China Room
Book Feature - China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
HBL Note: Sunjeev Sahota saw tremendous success with his previous novel, The Year of the Runaways, which was a finalist for both the Booker Prize and Dylan Thomas Prize. As a result, Sahota was named Granta’s 20 Best Young British novelists of the decade. You read that correctly, the decade. For his latest novel, CHINA ROOM, he draws on family stories of his great-grandmother’s marriage. Touching on themes of oppression, resilience, the nature of truth, and the search for freedom, CHINA ROOM is about two characters who are separated but united by blood. Scroll down to read more.
Book Feature - China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
Book Feature - China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
From the publisher:
Partly inspired by Sahota’s own family history, CHINA ROOM opens in 1929 rural Punjab, where a young bride named Mehar struggles to adapt to her new life. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, Mehar and her sisters-in-law are told the identity of their husbands is irrelevant, and spend their days either sequestered from the men in the family’s “china room” or veiled in their presence. However, Mehar is curious and headstrong, and can’t help but look for clues of the man she married – from her brief glimpses of callused fingers while serving tea, to the time spent when she’s summoned to a dark chamber at night. After she sees something that seems to confirm which brother is her husband, a series of events is set in motion that will put more than one life at risk. Against the backdrop of India’s growing independence movement, Mehar must weigh her own desire for freedom against the reality—and danger—of her situation.
The novel’s second thread follows a young man in 1999 as he arrives at his uncle’s house in Punjab, struggling to overcome an addiction that has consumed his life for the past two years. During a painful summer of contemplation and recovery, he is haunted by his past experiences of racism and violence in small-town England, and finds himself drawn to the old china room at the family’s now abandoned homestead.
Book Feature - China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
