China Room
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3.9 • 9 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S CARNEGIE MEDAL
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY NPR, TIME, THE GUARDIAN, THE TIMES (UK), THE STAR-TRIBUNE AND THE WASHINGTON POST
“Sunjeev Sahota’s new novel follows characters across generations and continents. . . . Heart-wrenching.” —Entertainment Weekly
“An intimate page-turner with a deeper resonance as a tale of oppression, independence and resilience.” —San Francisco Chronicle
A transfixing, “powerfully imaged” (USA Today) novel about two unforgettable characters seeking to free themselves—one from the expectations of women in early twentieth-century Punjab, and the other from the weight of life in the contemporary Indian diaspora
Mehar, a young bride in rural Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. It is 1929, and she and her sisters-in-law, married to three brothers in a single ceremony, spend their days hard at work on the family farm, sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that will put more than one life at risk.
Spiralling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who in 1999 travels from England to the sun-scorched farm, by now deserted for decades. In enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence--his experiences of addiction, racism and estrangement from the culture of his birth--he spends a summer in painful contemplation and recovery, finally gathering the strength to return home.
Inspired in part by the author’s family history, and told with courage, compassion and deep humanity, China Room is an astonishing feat of storytelling from one of our most exceptional novelists.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sahota's engaging latest (after The Year of the Runaways) follows a teenage bride in rural Punjab during the British Raj. Mehar Kaur was five years old when she was promised to one of three brothers. In 1929, Mehar, now 15, is married along with two other women to the three, but Mehar still does not know which is her husband. The women live and sleep in the china room, and are alone with their husbands only on those nights when they meet in an unlit room for sex. Mehar mistakenly comes to believe that Suraj, the youngest, is her husband, leading her to drop her veil and sleep with him one afternoon. Suraj realizes what happened but doesn't want to give her up, and Mehar falls in love with him, leading to heartbreaking consequences. Mehar is seen and treated as property, yet Sahota manages to give her the illusion of agency, providing an empathetic look at how she would prefer the world to be. Woven within Mehar's affecting narrative is the less-developed story of her great-grandson, an unnamed man who narrates in 2019, recalling the summer of 1999, when he was 18 and left England for Punjab to battle his heroin addiction. Though the various parts are uneven, it's well worth the time.
