Photo of Chhaya, a smiling Indian woman with long dark hear, wearing a t-shirt, standing against a green background.

Chhaya Nayyar

BSR Contributor Since June 3, 2025

Chhaya Nayyar (she/her) is a writer and grad student based in Pennsylvania.

Chhaya Nayyar is a writer and grad student based in Pennsylvania. Chhaya has a BA from the University of Manchester in Drama and English Literature and is soon to have a Master of Journalism from Temple University. She writes everything from articles and opinion pieces to plays and short films, and can currently be found writing a mix of things on Substack.

By this Author

5 results
Page 1
Bookstore table stacked with dozens of thick, heavy, ornately designed hardback romantasy novels.

The romantasy genre subverts women’s agency when we need it the most

Is romantasy regressive?
The new romantasy genre—a mashup of romance and fantasy wildly popular with women—is actually full of regressive themes that deny women’s agency and political stakes. Chhaya Nayyar considers.
Chhaya Nayyar

Chhaya Nayyar

Essays 5 minute read
Dressed in prep school blazers and lit in dramatic purple and green, Corey and Tyler thumb wrestle excitedly.

Inis Nua and Tiny Dynamite present Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair’s Square Go

Two popular pub-style theater series collide
In their first collaboration, Inis Nua and Tiny Dynamite unite their popular pub-themed performance styles with the Philly premiere of Square Go, a production about two Scottish teen boys facing a fight. Chhaya Nayyar reviews.
Chhaya Nayyar

Chhaya Nayyar

Reviews 3 minute read
Book cover. Title in white, with a syringe for the “i” in Ravishing, above a woman’s face surrounded by a ring light

RAVISHING, by Eshani Surya

We betray our bodies, and they betray us right back
Philly author Eshani Surya’s debut novel, RAVISHING, out Tuesday, November 11, follows Indian American siblings caught in the trap of the beauty industry. Chhaya Nayyar reviews.
Chhaya Nayyar

Chhaya Nayyar

Reviews 3 minute read
Robbie, in a billowing bright red dress with puffed white sleeves, walks in front of a misty stone ruin on the moor.

Does Emerald Fennell’s "Wuthering Heights" misinterpret Brontë’s classic as a romance?

Romance deserves to be the site of serious criticism
Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel ignites passionate discourse: misunderstood in its own time, and ours too, even with more elastic modern interpretations of novels. A new film by Emerald Fennell highlights a problematic response. Chhaya Nayyar looks closer.
Chhaya Nayyar

Chhaya Nayyar

Essays 6 minute read
Book cover features a large, snowy, rocky structure, in a large bed of water, and a gray sky in the background

If the Owl Calls, by Sharon White

Building a mystery
Sharon White’s debut novel is a mystery set to the backdrop of 1979 Norway during a time of environmental resistance that asks big questions around culture and tradition. Chhaya Nayyar reviews.
Chhaya Nayyar

Chhaya Nayyar

Reviews 4 minute read