Shilpa Raj

Shilpa Raj, the author of The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter, is making it to the features these days. Her debut work is a memoir which documents her life since her childhood as well as chronicles the lives of her parents and ancestors and the problems their family (and many others like them) had to face throughout. Her writing has won her several things – recognition, distinction and the status of an author with a motive. Her memoir has been praised by the book critics from India as well as abroad and even the acerbic organisation like Kirkus Review has praised her book. Shilpa Raj’s debut is surely going to make a buzz once her book is formally launched on 28th of July 2017. However, her work, The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter is already available for readers in digital as well as the physical format on Amazon.

Born in 1993, Shilpa comes from a family which belongs to the Dalit community according to Indian social structure which we have been following for centuries. Her early schooling could only be possible because of Shanti Bhavan, a school for children who cannot afford education for many reasons. After her schooling, she completed graduation and post graduation in Psychological Counselling. It was during her school days that she began writing her memoir bit by bit. Her desire to become a journalist or an author has flourished into this present scenario that Shilpa Raj has become the first woman from the underprivileged community of India to write a memoir!

Shilpa has also been specially featured in a Netflix original series Daughters of Destiny. In this web series, she will be seen as a lead role as well as reading few chapters from her book. Shilpa’s writing becomes special because she has written the true account of her life, her problems and her ambitions. She could easily have written some fiction with a scented romance and win the hearts of teenagers but she had to do something else. The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter becomes a document for us to know how the world, different than ours, functions. Shilpa writes about the shortage of ‘life’ in the communities which are compelled to live and die in oblivion, away from the things a civil society in a city does…

Personally, Shilpa likes to spend time at Shanti Bhavan among the children. She also loves teaching English to them. She is also fond of singing and dancing. In a Youtube message, she has hoped that her work will reach to the masses and the readers will come to know how much we need to change as a society to accommodate the people who are no other but our own!