Tales of Zygorra

Aditya Shukla ’19

In this young-adult fantasy novel, 10 New York City teens find themselves teleported from their summer camp to the alternate dimension of Zygorra, where they develop superpowers. The book, published in India, is the first from Shukla, who works in finance in New York. “He was doused in water. He was on fire,” Shukla writes as his protagonist, a 16-year-old boy of Romanian and Japanese heritage who comes from an unhappy home, is wrenched from his known universe. “He felt vicious spikes jabbing at him. His throat felt constricted. His vision blurred and blacked out. His ears felt overloaded with silence. He lost sensation in his hands and legs. Time seemed to slow down and then speed up again. He was unable to focus on anything, yet a billion thoughts swirled in his mind. He felt consciousness slipping away.”

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