Home Has No Borders
From first crushes to first heartbreaks, complicated family dynamics to community relationships, this powerful collection of stories explores race, class, culture, language, and the very idea of home as both a place and a feeling. May 2025.
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Anuradha D. Rajurkar
is an award-winning author of fiction for young adults. Her debut, American Betiya (Knopf), was named a Best Book by the American Library Association (YALSA), Bank Street, and included on Cosmopolitan's 125 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time list. Born and raised in the Chicago area to Indian immigrant parents, Anuradha earned two degrees from Northwestern University and for many years had the joy of being a public school teacher by day, writer by night. She hopes her stories inspire teens to embrace their unique identities and inner north star.
TEMPORARY BODIES (Knopf)
by Anuradha D. Rajurkar, is a YA gothic thriller about a teen girl who seeks a fresh start in India after the death of her sister, but discovers that the abandoned building her parents are renovating into a boutique hotel has a dark history as a birthing hospital, haunted by restless spirits and the twisted legacy of colonialism.
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The Reviews Are In!
Critics hail American Betiya as “a heartbreaking, unflinching debut” and “a bold coming-of-age piece” (BuzzFeed), while readers rave that Rajurkar’s lyrical prose is “thoughtfully written” and exceeded every expectation.
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TEMPORARY BODIES
Katherine Harrison and Gianna Lakenauth at Knopf have acquired, in an exclusive submission, Temporary Bodies by Anuradha D. Rajurkar, a young adult gothic thriller about a teen girl who seeks a fresh start in India after the death of her sister, but discovers that the abandoned building her parents are renovating into a boutique hotel has a dark history as a birthing hospital, haunted by restless spirits and the twisted legacy of colonialism. Publication is set for 2026; Alexander Slater at GreenburgerKids did the deal for North American rights.
AMERICAN BETIYA
Fans of Sandhya Menon, Erika Sanchez and Jandy Nelson will identify with this powerful story of a young artist grappling with first love, family boundaries and the complications of a cross-cultural relationship.
AMERICAN BETIYA
Rani Kelkar has never lied to her parents, until she meets Oliver. The same qualities that draw her in--his tattoos, his charisma, his passion for art--make him her mother's worst nightmare.
They begin dating in secret, but when Oliver's troubled home life unravels, he starts to ask more of Rani than she knows how to give, desperately trying to fit into her world, no matter how high the cost. When a twist of fate leads Rani from Evanston, Illinois to Pune, India for a summer, she has a reckoning with herself--and what's really brewing beneath the surface of her first love.
Winner of the SCBWI Emerging Voices Award, Anuradha D. Rajurkar takes an honest look at the ways cultures can clash in an interracial relationship. Braiding together themes of sexuality, artistic expression, and appropriation, she gives voice to a girl claiming ownership of her identity, one shattered stereotype at a time.
Stories by Anuradha
Releasing the Truth That is Uniquely Yours: What Goddess Kali Taught Me About Writing
Hey dear friends! I wrote an essay about the nature of the creative process for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators's (SCBWI) quarterly magazine. SCBWI had honored my debut, AMERICAN BETIYA, with the Emerging Voices Award, at which point my dreams of becoming a published author began coming true. I owe so much to this brilliant organization, and being offered the chance to write a feature for them is a huge honor. I hope you love it!
Library Love for American Betiya!
Book Mail~Twice as Perfect by Louisa Onome
