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| Shilpa Raj with kids at Shanti Bhavan |
Shilpa Raj is the author of the first ever memoir written by any woman who belongs to the untouchable community in India. Her memoir The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter will be released on 28th of July 2017 and it is already live for sales on the leading online retailers like Amazon. We are talking about Shilpa Raj today because the author has created a buzz in the literary streets of Indian writing. Her writing style, her mature theme and her handling of the plot are some of the things which are making the headlines and the most important thing is Shilpa’s credentials of belonging to a Dalit family. While people in such ‘lower section’ of our society are not supposed to complete their basic education, Shilpa did not only achieved an M.Sc. in Psychological Counselling but also gave it back to the social hypocrisy – she penned down a memoir and told the world how does it feel like being born to a family which does not have the right to go side by side with other ‘upper class’ people and nor have the access to the basic needs necessary to be alive.
Shilpa Raj comes from Karnataka and she would also have been the same like others in her family. However, because she was picked by some gentleman for Shanti Bhavan, she could complete her education. Shilpa’s writing habits began developing at a young age during her early schooling days. She used to write short stories and also recall the events of her life and write about that in her diary. Moreover, it was a childhood dream to be either a journalist or an author and today she has become an author who is ready to mark her impression!
Her decision to make her debut with a real life story rather than a comfortable fiction is a bold step which ensures the readers of the determination the author has with her. It would rather be easy to weave a fiction and hide the facts behind some fictional characters and their plights. Shilpa Raj, on the other hand, has told the world the reality which she, her parents, her grandparents and others like her have to face every day in their lives. The characterisation, the selection of theme, the maturity in handling the narrative and the simplicity with which she connects her writing to the readers are amazing! That’s why Shilpa Raj’s debut book has attracted the praises of the top book critics in India as well as many ones in the different countries. Her life story has also been featured in a Netflix Original series entitled Daughters of Destiny. This is a web series in which Shilpa Raj will also be reading some chapters from her book.
You can read The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter by downloading a Kindle copy from Amazon or ordering a physical copy of the book from the same store. To make things easy, I am also adding a link to the book page on Amazon at the end of this story. You can know more about Shilpa by visiting her official website: http://shilpa-raj.com
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