Early reviews of The Folded Earth in the UK

"I was captivated by The Folded Earth and swept into its narrative...tells a story about love and hate, continuity and change, loss and grief in a convincing and memorable setting" The Independent

"a gently perceptive story, half-comic, half poignant" Sunday Times

"her prose is tight with life" Daily Mail

"a deeply unsettling but beautiful novel... utterly enrapturing... with incredibly touching moments...Her elegiac tone also means that Roy engages with longstanding debates, for instance the detachment of formal politics from the ‘real world’, the divisiveness of Hindu nationalism and the destruction of the environment, in a truly human and emotive way...The Folded Earth constantly grapples with grandiose themes almost effortlessly... Roy’s writing remains gently poignant and metaphoric throughout, every vignette and scenario she constructs feels multi-layered and deeply meaningful." For Book's Sake

"Roy has an admirably restrained style and her novel offers a vivid evocation of north India. She conjures up striking images with the lightest of touches" Tatler

‎"A perfect treat after the hurly-burly of Christmas, this quiet, poetic tale entices you into the foothills of the Himalayas Anuradha Roy won much acclaim for her first novel.The Folded Earth, a remarkably assured work, is her second novel and filled with beautifully crafted prose...The whole is marked by an elegant restraint which serves to make the story all the more powerful." Country and Town House Magazine, UK

"Roy’s precise prose creates the atmosphere of the hill town perfectly, and the characters are memorable and convincing. Many of the scenes are almost poetic, and some are heartbreaking... This is a book about love, loss, conflict and change, captivating and beautifully written. I recommend it to individual readers and reading groups. Five stars." Newbooks Mag

A Tagore in Nainital

Sudakshina, from Chitra Deb's 'Thakurbarir Andarmahal' Earlier this month, I went to Abbotsford , a historic estate in Nainital, for the Himalayan Echoes literary festival, run by Janhavi Prasada. The festival took place on the extensive lawns of the estate, which is now run as an elegant hotel, but originally it was a family home and the place had been acquired from its British owners by Janhavi’s great grandfather Jwala Prasada and his wife, Purnima Devi, in the late 19 th century. Janhavi’s new book, Nainital Through Stories, Memories, History mentions this in its first few pages: From Nainital Through Stories I was intrigued to learn that Purnima Devi was a niece of Rabindranath Tagore. She was born (according to Wikipedia) on 13 May 1884, at No. 6, Dwarkanath Tagore's Lane, Jorasanko, Calcutta, to Hemendranath Tagore (1844–1884) of Jorasanko. Hemendranath was the older brother of Rabindranath Tagore, and son of Debendranath Tagore, founder o...

Mauritius Diary

Photograph by Anuradha Roy Is This Us? A bus with ‘La Perle de la Savanne’ painted down its back and sides trundles down the road and we crawl in its wake. Behind us, many others as patient. There’s no honking nor any attempts to overtake the bus. This wouldn’t be so mystifying if about 63 per cent of the population in Mauritius were not Indian-origin. Where’s their Indianness gone? Why isn’t anyone shooting jets of scarlet spittle or peeing into roadside walls? I travel across the island, see no garbage heaps. And oh—nobody’s groping women. I feel safe enough to take taxis alone across the country, safe enough to sail to another island on a motorboat where the only other passengers are the Creole boatman and his buddy. Jade, celadon, sapphire and turquoise melt and mingle in the sea under a sky as blue as a kingfisher’s wing. We make our crossing. The water’s clear enough to see fish flitting past corals. No hint of floating rubbish. No Sweet Deal Indian-origin...

Begum Anees Khan

Once a week around midday, Maulvi Sah’b would come in through the gates of our school in Hyderabad and class would divide briskly into two and troop off to different parts of the building. Those who were Muslim would be at religious instruction classes with him for the next half hour while the others trudged through moral science lessons. Something similar happened during language classes. We would hear a singsong chorus of “A-salaam-aleikum, Aunty”, from the Urdu classroom as we sat at our Sanskrit or Telugu lessons. Through my nomadic childhood, I’ve been at many schools. None exemplified the idea of secular India as intensely as this Muslim school in Hyderabad. Begum Anees Khan, who made it so, died in Hyderabad on August 16. Her passing feels symbolic, as if it signifies the death of a quixotic idea. Anees Khan was not given to seeking the limelight or making speeches. She never spelled out her secularism. It was instinctive: instead of words, there was act...

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