Aubergine: How Katrina’s Violin Becomes a Symbol of Reclaimed Self

What Is Aubergine?

In Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars, the violin Katrina Nguyen names Aubergine is a Chinese-made student instrument she bought on eBay before fleeing her abusive household. In Chapter 1, she packs it alongside hormone medication, clothes, and cash, treating the violin as a lifeline. Over the course of the novel, the instrument is stolen, damaged, and finally transformed by the luthier Lucy Matía. Katrina christens it Aubergine—the French word for eggplant—after hearing the term during a dinner at Shizuka Satomi’s home. The name’s deep purple connotations hint at something both earthy and regal, mirroring Katrina’s own complex journey from invisibility to self-possession.

The violin is not merely a piece of wood; it is a sounding board for Katrina’s inner world. Its literal journey—broken and sold for $450, then meticulously rebuilt—runs parallel to Katrina’s own path from a beaten runaway to a musician discovering her voice. By examining where Aubergine appears and how its meaning deepens, we can trace a powerful arc of queer survival, artistic transcendence, and found-family love.

The Physical Journey of the Violin

Katrina’s eBay violin first appears in a park in El Molino, where Shizuka Satomi spots a bruised girl with a “cheap violin, a tuning fork, a battered copy of Schradieck.” After Katrina flees to Los Angeles, she is robbed of her instrument, which ends up in a pawnshop window with missing strings and a $450 price tag. In Chapter 7, Shizuka and Lan Tran recover it through a mix of intimidation and cash, and Shizuka places it gently in Katrina’s arms.

Still damaged, the violin next goes to Matía & Sons, where Lucy Matía, a luthier descended from the Amati dynasty, disassembles it with reverence. Lucy notes that the instrument was built by a skilled carpenter, not a dedicated violin maker—its structure is “strong and proper” but lacks the risky delicacy of a true concert violin. Using her grandfather’s tools, she carves away fractions of a millimeter of wood, listens, and reshapes the body until it can “give everything to its song.” When Katrina retrieves the instrument, its newfound lightness makes it feel “like holding air.” Lucy’s work transforms a factory-made student violin into an extension of Katrina’s own voice.

The violin reappears throughout Katrina’s training: during vocal exercises where Shizuka teaches her to “sing violin,” in the practice hall where Katrina chooses Shizuka’s first full-sized violin, Martha, as a temporary stand‑in, and finally in the escape bag Katrina packs when Shizuka flees Earth. In Chapter 38, the repaired instrument is part of the survival kit that allows music to continue beyond Tremon Philippe’s reach.

Aubergine as Reclaimed Body and Artistic Voice

The novel draws a sustained parallel between the violin’s wooden body and Katrina’s human body. As a transgender woman, Katrina is acutely aware of the voice her physical frame produces; she monitors her pitch daily, afraid of slipping into a lower register. When Shizuka asks her to sing, she whispers, “Please not my voice.” Shizuka then adapts the lesson, striking middle C and guiding Katrina to imagine singing through the violin. “You are holding a violin, but you are not holding a violin. You are simply in your body,” Shizuka instructs (Chapter 16). Aubergine’s lightness helps Katrina forget the instrument is there—a metaphor for accepting her own body as a vessel for expression rather than a source of shame.

In Chapter 18, Shizuka takes Aubergine in hand and delivers a pivotal lesson: “Do the strings give the violin its sound?” She explains that strings merely create vibrations; the sound develops “in the dark,” “in the empty spaces,” inside the violin’s hollow body. Pointing to Katrina’s heart, Shizuka says, “Everything the audience hears … it comes from there. In your hollows. In your nothingness.” The lesson reframes emptiness—the very thing Katrina associates with her transness, her perceived lack—as the birthplace of art. Aubergine’s wooden belly becomes a model for Katrina’s own flesh: resilient, resonant, and capable of giving voice to what had been silent.

The name “Aubergine” reinforces this reclaimed identity. At dinner, Astrid mentions that she would normally serve a dish with aubergines, and the word makes Katrina’s mouth water. That instinctive pleasure—a hunger for something she does not yet fully know—mirrors the way she later embraces the name for her violin. The eggplant’s deep purple skin is a rich, unconventional color, much like Katrina’s refusal to conform to her family’s expectations or society’s narrow definitions of womanhood.

A Symbol of Queer Survival and Self-Acceptance

Katrina’s relationship with Aubergine maps directly onto the theme of queer survival and self-acceptance. The violin was nearly destroyed by a world that does not value it—pawned, mishandled, and written off as a cheap import. Yet with care, it becomes irreplaceable. Similarly, Katrina has been beaten by her father, misgendered by strangers on a bus, and abandoned by a boyfriend who called her “a half-woman freak.” She often wonders if anything about her is “true.” But through Shizuka’s tutelage and the acceptance of Lan and Astrid, she begins to trust that her identity is real and valuable.

The day Katrina names the instrument, she tiptoes from her bedroom to her new studio, cradling Aubergine, and stops short: “Her studio. Her violin?” The possessive pronouns feel fragile, as if the belonging could vanish at any moment. That insecurity speaks to the precariousness of queer existence, where safety and recognition are often contingent. Aubergine becomes a talisman against that precarity: wherever the violin is, Katrina is allowed to be herself.

