LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZEFINALIST FOR THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION'S CARNEGIE MEDALNAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY NPR, TIME, AND THE STAR-TRIBUNE“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 diasporaMehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, she and her now-sisters spend their days hard at work in the family’s “china room,” sequestered from contact with the men—except when their domineering mother-in-law, Mai, summons them to a darkened chamber at night. Curious and strong willed, Mehar tries to piece together what Mai doesn’t want her to know. From beneath her veil, she studies the sounds of the men’s voices, the calluses on their fingers as she serves them tea. Soon she glimpses something that seems to confirm which of the brothers is her husband, and a series of events is set in motion that will put more than one life at risk. As the early stirrings of the Indian independence movement rise around her, Mehar must weigh her own desires against the reality—and danger—of her situation. Spiraling around Mehar’s story is that of a young man who arrives at his uncle’s house in Punjab in the summer of 1999, hoping to shake an addiction that has held him in its grip for more than two years. Growing up in small-town England as the son of an immigrant shopkeeper, his experiences of racism, violence, and estrangement from the culture of his birth led him to seek a dangerous form of escape. As he rides out his withdrawal at his family’s ancestral home—an abandoned farmstead, its china room mysteriously locked and barred—he begins to knit himself back together, gathering strength for the journey home. Partly inspired by award-winning author Sunjeev Sahota’s family history, China Room is both a deft exploration of how systems of power circumscribe individual lives and a deeply moving portrait of the unconquerable human capacity to resist them. At once sweeping and intimate, lush and propulsive, itis a stunning achievement from a contemporary master. Named a best book of the summer by TIME, Lit Hub, Book Riot, and AARPNamed a best book of July by Entertainment Weekly, Good Morning America, POPSUGAR, and Apartment Therapy“Sahota is an enormously gifted writer . . . a bold storyteller who seems to have learned as many tricks from TV as from Tolstoy, and has a jeweller’s unillusioned eye for the goods . . . Lovely phrases glitter . . . Sahota’s ability to shine a phrase is not bought for the usual steep formalist price, at the expense of simplicity, intimate feeling, and solid representation. He’s both camera and painter, in a literary world that often separates those novelistic tasks.” —James Wood, The New Yorker “[China Room] forges telling and skillful connections between the two very different eras, showing the ways that a place—a house, a room—can store up pieces of a remarkable past and release them, generations later, when someone comes looking.” —The Wall Street Journal“[An] intense, heartrending novel.” —The Washington Post“A family saga both sweeping and granular . . . [that] examines agency, power and human connection.” —TIME “Gorgeously crafted . . . powerful . . . a sweeping dual portrait.” —Star-Tribune“[Sahota] is a restrained stylist whose details bloom in the imagination . . . [there is] respite, even solace, to be found in [his] precise and exhilarating observation.” —Claire Messud, Harper's Magazine “In Mehar, S
- Libro Impreso
- Edición:
- Editorial: Vintage
- Autor: Sahota, Sunjeev
