2019-03-26
59 分钟So how does somebody who came to the United States at the age of seven from India, got an undergraduate degree in engineering and then went to law school and practiced law, end up being a writer, a novelist, writing really powerful literary novels about deeply complex things?
Well, that is exactly the journey of my guest today, Shuba Rao.
It was a pleasure to really sort of explore this entire journey.
Her latest book, girls burn brighter, is a really powerful, provocative, raw look at the experience of women, in particular women of color and the lives that they live in different countries and what sometimes happens when they come here.
While it is a novel, it speaks to a lot of very real things that happen out in the world.
We spend most of our time tracing Shoba's journey from India through the early days here.
Her absolute love affair with literature and books and language, and how she then made the decision to explore engineering and then law and become a strong advocate for women and how that has all informed her as a writer and actually why she then made the jump to become a full time writer and a novelist and now a teacher as well.
Really excited to share show Barao and her really beautiful journey.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
You are on the tail end or a couple months after gripping, upsetting, provocative book is out that we will talk about a little bit further into the conversation.
Also career as a writer, a teacher.
I want to take a big step back in time and figure out, you know, like, where did you come from?
Where does all of your explorations, your writing, all this interest come from?
You were born originally in India.
That's right.
Yeah.
So I was born in India.
I'm actually from South India, but I was born in North India where my dad was teaching.
And I was in India until about the age of seven.
And then we moved to the United States.