China Room: A Novel by Sunjeev Sahota (English) Paperback Book

Description: China Room by Sunjeev Sahota LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZELONGLISTED FOR THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS CARNEGIE MEDALNAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY NPR, TIME, AND THE STAR-TRIBUNE"Sunjeev Sahotas new novel follows characters across generations and continents...Heart-wrenching." —Entertainment Weekly "An intimate page-turner with a deeper resonance as a tale of oppression, independence and resilience." —San Francisco Chronicle A transfixing, "powerfully imaged" (USA Today) novel about two unforgettable characters seeking to free themselves—one from the expectations of women in early twentieth-century Punjab, and the other from the weight of life in the contemporary Indian diasporaMehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, she and her now-sisters spend their days hard at work in the familys "china room," sequestered from contact with the men—except when their domineering mother-in-law, Mai, summons them to a darkened chamber at night. Curious and strong willed, Mehar tries to piece together what Mai doesnt want her to know. From beneath her veil, she studies the sounds of the mens voices, the calluses on their fingers as she serves them tea. Soon she glimpses something that seems to confirm which of the brothers is her husband, and a series of events is set in motion that will put more than one life at risk. As the early stirrings of the Indian independence movement rise around her, Mehar must weigh her own desires against the reality—and danger—of her situation. Spiraling around Mehars story is that of a young man who arrives at his uncles house in Punjab in the summer of 1999, hoping to shake an addiction that has held him in its grip for more than two years. Growing up in small-town England as the son of an immigrant shopkeeper, his experiences of racism, violence, and estrangement from the culture of his birth led him to seek a dangerous form of escape. As he rides out his withdrawal at his familys ancestral home—an abandoned farmstead, its china room mysteriously locked and barred—he begins to knit himself back together, gathering strength for the journey home. Partly inspired by award-winning author Sunjeev Sahotas family history, China Room is both a deft exploration of how systems of power circumscribe individual lives and a deeply moving portrait of the unconquerable human capacity to resist them. At once sweeping and intimate, lush and propulsive, it is a stunning achievement from a contemporary master. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Sunjeev Sahota is the author of three novels: China Room, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and the American Library Associations Carnegie Medal; The Year of the Runaways, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was awarded a European Union Prize for Literature; and Ours are the Streets. In 2013, he was named one of Grantas twenty Best of Young British Novelists of the decade. He lives in Sheffield, England, with his family. Review Named a best book of the summer by TIME, Lit Hub, Book Riot, and AARPNamed a best book of July by Entertainment Weekly, Good Morning America, POPSUGAR, and Apartment Therapy"Sahota is an enormously gifted writer . . . a bold storyteller who seems to have learned as many tricks from TV as from Tolstoy, and has a jewellers unillusioned eye for the goods . . . Lovely phrases glitter . . . Sahotas ability to shine a phrase is not bought for the usual steep formalist price, at the expense of simplicity, intimate feeling, and solid representation. Hes both camera and painter, in a literary world that often separates those novelistic tasks." —James Wood, The New Yorker "[China Room] forges telling and skillful connections between the two very different eras, showing the ways that a place—a house, a room—can store up pieces of a remarkable past and release them, generations later, when someone comes looking." —The Wall Street Journal"[An] intense, heartrending novel." —The Washington Post"A family saga both sweeping and granular . . . [that] examines agency, power and human connection." —TIME "Gorgeously crafted . . . powerful . . . a sweeping dual portrait." —Star-Tribune"[Sahota] is a restrained stylist whose details bloom in the imagination . . . [there is] respite, even solace, to be found in [his] precise and exhilarating observation." —Claire Messud, Harpers Magazine "In Mehar, Sahota has powerfully imagined a life under extreme constraint . . . Mehars great-grandson is a reminder that freedom is hard-won, but fear and anxiety can get passed down as heirlooms." —USA Today"Intimate and startling." —Electric Literature"A deeply captivating and necessary novel." —Ploughshares"[China Room] illuminates the lives of those hidden away by history and the passage of time . . . We all come from ancestors whose seemingly unendurable suffering enabled us to live our present lives. Sahota suggests that by unearthing their stories, we