A Burning
Knopf Publishing Group
June 2, 2020
Hardcover
304
Purchased
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely--an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor--has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.
My review:
This is a book about what happens to three individuals who all have aspirations of a better life, and their relationship to each other. Jivan is accused of a terrorist attack on an Indian train, and thrown in jail with minimal evidence to support her guilt. Lovely has an alibi that can hopefully absolve her, and her former teacher PT Sir gets involved in politics that may use Jivan as a pawn. I really enjoyed reading all three of their stories, but although it is a short book, this was not an easy read. Descriptions of the slums in contemporary India, the political corruption, the use of the press to sway public opinion, the willingness of those in charge to want to cast blame without proof, these are all touched on within the story. I do wish that it could have been a tad longer so that the three main characters could have been even more fleshed out. This book did nothing to change my opinion about traveling to India, but I believe that was the point......to point out the bold miscarriages of justice in the country, which we can only hope will try to do better job in the future.
A fast read, but I'm going to warn you going in that overall it is very depressing. I still feel that it's a book worth reading, if for no other reason than as a warning to stay away from chatting up strangers on Facebook!
This sounds like a very hard story to stomach, but I'm so glad this kind of book is getting such acclaim!