NEW DELHI, Feb. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ —
Publishing in April 2021 – from Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
HarperCollins India is delighted to announce that it has acquired the rights to publish Naheed Phiroze Patel’s brilliant coming-of-age novel, A Mirror Made of Rain. Publishing under the prestigious Fourth Estate imprint and set for release in April 2021, this intricately textured work of fiction, is both riveting and discomfiting, as it brings alive a world and characters that are complex, layered and flawed, yet breathtakingly real.
The book has elicited some warm advance praise and here’s what writer Diksha Basu has to say about it, “A Mirror Made of Rain is luminous – a blistering and unflinching commentary on family, love, pain, addiction and destruction. We are lucky to have Naheed Patel writing.”
Naheed Phiroze Patel says, “I began writing A Mirror Made of Rain as a way to come to terms with the untimely death of my father. I hoped, by writing a character based on him, to keep him a part of my life for a bit longer. As I got further into the story, however, I was taken over by an all-consuming need to explore the sense of unbelonging felt by my protagonist, Noomi, and to capture the maelstrom of loss, joy, grief and tender moments that make up a life. The novel’s epicenter is the dysfunctional relationship between Noomi and her mother, Asha, and I wanted to portray the unravelling of their lives with honesty and empathy, reaching into the hearts of these two women to reveal the darkness that addiction and mental illness casts over a family. In the wonderful editorial team at HarperCollins, I found the best possible champions for my novel.”
Rahul Soni, Executive Editor – Literary at HarperCollins Publishers India, says, “Naheed Phiroze Patel’s first novel is intelligent, humorous – yet sharp and merciless in its portrayal of a fraught mother-daughter relationship, and the universal struggle all children undertake in order to not turn into their parents. But for all the direness of the subject matter, what shines through is hope and an affirmation of life, without any of the attendant sentimentality. A Mirror Made of Rain is an exceptional work, and we at HarperCollins India are looking forward very much to bringing this novel to readers.”
Udayan Mitra, Publisher – Literary at HarperCollins Publishers India, says, “A Mirror Made of Rain is an exceptionally accomplished first novel, a book that is going to be thought of and talked about for a long time to come. We’re delighted to be publishing Naheed’s remarkable work of fiction this April, under our prestigious Fourth Estate imprint.”
About the book –
Noomi Wadia, a bright, quick-tempered young woman with a penchant for getting into trouble, has struggled with the social isolation of her manic-depressive mother. We watch Noomi grow from a lonely, wild-hearted teenager, pining for her mother’s acceptance and nurtured by her father’s devotion, to a troubled young adult who finds love, but not happiness.
Battling addiction and anxiety, Noomi realizes that her worst fears have come to pass – that she is the reluctant heir to her mother’s history, and the she must battle her self-destructive impulses or risk losing everything, even her life. Even as the story moves from small-town India to New York City, and traverses between the past and the present in a journey that is both dark and beguiling, its soul stays tethered to this heartbreakingly toxic mother-daughter relationship and its destructive aftermath.
About the author –
Naheed Phiroze Patel received her MFA in fiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, HuffPost, The Rumpus, Scroll.in, New England Review, BOMB Magazine, EuropeNow Journal, PEN America, and elsewhere. She lives in the greater New York City area and works as a freelance essayist, interviewer and critic.
