![]() ![]() Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao, $15, Amazon That is, perhaps, a long way of explaining that Rao is a natural storyteller. ![]() Just turn it into light, and hold on to that light despite your awareness of the dark.” “I must have heard it when I was five- or six-years-old, and I shudder still to think of that story, because that is, truly, the most magnificent way to confront any challenge or trauma. “That has always stayed with me,” says Rao. The king is shocked, confused, skeptical - until he opens the door and sees a lit match. When the king gets to the youngest son, the son gives him back 99 rupees. ![]() The second son fills the room with garbage he’s bought, giving his father back 90 rupees. ![]() So, the oldest son purchases piles and piles of old papers, filling the room and returning 80 rupees to his father. It’s a story about a king who has tasked each of his three sons with filling an entire room in his castle on a budget of 100 rupees - whoever is able to best fill the room by spending the fewest rupees, the king explains, will inherit the kingdom. When I first speak with Shobha Rao, author of the debut novel Girls Burn Brighter, out now from Flatiron Books, she tells me a story. ![]()
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