I have already recommended this to a few library patrons and will be suggesting it to some book clubs as well. Those characters will stay with me.

Short and depressing, but I fear a very honest look at politics and justice in India. One good thing about 2020 is that it is filled with outstanding debut novels. Picked by Jenna Bush Hager as her June book club pick. I read it as America protests the George Floyd killing, its an interesting contrast to the arrest of an innocent Muslim girl implicated in the burning of a train by a terrorist group. Following three people—the girl, her P.E teacher and a transvestite who the girl was helping to learn English, you know the girl is doomed, but you keep hoping. This story is short, and to say more about the plot would ruin the book. Bush Hager did an excellent job picking book for this month.

#ABurning #NetGalley

My friend Ramesh alerted me to A Burning. He wrote

Our Bengali 'progressives' continue to sell India down the drain while laughing happily all the way to the bank and into the good books of the 'woke' worldwide.

I can relate to Majumdar's description of Kolkata. OTOH some issues:

1. The Muslim girl is named Jivan. Jivan is a boy's name; moreover, it is a Hindu name.

2. The Jana Kalyan Party is clearly modeled on the BJP. Yet the BJP has next to no influence in Bengal (never mind that Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who founded Jana Sangha, the BJP's predecessor, was Bengali and the BJP honors him as its founder).

3. The precipitating event is the burning of a train at a railway station. Might this event be inspired by Godhra?

Draft of review for BookPage, June 2020 (as of 5/31, not online yet; print version)

Megha Majumdar’s debut novel A Burning (Knopf; $25.95, 978052658696) follows three characters in contemporary urban India: Jivan, a twenty-two-year-old Muslim woman who works at a clothing store, trying to raise her family out of poverty; Lovely, a transgender beggar woman whom Jivan tutored in English; and PT Sir, Jivan’s former gym teacher who’s sure he deserves more respect and better middle-class creature comforts.

The novel opens the day after terrorists attack a commuter train. The attack has killed a hundred people and captured the nation’s attention and anger. Jivan, who saw the burning train cars and the people trapped inside (the train station is near Jivan’s home in the slums), dares to comment sarcastically about the attack on Facebook, equating the government with terrorists. Because of those posts, Jivan quickly comes to be considered a suspect. Lovely and PT Sir, meanwhile, are preoccupied with their own ambitions: Lovely takes acting classes and aspires to get a role in a movie, and PT Sir stumbles into a campaign rally for an opposition politician, and finds himself captivated. As PT Sir gets more involved with the campaign, he begins to do favors for the party, descending into corruption.

The story unfolds as it rotates through the three characters’ points of view, and occasionally into the perspectives of other more peripheral characters. The chapters are very short, sometimes only a page or two, giving the novel a fast-moving, staccato feeling.

A Burning touches on issues that complicate contemporary life in India: Hindu-Muslim conflict, political corruption, the promises and failures of a political system, the pressures of extreme poverty, the drive to improve one’s lot in life. It’s a lot to balance, but Majumdar’s writing stays grounded in these three characters’ voices, and in their daily lives and hopes, even as she brings the novel to its tragic conclusion. Majumdar knows this world well: born and raised in Kolkata, India, she came to the US for college at Harvard University. She also did graduate work in social anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. A challenging and distinctive debut novel.

--Sarah McCraw Crow

This is a gut-punch of a book. Majumbar ambitiously ties the book together through three threads and three sets of ambitions: Jivan, a young Muslim woman accused of a terrorist act who longs to be a teacher and live a "normal" life; Lovely, a hijra (transgender woman)--and Jivan's neighbor--who aspires to be an A-list actor; and PT Sir, Jivan's former teacher who slowly rises in the ranks of a certain political party.

While Jivan's trial is the commonality among all three characters, Majumdar explores a variety of issues through their eyes, including Islamophobia, political corruption, inequity (in India in particular as well as the world as a whole), and sexism. I won't give away the ending, but it is heartbreaking and frustrating and left me empty.

What a debut! This book packed a seriously powerful punch in such a short amount of time. While this is not the genre that I am typically drawn to, I really enjoyed this read.

What made this book unique was the very different voices of the three POV's. If I ever had to set the book down mid chapter, I very easily knew which character I was reading when I came back to the book. Their tones and personalities were easily perceptible through the writing, making this book about a heavy subject very readable and engaging.

I do recommend that this book is read in one or two sittings - it is meant to be binged.

An author that can really move me in just at 300 pages is a winner. I look forward to more from Megha Majumdar.

TL;DR REVIEW:

A Burning is an emotionally ravaging and poignant story about a young girl accused of terrorism. And it absolutely earns the hype it’s gotten.

For you if: You like to read important, heartbreaking literary or contemporary fiction.

FULL REVIEW:

First of all, thank you to Knopf for allowing me to read an early copy of this book. It’s one of the summer’s most anticipated works of literary fiction, and it absolutely deserves the hype.

At the beginning of the story, there’s a terrorist attack — a train is bombed. Feeling voiceless, a girl named Jivan, who lives in a slum nearby, posts her frustration to Facebook and is then accused of committing the crime. We see what unfolds next through the eyes of three characters: Jivan herself; a trans woman named Lovely who’d been friends with Jivan and aspires to be an actress; and Jivan’s former gym teacher, who finds himself rising through the ranks of the opposing political party.