confront our individual and collective intergenerational pain." —Washington Independent Review of Books"With poise, restraint and deep intelligence . . . Sahota feeds us big, difficult themes—segregation and freedom, revolution and empire—in a form that is unsweetened, fresh and nourishing. Surely this, his third novel, will propel him up the shortlists to the prizewinning status he deserves." —The Times (London) "A lovely, dream-like novel . . . Sahota gives his period narrative the same effortless immediacy as his present-day one, yet his novel works by stealth, quietly beguiling the reader into an almost painful intimacy with his characters respective culturally circumscribed lives. I loved it." —Daily Mail (London) "Beautifully realized. . . Sahota is a truly original novelist, his prose sparingly precise in its beauty, steeped in kindness and deep humanity." —The Times Literary Supplement (London) "Engrossing . . . Intricate yet compact . . . the storys deceptively placid style renders its combustible elements all the more devastating . . . [An] excellent novel." —Literary Review (London)"Themes of freedom and imprisonment are knitted through both stories, which, despite the historical setting, are resolutely inward-looking . . . Poised and poignant, China Room is a rare novel that makes you pause in its beauty." —The Telegraph (London)"Sahotas beautifully crafted novel dovetails two stories from different eras… Both characters are prisoners of circumstance but, in their hunger for redemption, become emblematic of the human condition." —The Mail on Sunday (UK) "There is a scrupulous subtlety about that way that Sahota refuses to let his historical characters act as though they are in a historical novel . . . Sahota has demonstrated an ambitious need to adapt the specific and concrete to something less easy to pin down, complete with all the gaps and ruptures that life provides." —The Guardian (London) "[An] epic story about family secrets and the struggle to break free from the people and systems who try to hold others back." —POPSUGAR"An examination of power and gender, China Room will make you reexamine a culture across time." —GoodMorningAmerica.com"As beautiful as it is heart-shattering." —Apartment Therapy"Compelling and devastating . . . Through short chapters and sparse, tightly wrought prose, Sahotas novel is both easy to read and difficult to put down. Something of a hometown hero, not only in the old steel town of Sheffield, where he currently resides, but also to British Indian and Asian writers, Sahota cements his place in a vibrant literary canon alongside Salman Rushdie, Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid, Hari Kunzru and others." —BookPage"Mesmerizing . . . Simultaneously visceral and breathless, this is one knockout of a novel." —Booklist (starred review)"Magnificent . . . Sahota brilliantly plays with access to knowledge, to history . . . promises to haunt and illuminate." —Shelf Awareness "China Room burns quietly but fiercely from first page to last—a gorgeous, gripping read." —Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire"Boisterous, emotional, and heartrending, China Room juggles questions of love, debt, and what it means to build a home alongside the history that carries us. Sahota navigates the worlds between where we believe we belong, where we end up, and the choices we make to close the distance along the way, with humanity, precision, and grace—China Room is a propulsive dream, intricately wrought, and Sahota is a maestro." —Bryan Washington, author of Memorial"China Room is a stunning novel, Im blown away by it. Its so complex and yet lucid and easy, so perfectly achieved. I was gripped from the first page to the last." —Tessa Hadley, author of The Past"An intense drama of classic themes—love, family, survival, and betrayal—told with passion and precision in Sahotas economical, lyrical prose. China Room is a brilliant novel. I wont forget any of these characters." —Adam Foulds, author of The Quickening Maze"Such a thrilling combination of beauty and heartbreak. Its breathtaking." —Charlotte Mendelson, author of When We Were Bad"China Room, a multi-generational masterpiece based in part on Sahotas family history, could well see him nominated [for the Booker] again." —The Daily Mail (London), "Books to Look Out For 2021" Review Quote Named a best book of the summer by TIME , Lit Hub , Book Riot, and AARP Named a best book of July by Entertainment Weekly , Good Morning America, POPSUGAR , and Apartment Therapy "Sahota is an enormously gifted writer . . . a bold storyteller who seems to have learned as many tricks from TV as from Tolstoy, and has a jewellers unillusioned eye for the goods . . . Lovely phrases glitter . . . Sahotas ability to shine a phrase is not bought for the usual steep formalist price, at the expense of simplicity, intimate feeling, and solid representation. Hes both camera and painter, in a literary world that often separates those novelistic tasks." --James Wood, The New Yorker "[ China Room ] forges telling and skillful