A different perspective on the most fundamental relationship of our lives.

"I would be lying if I claimed that my mother's unhappiness has never brought me pleasure." Tara remembers the past in a specific way; Andara remembers it completely differently. Each woman has traumas inflicted by the other. Each one tends to her wounds with the jealous pleasure of a lover. In her youth, Tara was unruly. She left a loveless marriage to go to an ashram, lived for a while as a beggar (primarily to provoke her wealthy parents), and spent several years chasing a disheveled, homeless "artist" – all while having her daughter with her.

Now she forgets things, confuses her maid's wages, leaves the gas flame on all night, and Andara finds herself faced with the obligation to care for a woman who never cared for her. A book about memory and myth, about how the stories you tell yourself become over time more true than your own reflection in the mirror. An exploration of jealousy, obsession, betrayal, a love story – not between lovers, but between mother and daughter.

Full of biting wit, Burnt Sugar asks how much we really know about the people closest to us and, by extension, about ourselves.

Nominated for the Man Booker 2020

Nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021

Sushila Devi Award 2021

Translated into 25 countries.

What they said about the book:

"Beautifully written, with emotional tensions, at times painful." – Booker Prize Judging Panel

"A restless, robust debut that surprises the reader with its venom and disarms them with its humor from the very first sentence." – Guardian

"A work of exceptional insight, courage, and technique." – Washington Post

"Avni Doshi is not just a talented writer, she is an artist. She knows the difference between bold strokes and shadows – both begin in the same way, but their difference becomes evident through intent and style. Her sentences are sharply designed and stunningly precise. There is not a single wasted word, no fragments, no embellishments to hide behind. Her voice is so unadorned and raw, so painfully stubborn and original, that you want to keep hearing it." – New York Times Book Review

Avni Doshi was born in 1982 in New Jersey and is now based in Dubai. In 2013, she won the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize, and in 2014, she received the Charles Pick Fellowship at the University of East Anglia. Burnt Sugar is her first novel and is already being translated into 25 countries. It was a favorite on the Man Booker Prize shortlist in 2020, nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021, and won the Sushila Devi Award in 2021.