A History of Burning
The perfect read for fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, Homegoing and Pachinko
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
A SARAH JESSICA PARKER BOOK OF THE YEAR
Four generations. Three sisters. One impossible choice.
Tricked aboard a boat to East Africa, Pirbhai is only thirteen when he is forced by the British into labouring on the railway. Under sweltering heat, hungry and frightened, he commits a terrible act just to survive.
He will never tell a soul, even when he meets Sonal, a fierce, loving woman with whom he starts a family in Uganda, in hope of a better life. But their granddaughters come of age in a divided nation.
Finally forced to flee, the family scatters across the world. They take with them a steel pot, a handful of photos, and a secret – that one day, will help them find each other again.
A History of Burning is a gorgeous family portrait of love, survival, inheritance - and the eternal search for home.
One family's search for a better life, for fans of Half of a Yellow Sun, Homegoing and Pachinko
'A remarkable debut . . . haunting, symphonic' New York Times
'Vast and intricate, alight with love and contained fury . . . A book I want to press into readers' hands and discuss for hours' Megha Majumdar, author of A BURNING
Shortlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and the Amazon Canada First Novel Award
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Oza's impressive debut spans four continents and five generations of an Indian family as they're forced to migrate again and again for political and economic reasons. In 1898, 13-year-old Pirbhai, the oldest son of a poor family in western India, heads out to find work. He's conscripted to a railroad builder in Kenya, where he labors for several years. After the project is finished, he lucks into a job at a store run by an Indian family and later marries their eldest daughter, Sonal. The couple then moves to Uganda to work at a pharmacy. In 1972, Pirbhai's son Vinod and his wife and three daughters, who have sunk roots into Uganda, are exiled by Idi Amin, with most of the family moving to Toronto, before their lives are disrupted again by the 1992 racial uprising. In chapters alternating between the many characters' points of view, Oza builds momentum toward a denouement involving a letter from Vinod's lost daughter in Uganda. Though the format doesn't allow for much character development, Oza neatly sets her characters' lives within the context of broader political and economic movements, showing how historical circumstances determine their individual destinies as much as the choices of their forebears. Though it can be tiring, this broad and colorful portrait has plenty of impressive moments.
