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THE PARTED EARTH by Anjali Enjeti

THE PARTED EARTH

by Anjali Enjeti

Pub Date: May 4th, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-938235-77-1
Publisher: Hub City Press

Three generations of an Indian family deal with the aftermath of the 1947 Partition.

Enjeti's fiction debut, a carefully constructed riddle of a story told in clean, simple prose, begins in New Delhi in the hot summer of 1947, when supersmart 16-year-old Deepa gets her first taste of romance, finding origami notes from handsome Amir hidden in a plant in her family's garden. But the precarious political situation in India quickly turns toxic as the British government carries out its plan to divide the country into two parts—majority Hindu, majority Muslim, now India and Pakistan. With violence exploding around them and Amir's Muslim family set to leave town, the two plight their troth. The next section of the book, set mostly in 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia, centers on Deepa's granddaughter, a young American woman originally named Shanti—she's changed it to Shan—who is looking forward to partnership at her law firm and the birth of her first child. When her life is turned upside down, she connects with an Indian immigrant neighbor, and journeys of discovery begin for both women, with the help of a remembrance and reconciliation website similar to those projects that have been created to heal the wounds of the past in Africa, Australia, and elsewhere. Though an author's note says that only the historical aspects of this story are nonfictional, the fact that a character shares a name with one of Enjeti's grandmothers (as seen in the dedication) underlines the pulse of truth that makes this book feel so urgent and important.

Illuminating, absorbing, and resonant.