Letters to My Daughter — about the book

Letters to My Daughter: Stories Women Tell Their Bones is a collection of letters from a mother to a daughter she is not certain she will ever meet on the page. Some letters are short — a single paragraph, a single ache. Some run for hours. Some are addressed to the daughter; some are addressed to the mother the writer wishes she had had; and some, quietly, are addressed to the reader.

This is not a parenting book. It is a book about being parented. About the inheritance that arrives in a daughter's body before language does. About the silences handed down — in tea cups, in averted eyes, in the long pause before a mother answers an honest question.

I wrote it anonymously, on purpose. The story does not belong to a face. It belongs to a lineage — and that lineage is shared. If you have ever been a daughter, the book is also, in some small way, yours.

It is written for the woman who keeps a notebook of unsent letters. For the daughter who is still trying to translate her mother. For the mother who is afraid she will pass on more than she has healed. For the reader who underlines in pencil because some sentences need to be argued with first.

If you are looking for a place to start, begin with the quotes readers keep returning to, or read the letter I could not send. The book itself is on Amazon and Flipkart — paperback only, on purpose. Some things should be read on paper, slowly, with a window open.