Join us with Avni Doshi in conversation with Sana Goyal to discuss her latest novel: The First House.

Join us with Avni Doshi in conversation with Sana Goyal to discuss her latest novel: The First House - A gripping psychodrama of unravelling and rebirth from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women’s Prize-longlisted author of Burnt Sugar.

A woman’s husband walks into their bedroom one evening and tells her that he wants a divorce. She is stunned. They have always had a happy marriage – an almost perfect marriage. In the following days, marooned with two young daughters in a hostile suburb, the woman starts coming apart.

She sifts through the ruins of a shared life, beginning to notice the warning signs which she chose not to see the first time around. She wanders deep into her own memory, where marital scenes intermingle with old myths of headless women and vengeful goddesses. Over the course of a single summer, she is splitting like an insect in its chrysalis, liquifying and reforming, stretching her new antennae toward the light.

Stiletto-sharp and darkly hypnotic, this is a novel about unhappy families – about the bloody battlefield of the home and the enduring threat posed by those closest to us.

Avni Doshi was born in New Jersey in 1982. Her debut novel, Burnt Sugar, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2020, longlisted for the Women’s Prize 2021, and won the Sushila Devi Award 2021. It was named a Book of the Year by the Guardian, Economist, Spectator, New York Times Book Review and NPR and has been translated into 26 languages. Avni Doshi’s writing has appeared in British Vogue, Granta, Sunday Times and Erotic Review. Her second novel is The First House.

Sana Goyal is the Editor and Publishing Director of Wasafiri. She has a PhD in literary prizes from SOAS, University of London, and has experience chairing book events and working with small arts organisations. Her reviews have appeared in The Guardian, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere, and she was a judge for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

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