The sheer beauty of the writing in this book is breathtaking
The characters in this book feel so real.
A great debut novel

I received a free eARC from the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's been a while since I read this, so I'll be fairly brief.
There are four loosely related stories in Latitudes of Longing. We begin with the relationship between Girija and Chandha, which is beautiful and has elements of fabulism, with Chanha speaking to trees and ghosts. It intertwines myth and magic, and explores a couple breaking away from India's colonial past.
The next story follows Chandha and Girija's maid's son, Plato, who struggles under the military regime in Burma. We then move on to Plato's best friend, Thepa, who is a drug smuggler in Nepal. He goes to the snow deserts of the Karakoram (I can't read my own writing in my notes, so I hope this is correct) Mountains, where we meet Chandha and Girija's son, Rana, who has come to connect scientific experiments there.

The first story was amazing, and I really wish the rest of the book had been as beautiful as that one. I loved the lyrical writing, and I appreciated the effort that went into crafting the whole book, even if I wasn't as invested in the later stories.

A book of four parts and for me a book of 4 very different reactions: The first part absolutely wowed me. I was absorbed, hooked. The second part was fine, the language was still stellar but the story was starting to shake a bit. The last two parts for me went from consternation to "oh no, the way was lost." Still, a good debut, and a novelist to look out for in future.

I found this beautifully written novel very complicated and wordy. I acknowledge the beauty of the language and the descriptions, but the changing from the past to the present was confusing. I did not feel the style of writing really engaged me. Maybe it was the wrong time for me to read this as I needed something that grabbed my attention and swept me along.

This is one of those books that both heralds a debut author's vast talent, and yet also fails to capitalise on it. Swarup is nothing if not ambitious but this is also her downfall as the four sections of the book become decreasingly coherent.

The first is wonderful: in seductive, lush prose that intertwines metaphor, magic and myth, this tells a story of a new marriage. It's the writing, the vision and the imagination that work so well, and there's heart here, too - and the story ends on an image that is breathtaking.

But then the page turns and we're in a different story, one of political resistance and imprisonment under Burma's military regime. The writing turns flat and never really recovers and however important a topic, this adds nothing new to all the other stories we've read about torture and brutality. And really the book never picks up again. It wanders widely across Asia but it feels like the stories are researched but not really felt or experienced.

It's a shame because Swarup can write beautifully: there are influences of Rushdie and Arundhati Roy in her use of figurative language, and the way she creates a vision that melds the individual with political, cultural and ecological forces. Overall, she seems to be heading towards some kind of vision of unity - sadly, the fractured stories after the first one work against rather than towards her goal.

For all my critiques, I'd recommend this book simply because this feels like the first book of an author who will go on to greater things: it may be uneven, but at its best, it's glorious.

First of all both the US and UK cover for this book are stunning!

I would have to lie if I'd say that I didn't click on it to read the blurb on Netgalley just because of this beautiful cover art.

I am torn. The author's debut is written in a rich and lyrical style that flows from page to page. You can smell the flowers, hear the insects and feel the water lap around your feet.
My biggest issue was the plot and story itself. Why I liked the first story about Chanda Devi, her husband, the ghosts and the birth of her daughter, I wanted to stay with this particular strand of story and not move to the next in a very abrupt way (and by the way, what the heck is up with mentioning his erection at the beginning and at the end of the story - I don't get it, sorry. If anybody could explain the particular symbolism or meaning, I'd be grateful).
The four parts were kind of interwoven, but after losing my main characters, I didn't care too much about Plato and the others. I feel if the author would have concentrated on a tighter plot and story line, this would have been a magnificent debut.

I will be watching this author, but for Latitudes of Longing only 3 coffee cups for the first 40% of the book and the beautiful writing style.

Thank you Netgalley and Quercus books for providing me with an eARC for an honest review.

My thanks to Quercus Books-riverrun for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Latitudes of Longing’ by Shubhangi Swarup in exchange for an honest review. It was originally published in India in 2018.

This is a stunning debut, an exquisitely written tale of multiple generations across various landscapes of the Indian subcontinent. It is presented in four sections: Islands, Faultline, Valley, and Snow Desert.

In it vivid descriptions of nature and the landscape are interwoven with history, politics, and meditations upon philosophy, religion and spirituality.

