Optional Practical Training: A Novel
Mar 2025 · Sold by Graywolf Press
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* SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION 2025 FIRST NOVEL PRIZE *
An elegantly inventive debut novel that offers a sharp new take on the immigrant story in post-9/11 America
Told as a series of conversations, Optional Practical Training follows Pavitra, a young Indian woman who came to the US for college from Bangalore, India, and graduates in 2006 with a degree in physics. Her student visa grants her an extra twelve months in the country for work experience—a period known as Optional Practical Training—so she takes a position as a math and physics teacher at a private high school near Cambridge, Massachusetts.
What Pavitra really wants, though, is the time and space to finish a novel—to diverge from what’s expected of her within her family of white-collar professionals and to build a life as a writer. Navigating her year of OPT—looking for a room to rent, starting her job—she finds that each person she encounters expects something from her too. As her landlord, colleagues, students, parents of her students, friends of her family, and neighbors talk to and at her, they shape her understanding of race, immigration, privilege, and herself.
Throughout the book, Pavitra seems to speak very rarely; and yet, as she responds to the assumptions, insights, projections, and observations of those around her, a subtle and sophisticated portrait emerges of a young woman and aspiring artist defining a place for herself in the world.
An elegantly inventive debut novel that offers a sharp new take on the immigrant story in post-9/11 America
Told as a series of conversations, Optional Practical Training follows Pavitra, a young Indian woman who came to the US for college from Bangalore, India, and graduates in 2006 with a degree in physics. Her student visa grants her an extra twelve months in the country for work experience—a period known as Optional Practical Training—so she takes a position as a math and physics teacher at a private high school near Cambridge, Massachusetts.
What Pavitra really wants, though, is the time and space to finish a novel—to diverge from what’s expected of her within her family of white-collar professionals and to build a life as a writer. Navigating her year of OPT—looking for a room to rent, starting her job—she finds that each person she encounters expects something from her too. As her landlord, colleagues, students, parents of her students, friends of her family, and neighbors talk to and at her, they shape her understanding of race, immigration, privilege, and herself.
Throughout the book, Pavitra seems to speak very rarely; and yet, as she responds to the assumptions, insights, projections, and observations of those around her, a subtle and sophisticated portrait emerges of a young woman and aspiring artist defining a place for herself in the world.
* SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION 2025 FIRST NOVEL PRIZE *
An elegantly inventive debut novel that offers a sharp new take on the immigrant story in post-9/11 America
Told as a series of conversations, Optional Practical Training follows Pavitra, a young Indian woman who came to the US f...
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About the author
Shubha Sunder is the author of Boomtown Girl, a story collection set in her hometown of Bangalore, India, that won the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her family.
Shubha Sunder is the author of Boomtown Girl, a story collection set in her hometown of Bangalore, India, that won the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her family.
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