Burns Boy

About the Book

FROM THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT HER, A RASHOMON-ESQUE ENQUIRY INTO AN AFTERNOON THAT CRITICALLY ALTERED THE LIVES OF A MOTHER AND HER TWO CHILDREN.
'You wanted to hurt me. You always have.'
'Would I burn my own children alive? Would I really? You think?' She began to cry again.
'I heard you tell Appa that the day Aparna was born, you wanted me dead. Did you or did you not?'
A fifteen-year-old in a burns ward is tormented by the events that led him to the hospital. His mother and sister have their own versions of what happened, causing the reader to reconsider the truth of what the boy says, but also seeing it anew. All of them are right, and yet, they are all guilty in a way. The question is: which of them is more guilty?
Through the fraught relationships between mothers and sons and mothers and daughters, critically acclaimed writer Krupa Ge peels back the layers of familial truths-the secrets that hide in plain sight, and the pain we endure to keep up appearances. Told through the voices of its three protagonists, Burns Boy is a tender story about family, love and happiness, and the lies we tell ourselves to sustain them.

About the Author

Krupa Ge is a writer based in Chennai. She was awarded the Toto-Sangam Residency Fellowship for the year 2016, and was shortlisted for a Toto Prize in Creative Writing the same year. Rivers Remember, her debut book, was published in 2019 by Context. What We Know About Her (Context, 2021), her first novel, was longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature and shortlisted for the inaugural Women Writer's Prize.