The violin also encodes the novel’s conviction that art and survival are inseparable. Before Katrina could afford hormones or escape her father, she had her violin. The instrument was her partner in turning the world’s cruelty into music: on the bus to Los Angeles, she converts the Cantonese women’s ridicule into notes and rhythms. This coping mechanism becomes full-throated artistry after the repair, when Aubergine’s responsiveness lets her “play in public all she wanted” and finally discover what she contains.

Connections to Found Family and Craftsmanship

Aubergine’s transformation is not Katrina’s doing alone; it is an act of found family. Lucy Matía, herself an outsider in a family business that prizes sons, works through the night on the violin. In Chapter 11, her hands move “methodically, precisely,” while her son Andrew watches his mother’s fingers become “a rich, seamless legato, with neither stutter nor apology.” Lucy’s own repressed artistry pours into the instrument, paralleling how Shizuka’s home becomes a sanctuary where Katrina can practice without fear. The theme of found family is embodied in the care each adult—Shizuka, Lan, Lucy, Astrid—pours into the girl and her violin.

Shizuka’s investment is also fraught, of course, because she initially seeks a seventh soul for her demonic contract. But even that dark motive is subverted: the violin becomes the tool through which Shizuka comes to love Katrina enough to forfeit her own soul’s safety. In Chapter 37, Katrina secretly packs Shizuka’s instruments and an escape bag, and in the novel’s closing pages, Shizuka plays for the stars, her music now a healing force across galaxies.

Aubergine thus links art as transcendence with mercy and soul contracts. The violin is never just an instrument of damnation or salvation; it is the medium through which both characters learn to give and receive love without transaction.

A Step-by-Step Evolution of Meaning

1. Possession and flight (Chapters 1–2): The violin is a survival object, packed with hormones and cash. It represents Katrina’s determination to live as herself.
2. Theft and recovery (Chapter 7): Lost to a pawnshop, the violin is retrieved by Shizuka and Lan. Its damage mirrors Katrina’s bruises; its return signals the first moment of adult protection.
3. Craftsmanship and care (Chapters 10–11): Lucy Matía’s repair transforms the instrument from “textbook” factory work into a singing body. The process parallels Katrina’s growing trust in Shizuka’s training.
4. Inner voice and naming (Chapters 16–17): After the repair, Katrina names it Aubergine. The instrument becomes light enough to disappear, allowing her to “be there, in her body.” For the first time, the violin is fully hers.
5. Soul and voice (Chapter 18): Shizuka’s hollow-body lesson teaches Katrina that the source of music is inside her, not in external validation. Aubergine becomes a symbol of accepted emptiness and creative power.
6. Escape and legacy (Chapters 37–39): Katrina packs the violin when fleeing Earth. Shizuka plays it in deep space, healing a plague-ravaged planet. Aubergine has traveled from a runaway’s backpack to the stars.

Study Questions and Answers

1. What does the name “Aubergine” signify for Katrina, and how does it reflect her character development?
   The name comes from Katrina’s delight in hearing the word for eggplant at dinner. Choosing a French name for a Chinese violin signals her embrace of a self that is neither purely Vietnamese nor defined by her family’s expectations. The deep purple color suggests dignity and visibility, while the vegetable’s everyday quality grounds the symbol in reality. Naming the violin marks Katrina’s shift from passive recipient of help to active owner of her identity.

2. How does the physical alteration of Katrina’s violin mirror her personal transformation?
   Lucy Matía strips the violin down, thins its faceplate, and rebuilds it to be lighter and more responsive. The process echoes Katrina’s journey: stripped of home, safety, and acceptance, she is reshaped by Shizuka’s teaching and the care of a chosen family. Just as the violin risks breaking to achieve its full voice, Katrina risks vulnerability—speaking her name, accepting her body, playing for others—in order to sing.

3. In Chapter 18, Shizuka explains that “the strings are only the source of the vibrations” and that the sound develops in the violin’s hollow spaces. How does this lesson connect Aubergine to Katrina’s experience of being transgender?
   Shizuka’s point is that the visible, surface elements—like strings—are not what give the violin its identity; the tone comes from the empty interior. For Katrina, this reframes her feelings of lack and shame about her body. The “hollows” she once saw as proof of inadequacy become the space where her truest music forms. Aubergine’s body, like Katrina’s, is not diminished by its emptiness; it is defined by the resonance that emptiness makes possible.

4. Why is Lucy Matía’s role in repairing Aubergine crucial to the violin’s symbolism?
   Lucy is a luthier in a shop called “Matía & Sons,” a woman whose hands were never supposed to inherit the family craft. By working on Katrina’s violin, Lucy reclaims her own legacy. She treats the cheap instrument with the same reverence she would give a Stradivarius, seeing potential where others see only a foreign copy. This act of generous craftsmanship mirrors the novel’s larger assertion that found family and sanctuary can heal damage the biological family inflicted. Lucy’s attention transforms a carpenter’s product into a vessel for Katrina’s soul, proving that worth is built through love and skill, not pedigree.