Process Talk: Shveta Thakrar on Star Daughter

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar is a synthesis of astral melody and desi voices from the Indian American community. "Cupcakes and kulfi" to quote the book's young narrator, Sheetal. The voices run from strident to loving, a few with distinct, affectionately drawn Gujarati accents. The drumbeat of Hindu mythology is never far. I asked Shveta if she'd talk about how this book came to be.

[Uma] Tell me what brought this particular blend of magical and real together for you.

[Shveta] I have always believed in magic—when I was younger, I could even feel the numinous in the air—and I’ve always carried lush imaginary worlds inside me.

I love a good second-world high fantasy as much as the next reader, but when I came across Holly Black’s Tithein 2002, I knew that was what I wanted to do, too—make magic accessible in our world, something just beyond the corner of your eye, and if you were swift and fortunate enough to catch it, you might be off on an enchanted adventure, too.

Throw in the desi/Hindu aspect, and that’s my heart on the page.

I wanted to ground this particular book (and the one I’m revising right now) in our world, so readers, especially fellow desis, could feel like this might actually happen to them. We all deserve beautiful escapism and hope, especially right now, and to see ourselves and our traditions and mythologies celebrated.

[Uma] It is lovely to read a book with Indian American characters that's not an immigrant assimilation story. Yet, Sheetal’s experience of being “a half star,” “neither here nor there,” evokes the experiences of children and teens in immigrant families. Can you talk about the power of fantasy to shed light on our own real world?

[Shveta] Thank you! That was deeply important to me and remains so. I yearned for magical tales about people like me, fun stories like white people always got to have, but instead, it seemed like all brown and Black people were allowed was stories about the pain of being marginalized. There’s a place for those books, certainly, but that was never what I wanted to write.

Maybe I’m not half a star (or am I? I’ll never tell), but I’ve always felt caught between—caught between the desi American and other American communities; caught between being the “right” kind of Indian kid (the kind who doesn’t major in German and pick up herbal medicine as a hobby and dress up in faerie wings) and the one I was; caught between the world itself and feeling like I would never, ever belong anywhere or even be loved. (I’m so grateful I hung in there and learned otherwise!) So all that flowed naturally into Sheetal’s story, and I had a feeling it would resonate for other people, too. We’re all trying to find our place in the world, after all!

So while I absolutely believe in magic and long for it, I also understand the power of telling all the truth but telling it slant, as Emily Dickinson put it. Fantasy allows us to play with wonder and whimsy while exploring our own world from a necessary remove, so we can reexamine the things we take for granted. It can work both as adventure and allegory, and that’s one of the reasons it’s so special to me.

[Uma] Every book teaches a writer something. What did writing this book teach you?

[Shveta] Not to give up; not to listen to naysayers (I was told many times when I started out that no one would ever want to read a book about someone who looked like me)...

[Uma] Yeah, I heard that too. You learn not to listen to some voices, right? What else?

[Shveta] that careful, thoughtful revision is the best gift we can give our work; that a good editor is worth their weight in stardust; and that if you listen to your heart, you will never be steered wrong.

[Uma] So true about revision. And listening to your heart. So--related to that, what should young people tell themselves that will help them find their way in this very complicated world?

[Shveta] There’s room in the world for every single one of us. Don’t ever let anyone silence your voice or tell you you’re not good enough. I’m here to say that you’re the light the world needs exactly the way you are, and you absolutely deserve love and magic. No matter what anyone else might think, you belong; I’m proof of that.

As Sheetal’s sidereal family would say, may you burn bold in the deepest night.

[Uma] Sidereal. There's a word to carry in the heart. Thank you, Shveta.