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Unprecedented times a novel

"Malavika Kannan establishes herself as an literary voice of Gen Z in this piercing coming-of-age debut novel. Which comes first: experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. Her future is set-she's going to leave behind the stri...

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Main Author: Kannan, Malavika, 2001- (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2026.
Edition:First edition.
Subjects:
Generation Z.
Women college students.
Interpersonal relations.
East Indian Americans.
COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-2023.
Queer fiction.
Coming-of-age fiction.
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Summary:"Malavika Kannan establishes herself as an literary voice of Gen Z in this piercing coming-of-age debut novel. Which comes first: experience or narrative? Rishi thinks she knows the answer as she arrives on campus for her first year at Stanford. Her future is set-she's going to leave behind the strict trappings of her Indian American childhood in Florida, embrace her queer identity, experiment with love, and write all about it. Within a few months, she gets a new tattoo, makes her first best friend, falls in love with her situationship, and even gets her heart broken. Rishi's final paper for Asian American Autofiction practically writes itself. What is not a part of Rishi's plan, however, is the onset of the COVID pandemic. As the outside world becomes a terrifying place, she increasingly finds solace in the friendships she's made. In lieu of virtual college, Rishi and her classmates join a farm collective and grapple with America's political situation and growing disillusionment-along with sexual tension and responsibility. It's only when those relationships start fracturing under the stress of careless decisions, unrequited crushes, jealousies, and, yes, unprecedented times, that Rishi begins to question her own story. Unprecedented Times captures the beauty, frustration, love, and pain that exists in relationships between best friends, lovers, mothers and daughters, and between storytellers and themselves. Malavika Kannan's fresh, arresting novel is a testament to the power of self-narrative for first-generation Americans: of writing oneself into existence where no previous script exists"-- Provided by publisher.
Physical Description:338 pages ; 21 cm.
ISBN:9781250420787
1250420784
Author Notes:Malavika Kannan (b. 2001) is a Tamil American writer whose work appears in The Nation , The Washington Post , New York , Teen Vogue , and elsewhere. Her villain origin story is that, as a teenager in Florida, she organized for generational movements such as March for Our Lives and the Women's March. Her YA novel All the Yellow Suns was published in 2023. She graduated from Stanford University and now moonlights as a gay socialite in Brooklyn, where she co-hosts the popular mutual aid supper club Girls Eat Girls. You can follow her on Instagram @malavika.kannan and on TikTok @literarymal.

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