In 1950s Bombay, Jaya Malhotra studies medicine at the direction of her father, a champion of womenâs education who assumes the right to choose his daughtersâ vocations. A talented painter drawn to the cityâs dynamic new modern-art movement, Jaya is driven by her desire to express both the pain and extraordinary force of life of a nation rising from the devastation of British rule. Her twin sister, Kamlesh, a passionate student of Bharata Natyam dance, complies with her fatherâs decision that she become a schoolteacher while secretly pursuing forbidden dreams of dancing onstage and in the movies. When Jaya moves out of her family home to live with a woman mentor, she suffers grievous consequences as a rare woman in the menâs domain of art. Not only does her departure from home threaten her familyâs standing and crush her reputation but Jaya also loses a vital connection to Kamlesh. Winner of the AWP Prize for the Novel, Parul Kapurâs Inside the Mirror is set in the aftermath of colonialism, as an impoverished India struggles to remake itself into a modern state. Jayaâs story encompasses art, history, political revolt, love, and womenâs ambition to seize their own power.