The Far Field (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780802128409)

WINNER OF THE 2019 JCB PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

"The Far Field is remarkable, a novel at once politically timely and morally timeless. Madhuri Vijay traces the fault lines of history, love, and obligation running through a fractured family and country. Few novels generate enough power to transform their characters, fewer still their readers. The Far Field does both."--Anthony Marra, author of The Tzar of Love and Techno

Gorgeously tactile and sweeping in historical and socio-political scope, Pushcart Prize-winner Madhuri Vijay's The Far Field follows a complicated flaneuse across the Indian subcontinent as she reckons with her past, her desires, and the tumultuous present.

In the wake of her mother's death, Shalini, a privileged and restless young woman from Bangalore, sets out for a remote Himalayan village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir. Certain that the loss of her mother is somehow connected to the decade-old disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, a charming Kashmiri salesman who frequented her childhood home, she is determined to confront him. But upon her arrival, Shalini is brought face to face with Kashmir's politics, as well as the tangled history of the local family that takes her in. And when life in the village turns volatile and old hatreds threaten to erupt into violence, Shalini finds herself forced to make a series of choices that could hold dangerous repercussions for the very people she has come to love.

With rare acumen and evocative prose, in The Far Field Madhuri Vijay masterfully examines Indian politics, class prejudice, and sexuality through the lens of an outsider, offering a profound meditation on grief, guilt, and the limits of compassion.

Author: Madhuri Vijay
ISBN-10: 0802128408
ISBN-13: 9780802128409
Publisher: Grove Press
Language: English
Published: 01/15/2019
Pages: 448
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.45lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 1.60d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 08/01/2018 pg. 60
Shelf Awareness 01/25/2019
Publishers Weekly 10/29/2018
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2018
Booklist 11/15/2018 pg. 24
BookPage 01/01/2019
Library Journal 01/01/0001 pg. 74