Where to Carry the Sound: Volume 23

Nina Sudhakar

Book cover for Where to Carry the Sound: Volume 23
Book cover for Where to Carry the Sound: Volume 23

Where to Carry the Sound: Volume 23

Where to Carry the Sound: Volume 23

Nina Sudhakar

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Description

The stories in Where to Carry the Sound center on characters excavating their own lives: unearthing family secrets, exploring inherited silences, and rediscovering what might have seemed lost to them. Wherever these characters find themselves--including brewing bootleg liquor in Prohibition-era Bombay, finding remnants of a new language at an archaeological dig in Andhra Pradesh, seeking mirages above the Arctic Circle, or setting up an outpost on the moon--each seeks to reconcile a past continually bleeding into the present and to forge a path of belonging to carry them into the future.

"This collection of nine magical stories (including a few actual fairy tales) enchanted me. Many of the stories are set in India, and most of the narrators are women--photographers, bootleggers, archeologists, religious pilgrims, perfumers, and one lonely lunar caretaker. The writing is both lush and lean, and the images of marigolds, haunted villages, and man-killing tigers are memorable. The ends aren't always happily-ever-after but are always satisfying. Where to Carry the Sound is a delight to read."--Molly Giles, judge and author of The Home for Unwed Husbands

About the Author

NINA SUDHAKAR is a writer, poet, and lawyer. Her work has appeared in Salamander (winner of the 2023 Fiction Contest), The Rumpus, Witness, and elsewhere, and she is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Matriarchetypes and Embodiments. She lives in Chicago and can be found at www.ninasudhakar.com.

Critical Reviews

"With clarity and tenderness, Where to Carry the Sound ushers readers into worlds that overturn the familiar to reveal the intimate truths beneath. Wherever Sudhakar takes us - from the moon to Bombay, the past to the future - she shows us that longing, grief, and love will always accompany us. These stories haunt and stun." --Janika Oza, author of A History of Burning, winner of the 2024 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature

"Where to Carry the Sound is a transportive collection of short stories where the characters unearth buried truths to find their own feminine strength, or shakti. Woven through the book is an absence of men--truant fathers, sleeping princes--but the women, whether bootleggers in Bombay or astronauts in space, grow and blossom into a feminine infinite they make their own. A gorgeously evocative collection that resonates long after the last page is turned." --Dipika Mukherjee, author of Shambala Junction and Ode to Broken Things

"Sudhakar masterfully creates a mood in which anything feels possible, where magic lurks behind the quotidian. This assemblage of short fiction is emotionally enthralling and literarily inventive. An impressively crafted set of short stories, thoughtful and poetic."--Kirkus Reviews

Publishing Information

Publisher: University of North Texas Press
Pub date: 2024-12-16
Length: 224 pages

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