"This beautifully told, brutally powerful story of family secrets, female infanticide and the conflict between personal desires and family obligations lingers long in the heart."
Set between Madurai in 1992 and Sydney in 2019, Rajasree Variyar’s The Daughters of Madurai tells a beautifully moving mystery of family secrets, and the lengths we go to in order to safeguard our loved ones. Taking in the brutal horrors of female infanticide, and the agonising conflict between pursuing personal happiness and independence, and keeping one’s parents happy, it’s an accomplished, compelling debut.
In Madurai in 1992, a young mother experiences a succession of unspeakably devastating losses. From a poor family, Janani’s failure to give birth to a boy sees all but one of her daughters taken from her at birth and killed. Though she has her eldest daughter, she will never forget the girls who were stolen from her, the girls who were cruelly denied lives.
A second, linked timeline plays out in Sydney in 2019, where 25-year-old Nila is harbouring a secret love while her mother has shortlisted men she’s deemed suitable for her daughter to marry. On the cusp of telling her parents the truth, Nila and her family return to her father’s Madurai hometown, where her grandfather is dying. Ahead of the trip, she asks her mother about the family she never speaks of, why she has no mementoes of growing up in India. Then, during the visit, the past and present collide, with long-hidden, traumatic truths unravelled through fine storytelling.
| Primary Genre | Family Drama |
| Other Genres: | |
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Madurai, 1992. A young mother in a poor family, Janani is told she is useless if she can't produce a son - or worse, bears daughters. They let her keep her first baby girl, but the rest are taken away as soon as they are born - murdered before they have a chance to live. The fate of her children has never been in her hands. But Janani can't forget the daughters she was never allowed to love.
Sydney, 2019. Nila has a secret, one she's been keeping from her parents for far too long. Before she can say anything, her grandfather in India falls ill and she agrees to join her parents on a trip to Madurai - the first in over ten years. Growing up in Australia, Nila knows very little about where she or her family came from, or who they left behind. What she's about to learn will change her forever...
Perfect for fans of Christy Lefteri and Delia Owens, The Daughters of Madurai is a moving and powerful debut from an unforgettable new voice.
The Daughters of Madurai features in the following genres: Family Drama, Debuts, Historical Fiction, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations, General Fiction, Debut Books of the Month
The Daughters of Madurai is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Daughters of Madurai was written by Rajasree Variyar and published by Orion an imprint of Orion Publishing Co
The Daughters of Madurai has 400 pages
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