Description:
A History of Burning - Janika Oza - 2023
A Novel
By: Janika Oza
Narrated by: Lipica Shah, KP Upadhyayula
Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 05-02-23
Categories: Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction, Sagas, Family Life,
Language: English
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Format: mp3 64/48 stereo
Four generations. Three sisters. One impossible choice. A profoundly moving debut novel spanning India, Uganda, England, and Canada, about how one act of survival reverberates across generations of a family and their search for a place of their own. Named a most anticipated book of 2023 by the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, OprahDaily, and Goodreads.
India, 1898. Pirbhai is the thirteen-year-old breadwinner for his family when he steps into a dhow on the promise of work, only to be taken across the ocean to labour on the East African Railway for the British. With no money or voice but a strong will to survive, he makes an impossible choice that will haunt him for the rest of his days and reverberate across generations.
Pirbhai’s children go on to thrive in Uganda during the waning days of British colonial rule. As the country moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai’s granddaughters—sisters Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya—come of age in a divided nation, each forging her own path for the future. Latika is an aspiring journalist with a fierce determination to fight for what she believes in. Mayuri’s ambitions will take her farther away from her family than she ever imagined. And fearless Kiya will have to bear the weight of their secrets.
Forced to flee Uganda during Idi Amin’s brutal expulsion of South Asians in 1972, the family must start their lives over again in Toronto. Then one day news arrives that makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy, to secure a place of their own in the world.
A masterful and breathtakingly intimate saga of colonialism and exile, complicity and resistance, A History of Burning is a radiant debut about the stories our families choose to share—and those that remain unspoken.
©2023 Janika Oza (P)2023 McClelland & Stewart
Critic Reviews
"A History of Burning is that rare epic that manages to retain both its sweep and its intimacy. Janika Oza has written a generational saga vivid and alive with sensory and historical detail, an excavation of stories often left untold. There is so much insight here into the aftershocks of colonialism and displacement, the way one generation’s decisions, be they voluntary or compelled or somewhere in between, can reverberate through the ages and change lives yet to be lived. This is a beautiful book, unflinching yet deeply engaged with that most human work, the work of forgiveness.”—Omar El Akkad, author of American War and What Strange Paradise, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
“Vast and intricate, alight with love and contained fury, A History of Burning is a towering debut by a phenomenal writer. A book I want to press into readers’ hands and discuss for hours.”—Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
“Intimate and epic, A History of Burning effortlessly spans continents, political movements, and generations, while never losing sight of the humans living in these houses of history. Janika Oza bears witness, with rigor, with unflinching beauty, to a vital branch of South Asian diaspora, allowing both for the complexities of colonial violence and the human heart. A hymn for the ancestors, and the bitter, radiant acts of their survival: this book is a triumph.” —Shruti Swamy, author of The Archer and A House Is a Body
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