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A Novel
by Nishant Batsha
An expansive and poignant novel of love, radical ambition, and intellectual rebirth set at the dawn of World War I.
At a party near Stanford University's campus in 1917, Cora Trent, a graduate student raised in the rugged mining towns of the American West, meets Indra Mukherjee, an Indian revolutionary newly arrived in California. Indra is grieving the recent loss of a friend and unsure of the place violence has in the cause of national liberation, while Cora is seeking a new life that stays true to her aspirations as a writer and an idealist. They spark an instant connection, and their passionate romance deepens as they attend protests alongside anticolonial dissidents and socialize with eccentric thinkers in Berkeley and Palo Alto. All the while, Indra awaits orders from a mysterious German spymaster.
Cora and Indra quickly marry, even as the United States is drawn into the conflict in Europe and wartime patriotism begins to give way to increasing intolerance. When news of arrests threatens their future together, they are forced to flee to New York City with the hope that they can avoid the attention of the British and American authorities. Trying to find footing in their new life, Cora and Indra must reckon with divergent ambitions that challenge the foundations of their hasty marriage—and their freedom.
Profound, immersive, tenderly written, and with finely wrought characters drawn from the forgotten archives of American history, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is an extraordinary story of a marriage caught at the intersection of radical politics and everyday life.
"Fascinating but too dense in its attempts to show empathy for two brilliant people facing bigotry as they learn to love." —Kirkus Reviews
"Lyrical and ambitious... . Batsha's deep historic research informs the portraits of his protagonists, who bear similarities to anti-colonial feminist Evelyn Trent and her husband, M.N. Roy, and the novel pulls off a tricky balancing act between florid romance ... and freewheeling modernism... . This one leaves a mark." —Publishers Weekly
"Love is its own act of resistance in repressive times. Here romantic passion combines with revolution in a historical fiction sure to light up readers' rebel hearts." —Los Angeles Times
"Batsha's novel of love and revolution is set in 1917, but its depiction of racism, government overreach and feverish patriotism feels painfully relevant in 2025." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Loosely based upon the real-life romance of Mexican Communist Party founder M.N. Roy and his first wife, journalist Evelyn Trent, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart chronicles the interior and exterior lives of a couple under siege. Batsha... is the perfect person to tell it. Despite being set over 100 years ago, many of the novel's themes are strikingly contemporary....But perhaps best of all, the book re-establishes the real-life Trent—if only metaphorically—in the annals of contemporary history....Batsha's vivid portrayal of the couple provides a glimpse into a fascinating and largely unknown chapter in America's past." —BookPage
"Nishant Batsha's A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is a brilliant, important, and genuinely thrilling new novel. It's a story of love, anticolonial struggle, and fierce intellectual inquiry written in supple and lovely prose, with characters who are informed by the historical record, deeply imagined, and utterly alive. Batsha has given us a forgotten chapter of radical South Asian history, a meticulously drawn portrait of a century-ago California, and a fiercely moving work of art. We are lucky to have him writing today." —Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different
"A beautifully written novel about love and revolution. Intellectual and ambitious, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart transports us to over a century ago, a time full of possibilities, challenging ideas of the nation state and identity that deeply resonate with our present moment." —Akil Kumarasamy, author of Meet Us by the Roaring Sea
This information about A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart 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.
Nishant Batsha is the author of the novel Mother Ocean Father Nation, named a finalist for a 2023 Lambda Literary Award and listed as one the best books of 2022 by NPR, among other honors. He lives in Buffalo, New York, with his family.
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