Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2020
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise--to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies--and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.
Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely--an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor--has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.
Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting. Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut.
"Riveting...This is a novel of our pandemic times, an exploration of precarity in all its forms...Majumdar excels at depicting the workings of power on the powerless... Fate has rarely been so many-faced, so muscular, so mercurial, or so mesmerizing as it is in A Burning." - The New York Times Book Review
"Powerful... propulsive...This is a book to relish for its details, for the caress of the writer's gaze against the world... The interplay of choice and circumstance has always been the playing field of great fiction, and on this terrain, a powerful new writer stakes her claim."
- Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
"Immersive...masterly... the elements of a thriller are transmuted into prismatic portraiture... A Burning has a similar urgency of appeal [to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.] Its characters are at the very front of the stage, and we can feel their breath... Her spare plot moves with arrowlike determination...I can't remember when I last read a novel that so quickly dismantled the ordinary skepticism that attends the reading of made-up stories. Early Naipaul comes to mind as a precursor, and perhaps Akhil Sharma's stupendously vivid novel Family Life.... It's only at the end of this brief, brave novel that one becomes fully aware of how broad its judgments have been, how fierce and absolute its condemnations. Through the gaps that open up among and behind these three characters, a large Indian panoply emerges."
- James Wood, The New Yorker
"Powerful... a gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary...It's hard not to feel intense heartache while reading A Burning. Majumdar's powerful debut is carefully crafted for maximum impact, carving out the most urgent parts of its characters for the whole world to see. This novel rightfully commands attention."
- USA Today
"In her captivating debut novel A Burning, Megha Majumdar presents a powerful corrective to the political narratives that have dominated in contemporary India."
- Time
"Propulsive...ambitious...beautiful and supple...heartbreaking."
- The Boston Globe
"Remarkable…Early buzz is already comparing A Burning to the work of modern literary stars ... but the voice—or voices—here are entirely Majumdar's own."
- Entertainment Weekly
"Combines fast-paced plotting with the kind of atmospheric detail one might find in the work of Jhumpa Lahiri or Daniyal Mueenuddin... A highly compelling read."
- Vogue
""Majumdar's explosive first novel is an intimate epic"
- O Magazine
"A Burning by Megha Majumdar is quietly beautiful and devastating. Its tone and pacing are measured perfectly. It is as funny as it is sad. This book won't let you go, and you won't want it to end." - Tommy Orange
"A Burning is an excellently crafted, utterly thrilling novel full of characters that I won't soon forget. Megha Majumdar writes about the ripple effects of our choices, the interconnectedness of our humanity, with striking beauty and clarity. A stunning debut." -Yaa Gyasi
"Majumdar expertly weaves the book's various points of view and plotlines in ways that are both unexpected and inevitable. This is a memorable, impactful work." - Publishers Weekly
"The novel's brilliant individual vignettes far outshine a rather flimsy overarching plot." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about A Burning was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Megha Majumdar was born and raised in Kolkata, India. She moved to the United States to attend college at Harvard University, followed by graduate school in social anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She works as an editor at Catapult, and lives in New York City. A Burning is her first book.
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