It opens in 1949 in the tropics of the Andaman Islands, as Giriji Prassd, a young botanist welcomes his bride, Chanda Devi. She is a free spirit, a mystic who speaks to trees and the ghosts of former colonialists. She also senses that the islands sit upon a fault line that allows spirits to cross the boundary between this world and the next. Yet their love is visited by tragedy.

The second section follows Mary, their Burmese maid, who decides to seek the son that she abandoned many years before. He has renamed himself Plato and is a political prisoner in Burma.

In the third section the focus moves to Nepal, following the story of Plato’s best friend, Thapa, a drug smuggler. In the final section Thapa travels to the snow deserts of the Karakoram mountains and the border between India and Pakistan. The snow deserts, exist beyond the reach of nation or war. Here, Rana, the geologist grandson of Chanda and Giriji, has come to conduct scientific experiments and to investigate reports that Apo, a village elder, has successfully predicted earthquakes for over sixty years.

I am quite comfortable with novels in which visions are accepted as normality, so Chanda’s reality and that of Apo, the village elder who shares tales of the fairies of the mountains and of the shy cheemo/yeti were welcome alongside its other themes of conflict, war, and crime.

‘Latitudes of Longing’ is a lyrical work of Indian literature and a bestseller in India and in 2018 was awarded the prestigious Tata Lit Live Best First Book of the Year.

Latitudes of Longing is nothing short of an exquisite tour de force and a sparkling debut full of originality and the pep and pizazz of natures bounty. This marks the start of a powerful and masterful new literary voice and one of the most beautiful and profound reads of the past few years for me. I went into this not knowing much more about it than the synopsis and some spoiler-free reviews and I recommend going in as blind as possible in order to gain maximum enjoyment; I think it’s really quite sufficient just to mention the glowing reviews it has received from both press and fellow authors as well as the fact that it's an award-winning novel. Spanning a vast swathe of the Indian subcontinent, we readers are invited into four very different but equally mesmerising interconnecting stories and it's testament to Swarup’s writing skill that she is both able to tell the stories from a personal level discussing the family implications before widening to explore the local surroundings, ecology and mother natures relationship with her earthly creations. As a character-driven tale, I was captivated and found every little aspect beguiling.

This is a complex, multilayered and extensively thought out collection of stories in which a multitude of vastly different characters make up the intriguing cast and is at times both hopeful and hopeless. It's thought-provoking and moving with some truly luscious and delightfully rich descriptions of nature and our planet and people. The lyrical prose was absolutely breathtaking and elevated the plot to whole new heights; it's difficult to convey the feeling of reading such beauty suffice to say that it effortlessly casts a spell over you and refuses to let you go. Shifting seamlessly between different epoch’s and locations we are treated to a vividly portrayed world and characters that leap off the pages and into your heart; so full of realism and credibility. I cannot recommend this stunning book highly enough. The way it explores the relationships between nature and humanity and our ceaseless ability to both hurt and heal the ones we love make for superb reading. A true and otherworldly masterpiece in which a rare majesty abounds. Many thanks to riverrun for an ARC.

A complex, fascinating and well written book that made me travel to unknown to me places and discover them.
It's a multigenerational saga that kept me hooked till the end and I loved the great style of writing, the amazing descriptions of the setting, and the well thought characters.
It's not easy to review a book like this because it's full for thought and it touched me at emotional level making me share the emotions of the characters.
I loved the style of writing and I think that the author is a talented storyteller.
I strongly recommend it.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I received an e-ARC from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review

You ever come across a book that is so good that you can't help but keep reading, but it is that good that you try really hard to read it super slowly because you don't want it to end? This is one of those books.

It is beautifully written, the prose is absolutely stunning and the characters are complex and realistic. This is a multi-generational story that spans different times and places amongst the Indian subcontinent. From the humidity of the Andaman Islands to the glaciers of the Himalayas, Swarup describes all of these places so vividly and lyrically I was constantly blown away. I cannot decide whether I liked reading about the characters or the landscape more as both were done with such care and beauty.

If you're a very plot orientated reader you might find this slow, but if you are a character-driven reader that loves beautiful prose and literary fiction with some light fantasy/mythology sort of vibes you have got to check this book out! Coming out soon from Hachette Australia and Quercus in the UK.

