No matter how many stories we hear from our mothers and grandmothers about their lives or their magical childhood, there is always a piece of us that thinks about how wonderful it would be to actually live those stories. Their kind attachments and memories are buried deep inside, which have been carried around with all the other burdens of life. A Thousand Times Before by Asha Thanki is one such heartrending family saga that follows the three generations of women that are connected by a fantastic tapestry through which they inherit the experiences of those that lived before them, sweeping readers all the way across from Partition-era India to modern day Brooklyn.
Ayukta is finally sitting down with her wife Nadya to respond to a question she’s long avoided: Should they have a child? The decision is complicated by a secret her family has kept for centuries, one that Ayukta will be the first to share with someone outside their bloodline: the women in her family inherit a mysterious tapestry, through which each generation can experience the memories of those who came before her.
Ayukta invites Nadya into this lineage, carrying her through its past. She relives her grandmother Amla’s life: Once a happy child in Karachi, Amla migrates to Gujarat during Partition, witnessing violence and loss that forever shapes her approach to marriage and motherhood. Amla’s daughter, Arni, bears this weight in her own blood in 1974, when gender equity and urban class distinctions divide the community as a bold student movement takes hold. As Ayukta unspools these generations of women—whole decades of love, loss, heartbreak, and revival—she reveals the tapestry’s second gift: the ability for each of these women to dramatically reshape their own worlds. Like all power, both fantastic and societal, this inheritance is more treacherous than it seems.
What would it mean, to impart an impossible burden? To withhold these incredible gifts? Is it a boon or a curse to carry these memories, both heartwarming and traumatic?
Sweeping, deeply felt and intergenerational, A Thousand Times Before is a debut as poetic as it is propulsive, as healing as it is heartbreaking, as it examines what it means to carry our past with us and to pass it on. Rooted in a tender love story, and spun with a tremendous amount of care, this book bears a rare idea—a remarkable feat from an incredible new literary talent.
‘Spanning three generations, Asha Thanki’s captivating debut explores the legacies mothers pass on to their daughters—and the complicated responsibilities that accompany them. A Thousand Times Before is a rich family saga about art and memory’s power to inform the present, make peace with the past, and maybe even alter the future.’ – Celeste Ng, New York Times-bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts
The Bombay Circle Press brings this staggering debut to India, this novel is available for you to buy at Amazon or in your nearest bookstores! We hope you have a wonderful time reading it, just as we did working on it! Keep an eye out on our bulletin for more updates.