I’m a big, big fan of Jyoti Rajan Gopal, author of American Desi (Little, Brown, 2022) and My Paati’s Saris (Kokila, 2022); the latter was one of my favorite books of 2022.
In Desert Queen (Levine Querido, Oct. 3), a picture book biography-in-verse, Jyoti traces the life of Queen Harish, who defied gender conventions in small-town Rajasthan to become an internationally-acclaimed drag performer. It’s — without a doubt — one of my favorite books of 2023! Jyoti’s lyrical poetry is moving, figuratively and literally, and Svabhu Kohli’s vibrant, kaleidoscopic spreads are… oof… sumptuous and electrifying.
I spoke with Jyoti about crafting nonfiction, Svabhu’s spectacular illustrations, and her many, many forthcoming picture books. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How did the narrative come to you and why did you want to write Queen Harish’s story in particular?
In 2018, my family and I traveled to Rajasthan. Queen Harish performed in the Thar Desert at the location where we were guests. On stage, she was all energy and humor and joy. I was blown away. The Rajasthani dances she performed were intricate and beautiful and her Bollywood numbers got the audience going. The performance enveloped the audience. Everyone was captivated. I spoke with her briefly and told her that I’d love to learn more about her because I was a children’s book author. She gave me her card, and I promised myself I would call her when I returned home from our holiday. I knew I needed to write a picture book about this person.
What were some of your favorite sources for research?
I kept her card aside and thought I’d contact her when I visited India again. One day, my mom called and said, “I have bad news for you: Queen Harish died in a car accident.” I was devastated. She was crying. I started researching Queen Harish’s life right then. I watched YouTube performances. I unearthed a documentary about [nomadic] life that he was part of. I got a sense of his personality. To figure out how he identified, I read interviews — with Queen Harish and Harish Kumar. Harish lived as a man but performed as a woman. And sometimes he would blur that. In one of his interviews, he used the word “gender fluidity.”
What was your writing process?
I started writing the story using narrative prose. It was flat and boring. While listening to music — I’m pretty sure it was Bollywood music — it hit me that I needed to create a narrative that danced, just like Queen Harish, and the idea to rewrite it in lyrical verse came to me. I wanted the text to embody this idea of gender fluidity. I wrote my first draft in one day.
Did you have any hesitations in writing this story? And, if you did, what did you do to squelch them?
I’m not part of the community of drag performers. But I’d met Queen Harish and had an emotional connection with her, and she knew I was interested in writing about her. That encouraged me to learn more. I went to drag queen story hours. There is a range in the way drag performers identify. There’s no one box. This is Queen Harish’s story, which is very specific to her. I know one thing for sure: Queen Harish would’ve loved this book.
I’d love to know how you felt, when you first saw what Svabhu was creating from your story, your words?
I was already in love with Svabhu’s style and his use of color. He lives in Goa and is inspired by nature. [Desert Queen] is his first children’s book. His initial sketches were freaking spectacular — beyond anything that I could have imagined. Svabhu received [the text] during the pandemic, and got stuck representing Queen Harish on the page. Once travel was allowed, he visited Jaisalmer which got him going again. When I saw the [final] spreads, I had no words. None.
Tell me about all your forthcoming picture books.
One Sweet Song (Candlewick, 2024) is a story about a community that comes together in song, and is inspired by the Italians who sang on balconies. My hope is that the book can be used in different ways: as a counting book, in music classes, as bedtime book. Love is Here with You (Candlewick, 2024) invokes the Hundu pantheon, and is inspired by a Malayalam lullaby my mom used to sing to me and my brother. Sister Day (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024) is about siblings who love each other but are torn apart by a fight. It’s inspired by my daughters who would be broken-hearted whenever they got into an argument! And This Land (Viking, 2025) is about Sikh immigrants who left Punjab to work in the American West in the late 1800s.
Identity has been a consistent theme in your published work. What draws you to it again and again?
Part of it is my own straddling of identities: I grew up in different countries with different languages, sounding one way but looking another and perceived in ways that were not congruent with what I felt. Also, as a teacher, I’ve thought hard about creating nurturing, safe environments for all of my students and seeing them for who they are. It’s important to honor and respect how people present themselves. It’s a dangerous time to be writing these books because of the reception they’re getting from certain quarters; at the same time, they’re also getting so much love, which gives me hope.
As always, if you have the means, pre-order Desert Queen via the usual online channels or from your local independent bookstore. You can also ask your public library to purchase a copy.
this and that
📚 Reading sad books is good for your kids.
📚 Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author of Love in the Library, writes about refusing to censor herself, in Harper’s Bazaar:
In the author’s note, I situate what happened to my grandparents in American history. Which is to say, I call it racism. And I draw parallels between the violence of Executive Order 9066 and other incidents of state-sanctioned racist violence in our history and our present. I invoke the family separation policy on our southern border. Reference the Trail of Tears. And I was very purposefully inclusive of police brutality against Black Americans. The note is a very incomplete list of racist policies enacted within our nation — there’s no mention of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Indian termination policy, or Operation Wetback, for example — but this is simply because there was not enough room in the book (or this essay) for a complete recounting. There are simply too many instances to name.
Scholastic’s proposed edit, which I was told I needed to accept to be given this licensing opportunity, cut that whole paragraph out with an unbroken red line. And not only that, but the word racism had been excised from the author’s note altogether.
I emailed my agent about how offensive the offer was and how disgusted I was. Then, unable to sit still with my fury, I texted her. I was going to say no, an absolute and categorical no, that much was for sure. But also: On a scale of one to that lady who bought all of her own books to manufacture a presence on the New York Times bestseller list, how much would it ruin my career if I came forward about what I’d been asked to do? Because I suspected I wasn’t the first marginalized author who’d been asked to make this kind of edit, who’d been limited this way, who’d been forced to choose between opportunity and their own morals.
🌏 South Korean adoptees have been returning to the country to hold the government accountable for what they call a corrupt adoption system that went largely unchanged until recent decades.
🖊️ “The Neelemans want you to know that you, too, can live like this,” Gaby Del Valle writes in this long read on tradwives in The Baffler. “In fact, they’ll give you the tools. Their ranch, Ballerina Farm, is so named because Hannah is a Juilliard-trained ballerina who danced in New York City in another life, the one that came before the babies and the homestead, and she still dances at every opportunity: in the barn after a long day of chores, in the living room of her century-old farmhouse, in the pasture surrounded by cows and sagebrush. The Neelemans sell not only direct-to-consumer meat but also the cookware Hannah uses in her own kitchen and the aprons she dons to protect her clothing from stains. Ballerina Farm fans can buy a baggie of dehydrated sourdough starter named Willa ($18), a white oak cutting board ($87), a bench scraper ($15), a wooden farm whisk ($16) or spatula ($17), a Ballerina Farm-branded cast-iron skillet ($39), and ground beef from cows raised by the ballerina herself ($110 for ten pounds or $220 for twenty, divided into vacuum-sealed one-pound bags ‘for easy thawing and quick meals’). The cooking videos Hannah posts weekly for her over twelve million followers on Instagram and TikTok are advertisements for these wares, and for her life — some assembly required, husband and children not included.”