Gold and Datura

About the Book

The Cons:- * A complex loco-motor disability * A habitual sponge and punter for a father * A chronically depressed mother * A predatory, incestuous cousin * Atrociously bad infrastructure in small-town India that makes day to day living an ordeal * Dubious treatments and medical negligence * A base, subhuman society that mocks, ridicules, belittles, disparages, heckles, tyrannizes, rejects and alienates her just because she has a disability. The Pros:- * She is an ethereal beauty, blessed with a Super- high IQ. Will our beauteous genius of a protagonist, Kanak, be able to stand up to all the herculean cons stacked against her or will the scorching heat of atrocities lead to the untimely withering of a rose that could blossom into something phenomenal?

About the Author

Lasya Shashimohan (b. 1983) is a multi-genre Indian writer, writing regularly for the better part of a decade now. She is the author of 1) The Search and Other Stories (Short Fiction) Dec 2013 2) Nemesis and Multi-facets (Poetry) Jan 2013. As a freelance contributor, she has been widely published in leading Indian dailies like The New Indian Express, The Deccan Herald, The Hindu and a few e-zines like Indian Ruminations, Fried Eye et al. Three of her poems won an honorable mention in a competition conducted on the online forum of e-zine Muse India and her poem ‘Pier of Dreams’ won the YS Poetry prize in September 2012. The hard-hitting Gold and Datura which she calls ‘a semi-autobiography laced with unreigned flights of fantasy’ is her first full-length fiction novel by the means of which she aspires to entertain and also bring to the attention of the world the various malaises scourging India, especially the lamentable plight of its differently -able citizens.