Runner-up, Bath Novella-in-Flash contest, 2024. Published by Ad Hoc Fiction, UK.
Sudha Balagopal’s Nose Ornaments spans three generations of strong women who don’t succumb to their circumstances, who make decisions, and who have the agency to turn unfavorable situations into opportunities. These are women who seek, women who resolve, women who guide. Throughout the story, Sudha, with her skill and sensitivity, examines the delicate relationships between mothers and daughters that, despite love, are fraught with complexities and misunderstandings. It is an emotional ride filled with hope and sensory details. Not to be missed.
—Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, Author of Morsels of Purple and Skin Over Milk
Sudha Balagopal takes us on a journey spanning three generations and two continents, dealing love, heartache, tradition, and surprise in supercharged miniature doses. Each story in this novella pops with poignancy, with beauty, and with profundity. I loved reading this book and want to read it again.
—Michael Czyzniejewski, author of The Amnesiac in the Maze: Stories
Available here: https://www.adhocfiction.com/2024/05/nose-ornaments-sudha-balagopal/
Highly commended in the Bath Novella-in-Flash contest, 2021.
Here is what the judge, Michelle Elvy said about the book:
A coming-of-age story of a young woman studying abroad, reaching across oceans and time to her family back in Calcutta. Deepa misses the spices and comfort of home, but she embraces the newness and choice that this new world has to offer. Deepa’s encounters captivate the reader. The details take us there; this in 1981 America: giggly girls tune into General Hospital and Good Morning, America, President Reagan is shot, Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer. Deepa is far from the traditions and expectations of her known world, and she opens her mind and her heart. It’s a world of jalapeño and new spices and even danger. And humour, too: there’s a clickety typewriter with a missing letter and ‘Whats-his-name’, the pet bird she can’t name. And there is love, first hinted at when Deepa does not pull back as Theo reaches for her hand, and then told delicately in second person and closing the set with a wonderful, gentle ending.
Available here: https://bookshop.adhocfiction.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=219
Sudha Balagopal: Author 