I relish books that take me to different geographies, show me how a land breathes and lives. Latitudes of Longing, in that sense, is rich in its sprawl. Beginning with the story of Girija Prasad and Chanda Devi in the Andamans, the story took me across continents through an intricately woven tapestry of people and stories within stories to eventually end in a full circle.

There is an intensity that is rooted in every page of the book, an energy that crackles in the air. This is most palpable in “Islands,” the first section of the book where Girija Prasad, Chanda Devi, and Mary inhabit a dreamlike world. There was some extremely luminous writing here, a lush blend of magical realism and breathtaking descriptions of the natural beauty of the Andamans.

But despite this very magnetic pull, which kept me going at full tilt with no breaks, the book loses steam somewhere around the latter half. It’s as if it starts to slow down to catch its breath because from a very primordial, passionate state it moves to a more philosophical, thoughtful one.

Latitudes of Longing is a complex, multi-layered book that eludes immediate understanding. It makes you traverse through various realms – spiritual, intellectual, and physical, and even something in between. Perhaps, it’s this constant journey that induces a disconnected feeling many times throughout the book. Written more like short stories that intersect, it’s difficult, for example, to snap out of that enchanted state that “Islands” put you in to a grimmer, fractured world that makes up the second section named “Faultline.” And as sensuous and alluring Swarup’s writing is, it does tend to obfuscate the storyline with repetitive and excessively mystical sentences.

That said, the book does ooze with Swarup’s talent for the written word and the ability to spin tales from even the tiniest fragment of thought. I would be definitely watching out for her next story to sweep me into dimensions unknown.

Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup

This book is dense like tropical jungle, complicated like a faded and incomplete map and yet, ultimately, the journey is worthwhile. The writer gives us four stories, loosely linked by characters with settings sprawling across the last fifty years of the twentieth century. The latitudes are the different locations of the novel, ranging from the tropical lushness of the Andaman Islands to the snow-covered mountains above Kathmandu and the longing is a portrayal of love, loss and desire across the Indian subcontinent.

In this book everything shifts, not just the emotions but also the political context, the natural environment and even the land itself: nothing is sufficiently solid here to build roots. Reality is pretty unstable as well so ghosts and spirits feature and, yes, there is a talking yeti to round it off!

The language is sumptuous and the descriptions whether of love, nature or the movements of glaciers move slowly, developing a richness and a mood which runs across the different stories. The first story is about Girigi Varma and his new wife Chanda Devi working in forestry in the Andaman Islands. Chanda sees all the ghosts and the history as well as the future of the islands obliterated by the sea. The nanny they employ, Mary, comes without a past but in the second story we find her son, Plato, a tortured political activist. Against the background of history the petty activity of horrific torture and cruelty is diminished. Plato has met up with Thapa, a drug smuggler, and he in turn meets up with a young dancer ending up in the village where the final story, an elegiac description of geriatric love against the glacial and mountainous background concludes the novel.

It's a great book but a challenging read if you're not sure of the history and the geography. The different threads emerge rather than being fronted so you often find yourself wondering exactly what is happening but if you go with the flow you start to realise that the longing and loving which constitutes individuals is part of a universal flux and Swarup really does mean universal. Read it carefully and you'll feel the earth move!

Latitudes of Longing by Shubhangi Swarup:

This tender, heartbreaking novel took me on an epic journey across the Indian subcontinent, and completely changed my perspective on humanity, love and hope. Swarup is a young, debut author, and a journalist, and her perception shines through in this novel. Latitudes of Longing follows the stories of several diverse characters, including a scientist who studies trees, his wife, a clairvoyant who professes to be able to speak to them, a yeti who seeks human connection, and a turtle who becomes a woman. The stories are vast and interconnected, and richly imaginative. I particularly loved the way the novel reflected humanity’s complicated relationship with nature, and how mysterious the earth truly is. The novel transported me to other worlds, worlds that I have never travelled to, rich and diverse and I’m not surprised that this young writer was awarded one of the most prestigious prizes in India for this novel. Shubhangi Swarup is a storyteller of extraordinary talent and insight. Richly imaginative, Latitudes of Longing offers a deep, throughtful view of humanity, our capacity to damage and love each other, and our mysterious and sacred relationship with nature.