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A Thousand Times Before by Asha Thanki

Historical fiction

A Thousand Times Before

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Asha Thanki, on your first book!

by Asha Thanki

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Quick take

Three generations of women are woven together by a magical tapestry depicting their family past, present, and future.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, LGBTQ_themes

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Nonlinear_Timeline

    Nonlinear timeline

  • Illustrated icon, Female_Friendship

    Female friendships

  • Illustrated icon, Magical

    Magical

Synopsis

A heartrending family saga following three generations of women connected by a fantastic tapestry through which they inherit the experiences of those that lived before them, sweeping readers 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 shape 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?

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.

Content warning

This book contains scenes that depict the death of a child.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of A Thousand Times Before.

A Thousand Times Before

Part One

DAUGHTER

Nadya, the first time you told me you wanted to be a mother, I froze.

It was after our third date, do you remember? I’d invited you to the art gallery. When you arrived, I played coy, picking up glasses of champagne, greeting guests. I might have even avoided your eyes. You felt important; you reminded me of something I’d wit­­nessed but not yet experienced. Maybe this feeling was superficial—​­a lust for your hair, your smile, the way you moved in that burgundy dress. Maybe it was the way the light caught your arms and danced shadows along your skin. But that sense of your importance deepened with every sentence you spoke, every thought you shared. I wanted to hear every word in every language in your voice. I think I knew, even then, that I could spend lifetimes listening to you.

When I finally mustered the confidence to say something, I overexplained each of my sculptures, nervous. You kept prompting me: “What’s the story behind this one?” and I kept answering.

Afterward, in your apartment, we shared secrets over wine. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else. You went first. You told me you wanted children so casually and with such certainty, as though you could see them fully realized. You made no mention of your part­ner in that vision, and I didn’t ask if you thought it could be me. And though you meant no obligation or pressure by this description of your­ future—​­I balked.

Something in my expression made you laugh and shrug it off, say, “I’m skipping too far ahead.” You pressed your glass to your lips, and while I lifted mine, I didn’t drink. In that moment, I wanted to say so much to you about my ­future—​­our potential future. It wasn’t the right time, though I didn’t know when the right time would be.

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Why I love it

When I was a kid my family recorded interviews with our elders so we would have their memories and stories for posterity. I am so grateful for that foresight and am always amazed by the surprising gems found in family archives. In her scintillating debut novel, A Thousand Times Before, Asha Thanki beautifully captures the wonderful and terrifying impact of the stories we pass down over generations.

Ayukta for years has not known how to share her larger-than-life family history with her wife. She fears sharing it all may scare her away, but then one day she finally relents after her wife asks once again: should we have a child? And so begins the unspooling story of generations of women bound together by a magical tapestry. This tapestry depicts the history of Ayutka’s family from its very beginnings. Each generation, it is passed down to a new female descendant, typically (but not always) mother to daughter. However, the tapestry does not just show the family’s past, it also allows its stewards to influence the future by weaving in new elements…

Moving from Gujarat to New York City and beyond, this is a story full of big ideas and major historical events. But ultimately A Thousand Times Before is a very personal and intimate tale. It movingly explores how our familial past can weigh on our shoulders, but also open us up to life’s fullest possibilities. Let its warmth and insight wrap around you!

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