connections between the two very different eras, showing the ways that a place--a house, a room--can store up pieces of a remarkable past and release them, generations later, when someone comes looking." -- The Wall Street Journal "[An] intense, heartrending novel." -- The Washington Post "A family saga both sweeping and granular . . . [that] examines agency, power and human connection." -- TIME "Gorgeously crafted . . . powerful . . . a sweeping dual portrait." -- Star-Tribune "[Sahota] is a restrained stylist whose details bloom in the imagination . . . [there is] respite, even solace, to be found in [his] precise and exhilarating observation." -- Claire Messud, Harpers Magazine "In Mehar, Sahota has powerfully imagined a life under extreme constraint . . . Mehars great-grandson is a reminder that freedom is hard-won, but fear and anxiety can get passed down as heirlooms." -- USA Today "Intimate and startling." -- Electric Literature "A deeply captivating and necessary novel." -- Ploughshares "[ China Room ] illuminates the lives of those hidden away by history and the passage of time . . . We all come from ancestors whose seemingly unendurable suffering enabled us to live our present lives. Sahota suggests that by unearthing their stories, we confront our individual and collective intergenerational pain." -- Washington Independent Review of Books "With poise, restraint and deep intelligence . . . Sahota feeds us big, difficult themes--segregation and freedom, revolution and empire--in a form that is unsweetened, fresh and nourishing. Surely this, his third novel, will propel him up the shortlists to the prizewinning status he deserves." -- The Times (London) "A lovely, dream-like novel . . . Sahota gives his period narrative the same effortless immediacy as his present-day one, yet his novel works by stealth, quietly beguiling the reader into an almost painful intimacy with his characters respective culturally circumscribed lives. I loved it." -- Daily Mail (London) "Beautifully realized. . . Sahota is a truly original novelist, his prose sparingly precise in its beauty, steeped in kindness and deep humanity." -- The Times Literary Supplement (London) "Engrossing . . . Intricate yet compact . . . the storys deceptively placid style renders its combustible elements all the more devastating . . . [An] excellent novel." -- Literary Review (London) "Themes of freedom and imprisonment are knitted through both stories, which, despite the historical setting, are resolutely inward-looking . . . Poised and poignant, China Room is a rare novel that makes you pause in its beauty." -- The Telegraph (London) "Sahotas beautifully crafted novel dovetails two stories from different eras... Both characters are prisoners of circumstance but, in their hunger for redemption, become emblematic of the human condition." -- The Mail on Sunday (UK) "There is a scrupulous subtlety about that way that Sahota refuses to let his historical characters act as though they are in a historical novel . . . Sahota has demonstrated an ambitious need to adapt the specific and concrete to something less easy to pin down, complete with all the gaps and ruptures that life provides." -- The Guardian (London) "[An] epic story about family secrets and the struggle to break free from the people and systems who try to hold others back." -- POPSUGAR "An examination of power and gender, China Room will make you reexamine a culture across time." --GoodMorningAmerica.com "As beautiful as it is heart-shattering." -- Apartment Therapy "Compelling and devastating . . . Through short chapters and sparse, tightly wrought prose, Sahotas novel is both easy to read and difficult to put down. Something of a hometown hero, not only in the old steel town of Sheffield, where he currently resides, but also to British Indian and Asian writers, Sahota cements his place in a vibrant literary canon alongside Salman Rushdie, Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid, Hari Kunzru and others." -- BookPage "Mesmerizing . . . Simultaneously visceral and breathless, this is one knockout of a novel." -- Booklist (starred review) "Magnificent . . . Sahota brilliantly plays with access to knowledge, to history . . . promises to haunt and illuminate." -- Shelf Awareness " China Room burns quietly but fiercely from first page to last--a gorgeous, gripping read." --Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire "Boisterous, emotional, and heartrending, China Room juggles questions of love, debt, and what it means to build a home alongside the history that carries us. Sahota navigates the worlds between where we believe we belong, where we end up, and the choices we make to close the distance along the way, with humanity, precision, and grace-- China Room is a propulsive dream, intricately wrought, and Sahota is a maestro." --Bryan Washington, author of Memorial " China Room is a stunning novel, Im blown away by it. Its so complex and yet lucid and easy, so perfectly achieved. I was gripped from the first page to the last." --Tessa Hadley, author of The Past "An intense drama of classic themes--love, family, survival, and betrayal--told with passion and precision in Sahotas economical, lyrical prose. China Room is a brilliant novel. I wont forget any of these characters." --Adam Foulds, author of The Quickening Maze "Such a thrilling combination of beauty and heartbreak. Its breathtaking." --Charlotte Mendelson, author of When We Were Bad " China Room , a multi-generational masterpiece based in part on Sahotas family history, could well see him nominated [for the Booker] again." -- The Daily Mail (London), "Books to Look Out For 2021" Excerpt from Book 1 Mehar is not so obedient a fifteen-year-old that she wont try to uncover which of the three brothers is her husband. Already, the morning after the wedding, and despite nervous, trembling hands, she combines varying amounts of lemon, garlic and spice in their side plates of sliced onions, and then attempts to detect the particular odour on the man who visits later that same night, invisible to her in the dark. It proves inconclusive, the strongest smell by far her fear, so she tries again after overhearing one of the trio complaining about the calluses on his hands. Her concentration is fierce when her husbands palm next strokes her naked arm, but then, too, she isnt certain. Maybe all male hands feel so rough, so clumsily eager and dry. It is 1929, summer is erupting, and the brothers do not address her in one anothers presence, indeed they barely speak to her at all, and she, it goes without saying, is expected to remain dutiful, veiled and silent, like the other new brides. Spying from her window, she sees only the brothers likeness: close in age, they share the same narrow build, with unconvincing shoulders and grave eyes; serious faces that carry no slack, features that follow the same rules. The three are evenly bearded, the hair trimmed short and tight, and all day they wear loose turbans cut from the same saffron wrap. Most hours the brothers will be out working the fields, playing, drinking, while she weaves and cooks and shovels and milks, until those evenings when Mai, their mother, says to her, raising a tea-glass to grim lips: Not the china room tonight. This is the third time Mehar must finish washing the pewter pots at the courtyard water pump and, rather than join the women, take herself to the windowless chamber at the back of the farm. On the bed, she holds her knees close, seeing no point in lying down straight away. Five days married. Five nights since shed first lain waiting in the pitch black, shuddering from arms to toes, hoping he wouldnt come to her and praying that there might be blood. The day before the wedding, Mehars mother had folded a tiny blade into her daughters hand. Cut your thumb, to be sure. Mehar hadnt done that, hadnt needed to, and Mai had been outside afterwards, waiting for the sheets. Her husband had said nothing to Mehar on that occasion, and little more on the next. Will he say more today, she wonders? The tallow stick on its stony ledge has blown down to its crater and in the obliterating dazzle of the darkness she imagines she is underwater, in some submerged world of sea-goats and monsters. From across the courtyard she hears the distant protesting rasps of a charpoy and the scuffle of leather slippers being toed on. Her stomach does a small anticipatory flip, and she lies down as the door opens and he moves to sit at her side. She dares a sidelong glance at what must surely be his naked back, though it is impossible to make even a distinction between his hair and his cotton wrap, which she can hear him loosening. When she senses him unknotting the langot at his waist she averts her gaze to the black pool of the ceiling and waits. Undress, he says, not unkindly, but with the contingent kindness of a husband who knows he will be obeyed. She tries to trap his voice inside her head, to parse its deep grain, its surprising hoarseness. Was he the one whod called for more daal, whod had her hurrying out to them earlier that day? She gathers the hem of her tunic up around her hips and unties her drawstring. She feels a rush of air against her calves as he slides off her salwar in a single swift motion, and then he bears down like something come to swallow her whole, until she cant even see the darkness on either side of him and fears that she really is inside his chest. He is neither rough nor gentle. A little frenetic perhaps, because all three brothers want a child, a child that must be a boy. Mehars hands remain at her side, unmoving and cupped up. He smells strongly of grass and sweat, and of fenugreek and taro, the evening meal, but beyond that she can detect soap, and is glad that he had thought to wash before coming to her tonight. He grips her upper arm with one hand - calluses? Can she feel calluses? - then a final thrust, a stoppered exhalation, and he climbs off her, one leg at a time. His back to her again, she senses him return his penis into the pouch of his langot. Youre learning the life here? Everyone is very kind. He gives a wry little snort and she flicks her eyes towards the sound - nothing, she can see nothing. Its never been a kind house before, he says, and shunts his feet back into the slippers. 