Parul Kapur in conversation with Jessica Handler

Join the Georgia Center for the Book for an evening with Parul Kapur celebrating her new novel Inside the Mirror, which won the AWP Prize for the Novel. She'll be in conversation with Jessica Handler. Charis Books and More will be our bookseller for the evening, and you will be able to purchase Kapur's Inside the Mirror, as well as titles by Jessica Handler. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. After the event, please join us for a book signing and small reception.

Update: This event will be held on the Fourth Floor of Decatur Library. Please enter through the main level of the library, not the lower level where the auditorium is (this level will be locked). Parking is available on both levels of the parking deck and throughout Decatur. There will be si gns when you arrive to the building, but note that only one elevator goes to the Fourth Floor (the one on the right when you're facing the elevators), and it will be unlocked by 6:30 so you can access the Fourth Floor and claim a seat. The bathrooms are limited on the Fourth Floor currently, so we recommend using them on the First or Third Floor before the event, or on the First Floor after the event (the library closes at 8 and only the Fourth and First floors will be open at that time). Thank you for your patience as we navigate construction in the building, and we are very excited to welcome you for this conversation and reception.

About the Novel:

Set in 1950s Bombay, India, INSIDE THE MIRROR centers on twin sisters who aspire to become artists, exploring female creativity and identity-making in a society remaking its own identity in the devastating aftermath of colonial rule. Jaya Malhotra studies medicine at the direction of her father, who, though a champion of women’s education, assumes the right to choose his twin daughters’ vocations. A talented painter drawn to the city’s dynamic, new modern art movement, Jaya feels compelled to express both the pain and extraordinary life force of a nation recovering from centuries of British oppression. Her twin, Kamlesh, is a passionate student of Bharata Natyam dance who complies with her father’s decision that she become a school teacher.

When Jaya moves out of her family home to live with a female mentor, she suffers grievous consequences as a rare woman in an exclusive domain of male artists. Not only does her departure from home threaten her family’s standing and destroy her reputation, Jaya loses a vital connection to her twin, who pursues her own forbidden dreams by appearing on stage and in the Hindi cinema as a dancer. The twins discover the heavy cost of forging their own destinies in a society that demands women conform to prescribed roles.

A story of two visionary sisters, INSIDE THE MIRROR is a brilliant examination of art, colonialism, injustice, love, and the ambition of women to seize their own power.

About the Author:

Parul Kapur was born in Assam, India, and raised in the United States. Her fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Pleiades, Midway Journal, and more. She has contributed articles and reviews to The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal Europe, Esquire, Art in America, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Paris Review. She was a press officer at the United Nations in New York, and she worked as a reporter at the city magazine Bombay in India. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives in Atlanta.

About the Moderator:

Jessica Handler is the author of The Magnetic Girl, winner of the 2020 Southern Book Prize, an Indie Next selection, Wall Street Journal Spring ’19 pick, Bitter Southerner Summer ’19 pick and SIBA Okra pick. She is the author of the nonfiction books Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Invisible Sisters: A Memoir, which was named one of the “Books All Georgians Should Read” and Atlanta Magazine’s “Best Memoir of 2009.” Jessica’s essays and nonfiction features have appeared on NPR, in Tin House, Drunken Boat, Full Grown People, Brevity, The Bitter Southerner, Electric Literature, Oldster, Newsweek, The Washington Post, and More Magazine. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, novelist Mickey Dubrow.