{"title":"Shana Chandra","description":"\u003cp\u003eShana Chandra is a Tāmaki Makaurau born writer, researcher and educator of Indo-Fijian\u003cbr\u003eheritage and Girmitiya descent, currently based in Limoges, France. Her writing voices the\u003cbr\u003ehistory of her displaced and forgotten indentured-labourer ancestors in their words,\u003cbr\u003erepairing and restoring it from beneath the empire's shadow and exploring how the\u003cbr\u003eviolence and complexities of their indenture rooted into her life growing up in Aotearoa.\u003cbr\u003eAfter living in Japan and Naarm (Melbourne), in 2016 she completed her Masters of\u003cbr\u003eCreative Writing at the University of Technology in Sydney. Her writing has appeared in\u003cbr\u003eLindsay, Love in the Time of Covid Chronicle, UTS Anthology: The Light Borrowers and\u003cbr\u003eLandfall magazine. For the past decade Shana has also worked as a freelance writer and\u003cbr\u003ehas been featured in international fashion, arts and culture publications.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"banjara-by-shana-chandra-9781869718411","title":"Banjara","description":"A powerful literary debut from an astonishing new Kiwi voice, focusing on the Indo-Fijian indenture system and how it affected generations across the Pacific.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eRajasthan 1888:\u003c\/b\u003e Avani Rathod, a nomad of the Banjara community, is summoned to teach a blue-eyed colonial officer the trees of her region, but instead is misled into indenture to the sugarcane plantations of Fiji. While on the voyage that leads her away from her ancestral land, Avani's baby forms in her belly and she forges close friendships with the other women bound for the Pacific - bonds that will be tested once they reach the islands, under the suffocating colonial powers.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAotearoa 2016:\u003c\/b\u003e Avani's great-granddaughter, Meera Chand, seeks the true history of her ancestors - the forgotten and displaced Girmitiya. Meera's search for her great-grandmother's origins leads her to a region of India, where she learns the rhythms of Odissi dance and where she meets up with her former lover - the man she can never have, but whom she can't forget. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e  Set in Aotearoa, Australia, India and Fiji, \u003ci\u003eBanjara \u003c\/i\u003eis an essential reimagining of Indo-Fijian Girmitiya history, and a love letter to our ancestors whose stories live on in our genes.","brand":"Hachette New Zealand Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47028146995436,"sku":"9781869718411","price":27.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781869718411_2.jpg?v=1768270382"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/shana-chandra.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}