New Delhi, Oct. 24 -- In Thorns in My Quilt, Mohua Chinappa writes to her late father in letters that ache with memory, tenderness, and defiance. What begins as a private act of mourning becomes something larger, a meditation on how women are taught to grieve, to love, and to remain silent within the boundaries of family. Beneath its intimate tone, the book carries a distinctly feminist pulse. It asks what it means for women to speak when speech itself has been shaped by patriarchy, and how memory is often dismissed as sentimental or domestic, but it can be a radical act of resistance.

The choice of the letter form feels deliberate and deeply political. By writing to her father, Mohua joins a lineage of South Asian women like Ismat Chugh...