PositiveTIME... Majumdar presents a powerful corrective to the political narratives that have dominated in contemporary India ... Majumdar offers her novel as a reassertion of the pluralism once at the heart of Indian democracy ... While Jivan is the protagonist, Majumdar shines most in the stories of her secondary characters, who are of different religions, classes and genders...In weaving their voices alongside interludes from marginal characters, Majumdar creates a vivid portrait of India as a polyphonic crowd, a patchwork of differences. All the characters are subject to the nationalist forces pulsing through the country, but in the face of corruption, persecution and powerlessness, they manage to hold on to their dreams and humor.
Susannah Cahalan
PositiveTIMEA gripping, insightful read...probes the gaps that medical science has yet to fill when it comes to understanding mental illness ... The book has the urgency of a call to action ... Having described the horrors of 19th century asylums, Cahalan delivers a bold verdict.
Christy Lefteri
PositiveTIMEWe tend to hear refugee stories in the abstract ... But in The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Lefteri gives us a deeply researched, intimate look at the lives of one couple ... But in The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Lefteri gives us a deeply researched, intimate look at the lives of one couple ... Lefteri’s slow-building narrative rarely veers into sentimentality or overwhelming bleakness ... By creating characters with such rich, complex inner lives, Lefteri shows that in order to stretch compassion to millions of people, it helps to begin with one.
Anuradha Roy
RaveTimeAll the Lives We Never Lived is Roy’s fourth novel, coming a decade after her first..In this new book, Roy is grappling with bigger themes–freedom, nationalism and nature–against the turbulent backdrop of India’s fight for independence and World War II. Her mastery of detail ties an intimate domestic drama to national history, offering a portrait of one family’s troubles with desire and loss that speaks to the more universal struggles for personal and political freedom ... The reader is propelled through the pages, impatient to find out what happened to the grown man’s mother, to discover what her letters contain. Roy’s skillful blending–of fact and fiction, of personal and political, and of suspense and reward–creates a rich and layered read.