2 The vessel is round, copper-bottomed, with a loop of a handle and a spout like a cobra rearing back for the strike. Its for the tea, this much theyve been told, but how it is for the tea is not clear to them. It doesnt even lie flat, Harbans says, confounded, holding the thing at arms length as if it might curse her. And no hinges. Barely air to spread a fart in this room as it is. The leaves go inside, says Gurleen. She takes the contraption from Harbans and speaks as if all this would be obvious to anyone with a little breeding. So youve used one of these before? asks Mehar, and Gurleen makes a frivolous face that tries to suggest she might have, once upon a time. Youll need the gauze, says Harbans. She tips open one of the drawers and squints through the day-dark of the room. Lordy. The nice one for the three princes, yes? Not so loud, says Gurleen. A gauze over every cup? asks Mehar, sounding doubtful. Sisters together, they figure that the tea must be made in the usual way, in the brass pot and on the fire, and then strained into the copper vessel before being poured into cups, and all this they do, efficiently, sliding around each other in a space so narrow that when Mehar stands with her arms apart, her fingertips brush the walls. They live in the china room, which sits at a slight remove from the house and is named for the old willow-pattern plates that lean on a high stone shelf, a set of six that arrived with Mai years ago as part of her wedding dowry. Far beneath the shelf, at waist level, runs a concrete slab that the women use for preparing food, and under this is a modest mud-oven. The end of the room widens enough for a pair of charpoys to be laid perpendicular to each other and across these two string beds all three women are made to sleep. What a waste of time, says Harbans, sieving the tea into the kettle. More things for me to wash. Its how the English drink, says Gurleen. Mai told me. Shes smiling at the thing, admiring the way its full bright sheen makes a reddish blur of her reflection. She tilts her face in profile. It looks so nice. Mai speaks to you about these things? asks Mehar, exchanging a droll look with Harbans. Shes very nice to me. I think I remind her of her younger self. Oh, you do? says Mehar. Were both tall. Slim . . . A raised eyebrow towards Harbans. I imagine Im married to the eldest. Naturally, says Mehar. Gurleen was certainly those things, Mehar had to admit. Tall, slim - and beautiful. Though there was a tartness to her beauty, the tight dot of her lips, the hard diagonals of her cheekbones, that Mehar personally thought too much. The first time the three new brides had met and spoken, Mehar and Harbans had walked away readjusting their clothes, as if theyd just been browsed by Gurleen for signs of competition. Harbans steps in. Go on then, mini-Mai, get this to them before big-Mai comes asking. The delight in Gurleens face flees. Why me! You said you know how, Mehar reminds her, and she takes the kettle and presses it into Gurleens hands, who resists until- Mehar! calls Mai. Must we die of thirst? They freeze, and then Mehar mouths a scream and reaches for her veil. The veil makes a red haze of everything, a sparkling opacity against which bodies move as dark shadows. It is pulled so far forward that it entirely conceals Mehars face, and she must cast her eyes down to see anything at all. And what can she see? Her wrists, heavily bangled in red and white; the tea in her hands; and her painted feet, with the silver anklet bells announcing her journey over the swept ground of the courtyard. Her hands shake with the fear that shes about to make a fool of herself, and, therefore, of the family. A tight slap awaits. The table inches into her vision and she stops, lingers, listens, though its hard to hear over the clamour of her heart. Its so hot. Shes hungry. How long ago was the midday meal? With her tongue she smears away the sweat from her top lip. Their talk quiets at her approach, as if in some strange deference. Please pour. His voice, she is sure of it. The same easy gruffness, the same clear brass. She thinks it came from her right. Without moving her head, she tries to peer through the top of her veil, where the chenille is thinner. It is impossible. Waiting for angels to shit? snaps Mai. Through the snake-spout, that is what theyd decided. Mehar takes a step cl Details ISBN0593298225 Author Sunjeev Sahota Short Title China Room Pages 256 Language English Year 2022 ISBN-10 0593298225 ISBN-13 9780593298220 Format Paperback Publication Date 2022-07-12 Subtitle A Novel Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Penguin USA Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2022-07-12 NZ Release Date 2022-07-12 US Release Date 2022-07-12 UK Release Date 2022-07-12 DEWEY 823.92 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:141360557;

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