Ela!

by Sampurna Chattarji

Ela has everything a girl might need. Greatfriends, cool parents, no pressure to over-achieveand all the space to be herself. On her thirteenthbirthday, her perfect world falls apart when shediscovers the truth has been kept secret from her.What happens to Ela as she spirals into rage and grief? Who are the mysterious boy and the giant bird? Will she save herself?Find out in this compelling novel fromSampurna Chattarji in which the stark realism ofgrowing up crosses over into the realm of fantasy. '“Who am I?” Sampurna Chattarji zeroes in on this universal question in Ela, her gripping portrayal of a teen in crisis. The disintegration of her first-person narrator is absolute – yet the monster bird that settles itself in her room belongs to a species sighted by every teen. Chattarji is unflinching, her prose incandescent. As she tracks Ela’s torturous path toward what is as much a rebirth as a coming-of-age, her message is every life is a miracle'—Ken Spillman, author, I Am Oscar‘Chattarji does such a brilliant job of getting you into the mind and skin of her character’—Parinita Shetty, author, The Monster Hunters

166 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 1, 2020

About the author

Although born in Ethiopia Sampurna Chattarji grew up in Darjeeling, India and graduated in English Literature from New Delhi. She worked in advertising for 7 years before becoming a full time writer in 1999.

She is a poet, novelist and translator. Her nine published books include three poetry collections— Absent Muses, The Fried Frog and Sight May Strike You Blind; and two novels— Rupture and Land of the Well. Her translation of Abol Tabol: The Nonsense World of Sukumar Ray is now a Puffin Classic titled Wordygurdyboom! Her poetry has been translated into German, Swiss-German, Irish, Scots, Welsh, French, Tamil, Manipuri and Bambaiyya; and her children’s fiction into Welsh and Icelandic.

Sampurna is the editor of Sweeping the Front Yard, an anthology of women’s writing in English, Malayalam, Telugu and Urdu. She was the 2012 Charles Wallace writer-in-residence at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

More about her writing can be found at sampurnachattarji.wordpress.com.