'A treat for Ferrante fans, exploring the bonds of friendship and how female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies'
Huffington Post

An electrifying debut novel - the story of the unbreakable bond between two girls driven apart, and their journeys across continents to find each other again.

Poornima and Savitha, born in poverty, have known little kindness in their lives until they meet as teenagers. When an act of devastating cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend.

Alternating between the girls' perspectives as they face apparently insurmountable obstacles on their travels through the darkest corners of India's underworld and across an ocean, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who refuse to lose the hope that burns within.

"Burns with intensity . . . [Rao] is clearly a writer of great ambition" - USA Today

"A searing portrait of what feminism looks like in much of the world" - Vogue

"Shobha Rao writes cleanly and eloquently about women who, without their brightness, might have been left to die in their beds. She writes them into life, into existence, into the light of day" - Los Angeles Times

"Rao evokes the landscape of poverty with great skill . . . this is a timely portrayal of human traffi cking, cultural misogyny and the battles still fought every day by millions of women worldwide" - Observer

"Elegant and eloquent . . . this emotionally devastating story is at times almost too harrowing to read" - Mail on Sunday