Tashan Mehta
Mad Sisters of Esi
Myung and Laleh are keepers of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to an enigmatic figure they know only as 'Great Wisa'. To Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough.
When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries: the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.
Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it asks: In the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?
Awards and News
Selected as one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novels of 2025
Selected as one of Reactor Magazine's Best Books of 2025: Reviewer's Choice
Editor's Pick: Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of August by Amazon US
Winner of the 2024 AutHer Awards for Best Novel; Winner of the 2024 Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards for Best Fantasy; Longlisted for the 2023 KLF Book Awards; Featured on the 2023 Locus Recommended Reading List
Praise for Mad Sisters of Esi
Tashan Mehta is one of the most gifted, original writers you’ll ever read. MAD SISTERS shows us, again, her skill with both the cosmic and the deeply personal. All of it is magical.
- Samit Basu, author of CHOSEN SPIRITS and THE CITY INSIDE
Sometimes a fantasy comes along so startling and so keenly felt that it changes the way you look at the world for the better. Wonderfully immersive, deeply pleasurable and utterly original, MAD SISTERS OF ESI is a classic in the making and the best book I’ve read in years.
- Helen Marshall, author of THE MIGRATION and World Fantasy Award winner
Tashan Mehta shows herself to be a contemporary successor of Italo Calvino with the magnificent MAD SISTERS OF ESI, a tale of tales wrapped in iridescent spacetime, an infinitely nested creation myth, a portal and a ship and a campfire woven of prose.
- Indrapramit Das, author of THE DEVOURERS
Think of Elena Ferrante, but set in a magical, fantasy world. Blurring boundaries between genres, Tashan Mehta's MAD SISTERS OF ESI takes on from where the brilliant THE LIAR'S WEAVE left off, and is a remarkable second novel from a very gifted writer.
- Gautam Bhatia, author of THE WALL and THE HORIZON
Breathtakingly gorgeous ... MAD SISTERS OF ESI both demands and rewards a second reading, and is a strong contender for the best novel of the year.
- Charlie Jane Anders, The Washington Post
A bewildering stunner of a book, cheerfully unexplained and wholly unexplainable.
- Jenny Hamilton, Reactor Magazine's Best Books of 2025: Reviewer's Choice
A great sweeping fairy tale of a book, utterly different from most of the fantasy out now.
- Liz Braswell, The Wall Street Journal
Scintillating ... MAD SISTERS OF ESI is a rich novel, and the stories it tells should be savored while you're reading them, not least because Mehta reminds us that stories always change over time, as they are retold or re-encountered. I can only hope my brief exposition here has done her novel some sort of justice, and look forward to my own certain future of re-ecountering the four sisters.
- Niall Harrison, Locus Magazine
A mad, magnificent trip through other worlds
- Jaclyn Fulwood, ShelfAwareness
Mehta writes a beautifully unique, engulfing tale of the power of stories, desires, madness, magic, and the complexity of sisterhood.
- Booklist
Readers are sure to be impressed.
- Publisher's Weekly
Groundbreaking ... A literary creation that, once experienced, is unlikely to be forgotten.
- Ronnie Kuriakose, The New Indian Express
Hauntingly beautiful and profoundly thought-provoking
- Ankita Victor, Deccan Herald
Like the best unconventional novels, Mad Sisters of Esi teaches you how to read it from the moment you hop along on the ride. And what an enthralling ride it is.
- Aditya Mani Jha, Moneycontrol
I am excited about Tashan Mehta and I am excited about this book.
- Sahana Hedge, Scroll.in