White Dancing Elephants
White Dancing Elephants is a 2018 book collection of 17 short stories by author Chaya Bhuvaneswar. It won the 2017 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize and was a finalist for the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards. The majority of the stories center around diverse women of color. When asked what the collection was about, Bhuvaneswar responded “Race. Queerness. Sex. Mythologies."[1]
The book takes its name from the first story of the collection, and references Buddhist and Hindu imagery, specifically Ganesha, the god of auspicious beginnings, and Queen Māyā’s white elephant dream.[2][3] The story is dedicated to Bhuvaneswar’s child, lost through a miscarriage.[4]
| Author | Chaya Bhuvaneswar |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short stories |
| Publisher | Dzanc Books |
Publication date | 2018 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) Ebook |
| Pages | 208 pp |
| ISBN | 978-1-945814-61-7 Search this book on  . |
Contents
The collection consists of 17 stories of various lengths, 10 of which had been previously published elsewhere.[5]
| Story | Previously Published In |
|---|---|
| White Dancing Elephants | |
| The Story of the Woman Who Fell in Love with Death | The Bangalore Review[6] |
| Nalinda | Narrative Magazine[7] |
| A Shaker Chair | storySouth[8] |
| Jagatishwaran | |
| The Bang Bang | Michigan Quarterly Review[9] |
| Orange Popsicles | |
| Neela: Bhopal, 1984 | Narrative Northeast[10] |
| Chronicle of a Marriage, Foretold | |
| Heitor | The Masters Review[11] |
| Newberry | The Write Launch[12] |
| Asha in Allston | THE FEM[13] |
| The Life You Save Isn’t Your Own | aaduna[14] |
| The Orphan Handler | |
| In Allegheny | SFWP[15] |
| The Goddess of Beauty Goes Bowling | |
| Adristakama |
Reception
Honors
- 2017 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize
- 2018 35 over 35 Honoree
- 2019 PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection Finalist
Critical Reception
Gabino Iglesias, writing in NPR, called the book “the literary equivalent of a protest march,” praising it as “a necessary book — and one that introduces a gifted voice to contemporary literature.”[16] Sam Sacks of The Wall Street Journal lauded the book, calling it a “compulsively readable debut.”[17] Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, compared reading the book to “receiving Lasik via literature—the world you return to is a little clearer and sharper for the time you’ve spent in her pages.”[17] In the Los Angeles Times, Ellie Robins wrote, "There’s a slight unevenness to the collection, some stories being more fully realized than others. But it’ll be worth watching Bhuvaneswar’s future work."[18]
White Dancing Elephants was named to numerous “Best of 2018” lists including in Elle, Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Harper's Bazaar, Vulture, New York Post, The Rumpus, Washington Independent Review of Books, NPR, Bustle, Bookish, Entropy, and The San Francisco Chronicle.[17]
References
- ↑ "Newsletter". Chaya Bhuvaneswar. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "Rebel Women Lit Interview with Chaya Bhuvaneswar". Rebel Women Lit. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "Dread, Fear, and the Joy in Visual Beauty: A Conversation with Chaya B". Split Lip Magazine. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "Rebel Women Lit Interview with Chaya Bhuvaneswar". Rebel Women Lit. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ Goyal, Sana. "How Chaya Bhuvaneswar, a doctor in the US, wrote a prizewinning debut collection of short stories". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ August, Chaya Bhuvaneswar /; Fiction, 2016 / 126 Comments / (2016-08-04). "The Story of the Woman Who Fell in Love with Death". The Bangalore Review. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ Bhuvaneswar, Chaya (2017-11-05). "Talinda by Chaya Bhuvaneswar | Narrative Magazine". www.narrativemagazine.com. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "A Shaker Chair". storySouth. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "The Language of Difficult Stories: An Interview with Chaya Bhuvaneswar". Michigan Quarterly Review. 2018-11-07. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "Writing". Chaya Bhuvaneswar. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ ""Heitor" by Chaya Bhuvaneswar". The Masters Review. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "Writing". Chaya Bhuvaneswar. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ Mag, The Fem Lit (2017-11-18). "Asha in Allston by Chaya Bhuvaneswar". Medium. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "Writing". Chaya Bhuvaneswar. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ "https://twitter.com/sfwp/status/1066020805543366656". Twitter. Retrieved 2021-04-09. External link in
|title=(help) - ↑ "Difference Beats At The Heart Of 'White Dancing Elephants'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 "Amazon - White Dancing Elephants". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 2021-04-08. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Robins, Ellie (2018-10-26). "Women reckon with choices and missteps in Chaya Bhuvaneswar's 'White Dancing Elephants'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2021-04-09. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
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