wholly contemporary stories

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