Tharani Balachandran
Brown Sugar Skin is the second poetry chapbook by Tharani Balachandran. In this collection, the author delves into topics such as childhood, family, immigration, mental health, dating, identity, fertility, and motherhood. Among the collection is a poem in which the author reminisces about spending time with extended family in her childhood, a poem in which the author imagines a future in which we ask ChatGPT to start managing our lives instead of just the way we write, and a poem about the worries that parents experience when they are expecting.
The author, who is a first-generation Tamil Canadian hopes that readers can find at least one poem in this collection that resonates, as moving from childhood to adulthood, learning how to be comfortable in one’s own skin and how to love yourself as you are, is a universal experience.​​​​
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Reviews of Brown Sugar Skin
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Brown Sugar Skin attends to the incredible bravery required to open your heart to love in all its forms. With these poems, Tharani Balachandran guides us through a tender and unflinching inquiry into family, otherness, and the Tamil diaspora experience. Stretching from childhood to motherhood, these poems touch all the tumultuous spaces in between while nurturing a balance of nostalgia and humour. Like that one dear friend who knows everything (the one you can call at any time of day for any reason), let Brown Sugar Skin be a comforting reassurance softly reminding you why we must courageously step into love.
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-Marie Metaphor Specht, Victoria BC’s 6th Poet laureate and author of Soft Shelters.
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Brown Sugar Skin is a love song to all things diasporic, nostalgic and transformative. Balachandran’s poetry will transport you back in time to re-live the pains of those awkward growing-up years, navigation of family ties, the perils and feverishness of modern dating and the yearnings for motherhood. More importantly, her powerful words will heal you as you look forward with hope and forgiveness. As a woman of colour, I am immensely proud to herald Brown Sugar Skin as the handbook for healing heartbreaks. It is exciting to read Balachandran’s wit, and wisdom while reflecting upon her Tamil heritage with diasporic sentiments.
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- Amy Lee, Managing Editor, Quail Bell Magazine, New York City.