The Folded Earth

In a remote town in the Himalaya, Maya tries to put behind her a time of great sorrow. By day she teaches in a school and at night she types up drafts of a magnum opus by her landlord, a relic of princely India known to all as Diwan Sahib. Her bond with this eccentric, and her friendship with a peasant girl, Charu, give her the sense that she might be able to forge a new existence away from the devastation of her past. As Maya finds out, no place is remote enough or small enough. The world she has come to love, where people are connected with nature, is endangered by the town's new administration. The impending elections are hijacked by powerful outsiders who divide people and threaten the future of her school. Charu begins to behave strangely, and soon Maya understands that a new boy in the neighbourhood may be responsible. When Diwan Sahib's nephew arrives to set up his trekking company on their estate, she is drawn to him despite herself, and finally she is forced to confront bitter and terrible truths.

A many-layered and powerful narrative, by turns poetic, elegiac and comic, by the author of An Atlas of Impossible Longing.

“'Tender and comical' Kate Saunders, Sunday Times.”

'A vivid evocation of north India. Roy conjures up striking images with the lightest of touches' Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler. Tatler
'Roy creates some wonderful, often quite eccentric characters. You can always tell when this is done to perfection when even the smallest bit part characters seem to come to life with a few brief idiosyncrasies' Bookbag. Bookbag
'Anuradha Roy is a formidable novelist: reading her elegiac but comic narrative lifts the spirit and brightens the day' Bookgroup Info. Bookgroup Info
'Her prose is tight with life' Laura Silverman, Daily Mail. Daily Mail
'Fresh and appetizing . . . I was captivated' Tabish Khair, Independent. Independent
'Graceful and compassionate ... written in prose that has the precision and radiance of poetry' Neel Mukherjee. Neel Mukherjee
'truly beautiful book. It makes you want to put the clocks back and move to India' Red Online. Red Online
Sunday Times
Roy is particularly adept at mining the emotional intricacies of the relationship between Maya and Diwan Sahib, which also serves to symbolize India's uneasy passage from tradition to modernity' New York Times. New York Times
''a terrific creation, cantankerous and capricious' Irish Times. Irish Times

Anuradha Roy's novel Sleeping on Jupiter was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2016 and won the D.S.C. prize for South Asian Literature. She won the Economist Crossword Prize, India's premier award for fiction, for her novel The Folded Earth, which was nominated for several other prizes including the Man Asia, the D.S.C., and the Hindu Literary Award. Her first novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, has been widely translated and was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and The Seattle Times.

With her first novel, Roy's exquisite storytelling instantly won readers' hearts. Now she has returned with another masterpiece that is already earning international prize attention. A young woman makes a new life for herself in a tiny town in the foothills of the Himalayas. Struggling to leave a private tragedy behind, the newly widowed Maya abandons herself to the town's peaceful rhythms, befriending a lovesick peasant girl, Charu, and her eccentric landlord, Diwan Sahib, who holds valuable secrets from India's past. Elegiac and profound by turns, and with a tender romance at its core, The Folded Earth brims with the genius and love of language that made An Atlas of Impossible Longing an international success, and confirms Anuradha Roy as a major new literary talent.

In a remote town in the Himalaya, Maya tries to put behind her a time of great sorrow. By day she teaches in a school and at night she types up drafts of a magnum opus by her landlord, a relic of princely India known to all as Diwan Sahib. Her bond with this eccentric, and her friendship with a peasant girl, Charu, give her the sense that she might be able to forge a new existence away from the devastation of her past. As Maya finds out, no place is remote enough or small enough. The world she has come to love, where people are connected with nature, is endangered by the town's new administration. The impending elections are hijacked by powerful outsiders who divide people and threaten the future of her school. Charu begins to behave strangely, and soon Maya understands that a new boy in the neighbourhood may be responsible. When Diwan Sahib's nephew arrives to set up his trekking company on their estate, she is drawn to him despite herself, and finally she is forced to confront bitter and terrible truths. A many-layered and powerful narrative, by turns poetic, elegiac and comic, by the author of An Atlas of Impossible Longing.

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