The Sleeping Dictionary - Softcover

Massey, Sujata

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1476703167 ISBN 13: 9781476703169

Publisher: Gallery Books, 2013

Synopsis

From an award-winning novelist, a stunning portrait of late Raj India—a sweeping saga and a love story set against a background of huge political and cultural upheaval.

YOU ASK FOR MY NAME, THE REAL ONE, AND I CANNOT TELL. IT IS NOT FOR LACK OF EFFORT.

In 1930, a great ocean wave blots out a Bengali village, leaving only one survivor, a young girl. As a maidservant in a British boarding school, Pom is renamed Sarah and discovers her gift for languages. Her private dreams almost die when she arrives in Kharagpur and is recruited into a secretive, decadent world. Eventually, she lands in Calcutta, renames herself Kamala, and creates a new life rich in books and friends. But although success and even love seem within reach, she remains trapped by what she is . . . and is not. As India struggles to throw off imperial rule, Kamala uses her hard-won skills—for secrecy, languages, and reading the unspoken gestures of those around her—to fight for her country’s freedom and her own happiness.

About this title

From the Author

The Sleeping Dictionary, my latest novel, is my first  historical suspense novel set in India. 'Why India?' a lot of people have asked, since I have a long-running mystery series set in Japan. I was not born in India, but my father was, and I've enjoyed long visits to his family hometown of Calcutta since childhood.
Calcutta's had a tough rap for poverty in a lot of fiction and films. Having been there so many times, I see more: a dynamic city of writers and artists, spectacular Indian and British colonial architecture, delicious cuisine, and political intrigue. It was once called the "City of Palaces" and was the capitol of British India until the early 1900s. Then the British government built New Delhi as its headquarters to get away from Calcutta's unpredictable and unruly freedom fighters. Many young female high school and college students were active protesters, couriers, and even soldiers in the movement to free India from British rule. I'm hoping to share this, as well as what the situation felt like for the British civil servants who believed that by enforcing strict laws in India, they would strengthen the empire and uplift Indian people as well. Whenever I start writing a book, I always know the location and themes I want to explore. What takes much longer is finding the right characters to keep me interested. After thinking for some time, the narrator seemed to whisper her name in my ear. She is a Bengali woman first introduced in 1930 as a poor but happy 10-year-old farmer's daughter nicknamed Pom. She goes through an incredible series of adventures, and by story's end, she's metamorphosed Kamala, a mature 27-year-old lady who's weathered a famine, war, childbirth and marriage...but is still struggling with how to recognize and share her past. It's a love-story, mother-daughter story, and political espionage--with recipes at the end.The book took me almost four years to write. By the time I was done, I realized that Kamala's journey from degradation to intellectual and social heights mirrored India's own route from a powerless colony to the world's largest democracy. I do hope you come along for the ride--let me know what you think.

About the Author

Sujata Massey is an Edgar and Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark Award nominee and winner of the Agatha and the Macavity Award for her ten Rei Shimura mystery novels set in Japan. Born in England to an Indian father and a German mother, Sujata Massey grew up mostly in the United States and earned her BA from the Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars program. She then worked as a reporter at The Baltimore Sun before marrying and moving to Japan. She now lives in Baltimore with her husband and children.

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Gallery Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1476703167
• ISBN 13: 9781476703169
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528