Join us online or in person to hear from author Dr. Chaya Bhuvaneswar about her remarkable debut book White Dancing Elephants! Please register below. This event is co-sponsored by Countway Library and the HMS Arts & Humanities Initiative. 

About the Book:

In seventeen remarkable stories, Chaya Bhuvaneswar spotlights diverse women of color—cunning, bold, and resolute—facing sexual harassment and racial violence, and occasionally inflicting that violence on each other. Winner of the 2017 Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize, White Dancing Elephants marks the emergence of a new and original voice in fiction and explores feminist, queer, religious, and immigrant stories with precision, drama, and compassion.

"Chaya Bhuvaneswar's debut collection maps with great assurance the intricate outer reaches of the human heart. What a bold, smart, exciting new voice, well worth listening to; what an elegant story collection to read and savor."
-Lauren Groff, author of Florida

"Stunning, evocative, electric...an exuberant collection."
-Kirkus Reviews (starred)
 

• Best Books of 2018 Kirkus Reviews (debut and short fiction categories)
• Best Books of 2018, Entropy Magazine
• A Book Club selection for The Wing, Rebel Women's Lit and Bookish.com
• 35 over 35 Debut Fiction Award
• Finalist for the 2019 PEN American Robert Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection
   

About the Author:

Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a South Asian-American psychiatrist, poet, award winning fiction writer and essayist. Her work as a psychiatrist has been published in over 30 peer-reviewed medical journals and has received clinical research funding to develop effective treatments for trauma and its aftermath, from the National Institutes for Health/ Institutes for Mental Health. She has published several textbook chapters on the health and well-being of women and people of color (BIPOC patients) from diverse communities, including in Substance Disorders in Pregnancy, Guide to Bipolar Disorder in Geriatric Populations, and The Massachusetts General Hospital Adult Psychiatry Residency Handbook of Psychiatry. Chaya has specialized training in cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy and mindfulness training as well.