This is a tale set in Kerala, in southern India, in 1969. The lives of twins Rahel and Esthappen are changed forever when their English cousin and her mother arrive on a Christmas visit. The story unfolds with foreboding and takes on big themes like love, madness, hope and joy.

The Ibis, loaded to its gunwales with a cargo of indentured servants, is in the grip of a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal; among the dozens flailing for survival are Neel-convicted of embezzlement; Paulette masquerading as a deck hand; and Deeti a widow fleeing with her lover Kalua. The storm also threatens the clipper ship Anahita, which is carrying the largest consignment of opium ever to leave India for Canton. And the Redruth, a nursery ship, carrying...

"Gorgeously tactile and sweeping in historical and socio-political scope, Pushcart Prize-winner Madhuri Vijay's The Far Field follows a complicated flaneuse across the Indian subcontinent as she reckons with her past, her desires, and the tumultuous present. In the wake of her mother's death, Kalyani, a privileged and restless young woman from Bangalore, sets out for a remote Himalayan village in the troubled northern region of Kashmir. Certain that...

"Poor and illiterate, Bhima had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for more than twenty years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. The sting of that dismissal was made more painful coming from Sera Dubash, the temperamental employer who had long been Bhima's only confidante. A woman who has endured despair...