Award Winning Author PARUL KAPUR Hosted by FOSSL

Parul Kapur is a novelist, journalist, and literary critic. She was born in an oil town in northeastern India and took her first plane ride out of the Upper Assam jungle at eleven days old. She spent her early childhood between Bombay, Calcutta, and New Delhi, and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was seven. Parul graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in English and holds an MFA from Columbia University. She has worked as a press officer at the United Nations in New York, and an editor at Travel & Leisure.

She returned to India briefly in the 1980s to work as a reporter at the city magazine Bombay, writing about culture, arts and society. Painters and gallerists she met there offered their first-hand accounts of the birth of India’s modern art movement in 1947, the same year as Independence. Inside the Mirror, which is inspired by her encounters with art world figures in Bombay, won the AWP Prize for the Novel and will be published by the University of Nebraska Press on March 1, 2024.

Parul’s short fiction centers on the aftermath of colonialism in India and the lives of Indian immigrants. Her stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Wascana Review, Prime Number, Midway Journal, and the anthology {Ex}tinguished & {Ex}tinct. As a journalist and critic, she has written for The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ARTnews, Art in America, Guernica, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Paris Review. She spent a decade in Germany, France, and England, contributing articles and reviews to The Wall Street Journal Europe and New York Newsday. Parul founded the Books page at ArtsATL, Atlanta’s leading online arts publication, and headed literary coverage there for several years. The Hambidge Center, Jentel, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts have awarded her writing fellowships. She lives in Atlanta.

In 1950s Bombay, India, visionary twin sisters, Jaya and Kamlesh Malhotra, aspire to become artists in a society that denies women the freedom to shape their own lives. Inside the Mirror is a brilliant exploration of female creativity and identity-making in a country remaking its own identity in the devastating aftermath of British rule.

"In Kapurʼs stunning debut novel, twin sisters Jaya and Kamlesh Malhotra dare to pursue their creative ambitions in 1950s Bombay (present-day Mumbai) despite the threat of ruining their familyʼs reputation and their chances of securing good marriages...Kapur perfectly conveys the twinsʼ attempts to find their purpose while defying the expectations of a turbulent post-partition Indian society. This is a beautiful exploration of the hardships endured by women artists."

—Publisher’s Weekly, ★ Starred Review

"In post-independence Bombay, twin sisters struggle to meet their parents’ expectations and pursue their artistic passions. Jaya and Kamlesh Malhotra are both following dual tracks, Jaya studying medicine while exploring her interest in painting and Kamlesh studying teaching and dance. Their parents are eager for them to be educated but see their creative hobbies as interests to be indulged only until they are married. But India is changing rapidly in the mid-1950s, and... the novel interrogates the midcentury clash of modernity and tradition as the Malhotras grapple with both...An engaging examination of female independence and familial devotion."

—Kirkus Reviews

“With breathtaking lyricism and scorching insight, Kapur captures women in flux brilliantly. This profound book complicates the impact of colonialism and throbs with life. Inside the Mirror is an extraordinary novel.”

—Jennifer Maritza McCauley, author of When Trying to Return Home

“Inside the Mirror is a complex and compelling story of a displaced family living in the shadow of post-Partition India. Parul Kapur has written a gorgeous novel about art, independence, and the roots that bind a family together.”

—Devi S. Laskar, author of Circa and The Atlas of Reds and Blues

“Inside the Mirror is an extraordinary and moving story about twin sisters, Jaya and Kamesh, as they struggle to pursue their passion and independence as women artists from a conservative society. Crafted with elegance and precision, and heartrending in its exploration of family drama, this novel is a beautiful and ambitious work of fiction.”

—Brandon Hobson, National Book Award finalist and author of The Removed

"In eloquent prose, Kapur explores...women's roles, the power of art, familial obligations, and the sacrifices entailed in seeking self-determination.”

—Geeta Kothari, author of I Brake for Moose and Other Stories

“A sparkling jewel of a novel.”

—Heather Bell Adams, author of Maranatha Road and The Good Luck Stone

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Sandy Springs Library, 395 Mount Vernon Highway Northeast, Atlanta, United States