“Set in 1970s Bombay, the novel explores art, ambition, gender roles & class with the same shimmering prose of Swamy’s first book, the story collection A House Is a Body.” — San Francisco Chronicle“[A] sublime, boundary-pushing exploration of sexuality, creativity, & love.” — NPRIn this transfixing novel, a young woman comes of age in 1960s- & 1970s-era Bombay, a vanished world that is complex & indelibly rendered. Vidya’s childhood is marked by the shattering absence & then the bewildering reappearance of her mother & baby brother at the family home. Restless, observant, & longing for connection with her brilliant & increasingly troubled mother, Vidya navigates the stifling expectations of her life with a vivid imagination until one day she peeks into a classroom where girls are learning kathak, a dazzling, centuries-old dance form that requires the utmost discipline & focus. Her pursuit of artistic transcendence through kathak soon becomes the organizing principle of her life, even as she leaves home for college & falls in complicated love with her best friend. As the uncertain future looms, she must ultimately confront the tensions between romantic love, her art, & the legacy of her own imperfect mother.Lyrical & deeply sensual, with writing as mesmerizing as kathak itself, Shruti Swamy’s The Archer is a bold portrait of a singular woman coming of age as an artist—navigating desire, duty, & the limits of the body. It is also an electrifying & utterly immersive story about the transformative power of art, & the possibilities that love can open when we’re ready°°° Shruti Swamy is the author of the story collection, A House Is a Body, which was a finalist for the Pen/Robert Bingham Prize, the LA Times Book Prize for First Fiction, & longlisted for the Story Prize. Her work has been published by the Paris Review, McSweeney’s, & anthologized in the O. Henry Prize Stories. “Set in 1970s Bombay, the novel explores art, ambition, gender roles and class with the same shimmering prose of Swamy’s first book, the story collection A House Is a Body .” — San Francisco Chronicle “[A] sublime, boundary-pushing exploration of sexuality, creativity, and love.” —NPR In this transfixing novel, a young woman comes of age in 1960s- and 1970s-era Bombay, a vanished world that is complex and indelibly rendered. Vidya’s childhood is marked by the shattering absence and then the bewildering reappearance of her mother and baby brother at the family home. Restless, observant, and longing for connection with her brilliant and increasingly troubled mother, Vidya navigates the stifling expectations of her life with a vivid imagination until one day she peeks into a classroom where girls are learning kathak, a dazzling, centuries-old dance form that requires the utmost discipline and focus. Her pursuit of artistic transcendence through kathak soon becomes the organizing principle of her life, even as she leaves home for college and falls in complicated love with her best friend. As the uncertain future looms, she must ultimately confront the tensions between romantic love, her art, and the legacy of her own imperfect mother. Lyrical and deeply sensual, with writing as mesmerizing as kathak itself, Shruti Swamy’s The Archer is a bold portrait of a singular woman coming of age as an artist—navigating desire, duty, and the limits of the body. It is also an electrifying and utterly immersive story about the transformative power of art, and the possibilities that love can open when we’re ready.
