Book Summary

Fourteen-year-old Heera, from the impoverished outskirts of a red-light district in Bihar, India, faces a harrowing fate: her father plans to sell her into the sex trade to settle family debts. Witnessing her cousin’s suffering strengthens Heeras resolve to escape that destiny. A lifeline arrives in the form of kung fu training, where she learns to revere her body as a source of self-defensenot exploitation. When her best friend goes missing, Heera undertakes a perilous rescue mission that spans from Bihar all the way to New York, drawing on martial arts, inner strength, and courage. Themes of bodily autonomy, female empowerment, community, and hope drive this gripping and emotionally resonant coming-of-age story.

About the Author

Ruchira Gupta is an Indian journalist, social justice activist, and founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an NGO dedicated to helping women and girls escape systems of prostitutionparticularly within denotified and marginalized communities. Her investigative documentary, The Selling of Innocents, earned her a News & Documentary Emmy Award in 1997. Over her career, she’s been honored with prestigious awards like the Clinton Global Citizen Award, the French Ordre National du Mrite, and the UN NGO CSW Woman of Distinction. Shes also a visiting professor at New York University and holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Smith College. I Kick and I Fly is her debut fiction novel, grounded in her decades of work and advocacy.