TEN INCARNATIONS OF REBELLION

In an alternate India still under the thumb of Britain’s violent oppression, a headstrong young woman named Kalki Divekar, hellbent on freedom, strives to build a liberation movement.

The year is 1962, and 19-year-old Kalki Divekar lives in a city overrun by violence and British propaganda. In this alternate timeline, Mumbai—here called Kingston—is still colonized by the U.K. and rife with cultural repression. Driven by the memory of her late father, a rebel who was caught and executed when she was young, Kalki and her companions—friends, fellow students, strangers struggling to get by—set out to help liberate their home by working for the British, slowly destroying the empire from the inside. But freedom comes at a cost and revolutions—especially the effective ones—demand sacrifice, facts that Kalki swiftly learns as the revolution grows. Told through 10 moments in Kalki’s life that beautifully mirror the 10 avatars of Vishnu, also known as the Dashavatara—fish, tortoise, dwarf, axe warrior, king, and others all have designated chapters—Patel’s novel is a truly top-tier story of a people’s rebellion built from the ground up. The author closely examines the path to India’s independence and the anguish caused by British colonialism, the effects of which are still felt today, and she doesn’t hold back. Though the characters sometimes feel two-dimensional, Patel makes up for that with her rich exploration of Indian mythology and her general compassion as the story unfolds. This is undoubtedly a novel that readers will be discussing for some time to come.

An epic and frighteningly plausible work of historical fiction.