Two of our main characters are intensely lovable, and one is less so but still extremely human. In her truest self, Jivan is a force to be reckoned with. And Lovely — Lovely is one giant beating heart all on her own. I also thought it was interesting how we got Jivan’s and Lovely’s first person narrations, and a much more distant third person for PT Sir. There is much being said there, I think, about representation, and about individualism vs collectivism — some fight for a voice, and some are only to0 glad to trade theirs away, and all of them are fighting to survive.

This book is not easy to read (see trigger warnings below if you need them), but it is most certainly worth it. Majumdar moves fast and doesn’t look back at the broken pieces of your heart that she leaves behind, just like the country she’s writing about. By the end, I felt myself somewhere between sprinting toward and being dragged across the story’s conclusion. I read it in one day and will probably reread it again soon.

I recommend finishing it at home, in the evening, where you are free to be a puddle on the floor.




TRIGGER WARNINGS:
Violent hate crimes, including murder and rape; Islamophobia; Transphobia; Sexual assault (mentioned)

Absolutely brilliant debut. I am reviewing this title for Shelf Awareness for Readers and my review will appear in their newsletter and website.

Interweaving story lines of a Jivan, young girl who is accused of bombing a train after criticizing the government on facebook, an aspiring actress to whom Jivan was teaching English, and Jivan's former teacher who is a rising star in a right-wing political party. A Burning is a compelling and beautifully-written page-turner.

Jivan is not a terrorist. However, this does not stop the Indian government arresting her for a vicious act of terrorism at a train station near her home. Their evidence against her? A Facebook comment and some private messages with a boy in a foreign country.

PT Sir is a teacher at one of the best schools for girls in the city. He feels insignificant and powerless until he accidentally becomes involved with personnel high up in a growing political party. He quickly becomes mixed up in shady political dealings as his status and position in life greatly improve.

Lovely is a hijra (a transgender woman) in India. She is forced to make her living by begging on trains and offering blessings to new mothers and brides who treat her with disgust. She bears it all certain that one day she is going to be a film star.

"A Burning" is the intersection of these three very different individuals doing what they can, no matter what it takes, to improve their lives. Ultimately, each of these characters will see through their own perspective how the justice system does, or rather does not, work in their Indian city.

This debut novel takes on a monumental task in explaining the class system, politics, and justice in India, but it doesn't quite fulfill that task. The novel isn't exactly gripping, and often leaves the reader wondering what is happening. The novel switches between Jivan, PT Sir, and Lovely's points of view, but it does so far too often to develop an affinity for or understanding of any particular character. None of the characters are particularly likable but none are particularly unlikable either. Overall, I understand that some may enjoy this debut novel for its exploration of Indian politics and culture, but for me it fell short.

This is not an "easy" read, but it still goes fast! I think the short chapters helped move it along quickly. The novel alternates between three perspectives, but there are also interspersed "interludes" that give small insights into minor characters, which I loved. Toward the end of the book, I was starting to wonder how everything would end because there didn't seem to be enough pages yet to address everything, but I thought the ending was strong.

It is hard to review this book before publication because I want to be careful not to give anything away. I will say this, I read this holding my breath much of the time. It is an intense, suspenseful read. A great bookclub pick and solid debut.

Dark, strange, beautiful. Loved the atmosphere and the writing. I will be recommending this one highly come June!

The interconnected stories seem to leap from the headlines and the picture is often horrifying – yet somehow Mazumdar also succeeds in capturing the boundless energy and starry-eyed hopefulness of the country’s youth. A Burning signals the arrival of a new voice of immense talent and promise.

An incisive look at the tensions between right and wrong, good and bad and who gets to win. Majumdar paints a rich picture of a diverse set of characters and how their lives intersect and diverge in challenging circumstances. Not an easy read but a good one in a quick moving format.

Although having three separate points of you, with no contacts on the connection of each three characters I found this book to be easy to read and easy to follow. I say this with the significance of that a lot of times when reading about places other than your house it can be initially difficult to follow this story as a whole and put the connections together. But this story was not the case. This book was so interesting on many different levels includingGovernment corruption and how it creates itself within a slippery slope, terrorism and how terrorism is perceived, as well as the daily lives of trans person in India.It was kind of an abrupt ending I would have liked a little more analysis with JT 💙💙💙 Ivy It was kind of an abrupt ending I would have liked a little more analysis with Jivan, Overall a great story though

This book gutted me. As I was reading, I could see it going in that direction but that didn't stop the feeling that overcame me as I finished.

Let me first say that this book was written by a friend of mine but it would have been something I'd have on my to-read list regardless. The story brings together several characters whose lives intersect after one big event. Majumdar writes from each of their perspectives and I thought she did such a great job of giving each a unique voice. I especially thought she brought Lovely to life really well. I could actually see her in front of my eyes.

I also thought that Majumdar took the current political (and cultural) situation in India and illuminated it so well through this one particular story of a poor Muslim woman and how her one small action spiraled out of control.

Unsurprisingly, everything that happened in this story made me so angry. The relentless corruption, the constant of each person only looking out for number one, no matter the consequences, unending toil and drudgery for the smallest scraps. Needless to say, the story was realistic and left me devastated.