HOUSE OF CARAVANS

One family feels the ripple effects of Partition for generations after India and Pakistan are cleaved in 1947.

Reminiscent of Zadie Smith's White Teeth in its structure and themes, Suneja's debut novel splits its pages between two politically turbulent eras. One narrative thread follows Barre Nanu and Chhote Nanu, a pair of Hindu brothers, as they deal with the consequences of a misguided bomb plot and an illicit romance in Lahore amid the sunset of the British Empire. With World War II raging, many Indians have begun to chafe against colonial rule, Chhote Nanu among them. His revolutionary aspirations are complicated by his love for the beautiful Nigar Jaan, a Muslim sex worker of mixed Indian and English heritage, but he still follows through on an attempt to assassinate a cruel police superintendent. Backfiring, the scheme fails to kill the superintendent and sends Chhote Nanu to jail for nearly two and a half years. Following his release in 1946, Partition plunges the region into chaos and turns Lahore into a Pakistani territory, stranding Barre Nanu and Chhote Nanu on the wrong side of the border. Witnessing horrors as violence against Hindus intensifies, they fight to escape a country they can no longer call their own. Six decades after Chhote Nanu's imprisonment began in 1943, New York City graduate student Karan Khatri returns to his hometown, the Indian city of Kanpur, for the first time in six years after his sister sends word that Barre Nanu, their grandfather, has died. In the wake of 9/11, long-standing tensions between Hindus and Muslims have flared up in the United States, reminding Karan and his friends that they are welcome in some worlds but not in others. In addition to paying his respects to Barre Nanu, Karan has another reason for making the trip to Kanpur: He wants to know more about his parentage. While his mother has always told him that he and his sister were fathered by a Muslim man and a Hindu man, respectively, she has disclosed few other details, seemingly reluctant to do so. Family secrets come to the fore and old wounds reopen as Karan and his sister search for answers.

A moving evocation of life before, during, and after Partition and the past's immeasurable impact on the present.