So how does somebody who came to the United States at the age of seven from India got an undergraduate degree in engineering and then went to law school and practiced law?

End up being a writer, a novelist writing really powerful literary novels about deeply complex things.

Well, that is exactly the journey of my guest today, Shobarau. It was a pleasure to really sort of explore this entire journey. Her latest book, Girls Burn Brighter, is a really powerful, provocative, raw look at the experience of women, in particular, women of color,

and the lives that they've lived in different countries and what sometimes happens when they come here while it is a novel.

It speaks to a lot of very real things that happen out in the world. We spend most of our time tracing Shobas journey from India through the early days here, her absolute love affair with literature and books and language and how she then made the decision to explore engineering and then law and become a strong advocate for women and how that has all informed her as a writer and actually why she then made the jump to

become a full-time writer and a novelist and now a teacher as well. Really excited to share Shobarau and her really beautiful journey. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

You are on the talent a couple months after gripping, upsetting, provocative book is that we will talk about a little bit further into the conversation also, careers a writer, a teacher.

I want to take a big step back in time and figure out where you come from, where does all of your exploration, your writing, all this interest come from. You were born originally in India.

That's right. I was born in India, actually from South India, but I was born in North India where my dad was teaching and I was in India until about the age of seven and then we moved to United States.

What, tell me about your family a little bit now in the early days in India?

Well, you know, it was kind of an idyllic childhood. It was a college, it was a bigger town called Kanpur and my dad worked at one of the premier engineering technical schools in the country called Indian Institute of Technology.

I just remember growing up with lots of friends and a really great school that was run by the university for the children of the professors and staff.

I remember a very sort of earthy childhood, playing in the dirt and collecting little berries off the trees and upsetting the insects.

And making little clay figurines to play with. It was kind of a very sort of of the earth and quite picolic in some ways, even though it was in a larger town.

My existence felt really protected and insular and quite forested in a lot of ways.

Yeah, that's beautiful. What happens when you're around seven that actually brings your family to the US?

So my father got a fellowship at NASA since he's an engineer. And so we moved for a one year fellowship and that became sort of extended into a longer and then a longer and longer stay.

Okay, so you're seven years old. Your dad comes home from work one day. It says, Shoba. I have some news. How does that land with you at that age?

You know, I don't recall the moment that, you know, it was announced to me or that, you know, I was made aware that we're moving to America.

But I do remember the feeling of it, right, more than the moment of it. So I remember thinking that we were going to go on a grand adventure.

And I had no idea where America was. Look, I must have looked at a map, but I don't recall all I remember thinking is or understanding is that here was India.

And then there was a creek that kind of flowed between the two countries. And then on that side, I mean, I'm not a creek.

...