Saborna Roychowdhury

The Distance is an excellent debut novel. It is an emotional powerhouse, a compelling story that is far from a cute, fuzzy, warm, feel good romance. It is certainly no fairy tale and definitely not a happily ever after story. Instead, it is a human drama, that while fictional, is a very realistic depiction of the countless bad decisions made by multiple people and the consequences of those actions on your life, as well as the lives of those close to you. While I wanted to rush to judgment berating our main protagonist in the story, Mini; I bit my tongue and thought of some of the ill conceived decisions I have made in the past and realized that's what humans tend to do on a regular basis.

Mini grew up in the crowded, poverty stricken city of Calcutta in India. As you might expect, she was nonetheless fond of her country--the culture, the food, the people, the closeness of large, tight-knit families and multitudes of friends. She attended college and fell in with a radical, Amitav with whom she fell in love. This caused a rift between her and her family and friends. She felt hemmed in, in the small, decrepit apartment in which she and her family lived. The patriarchal society surrounding her was quite suffocating and controlling. Her father was easily angered and became domineering and verbally abusive. All of the male main chracters in this book are deplorable exhibiting abusive behavior, which seems to work in with the patriarchal society.

When Armitav does not return Mini's affections, she becomes listless and sick at heart. After a time, she gives in to her parent's wishes and consents to an arranged marriage, as their tradition dictates. As you might expect, this arrangement leads to many heartaches between the groom, Neel, and Mini. Though they were both born and raised in India, their lives have been very different and they have completely different feelings on many matters of importance. Neel is from a well-to-do family and is studying for a Ph.D. in Canada. Mini, therefore must uproot from not only her home, but her family, friends and country, as well. She finds she can never embrace her new country, even after living there a few years. Her heart is constantly aching for her mother land, its customs and peoples, and especially her family.

In the meantime, her parents are being evicted from the apartment in which her father was born and in which they have spent their entire 30 years of married life. Her father, though aged and decrepit refuses to give in to the landlord's demands for eviction and vows to fight it. This comes to a culmination during a visit of Mini's and Neel's. Between his poor decisions and Mini's own, the climax of the story quickly unfolds.

As I mentioned, this story was powerful and disturbing, which I consider a testament to its ability to portray such realistic characters in a drama full of the flaws we display in real life and with which we can relate.… (plus d'informations)

"Survival was her only mantra, her own happiness always buried under the burden of duty."

Everything Here Belongs To You is stunningly good. It's a modern day literary fiction masterpiece. Saborna Roychowdhury's golden words transported me to India where Parul, a child of six from a small village, was sacrificed by her Muslim father who, after her mother died, thought it would be helpful to have a daughter in the city who could earn extra money. Parul's father arranged for her to be a maid in the home of a middle-class Hindu family in Kolkata. Parul's father, however, used her wages to support himself and his two younger daughters without concern for his eldest daughter's welfare.

The story follows the complex relationship between Mohini, the youngest daughter in the upper caste home, and Parul, the girl abandoned into child labor who became her childhood sister-friend-confidant. The Hindus, who believed that the Chotoloks (poor Muslims) were paying for mistakes in their previous life, did not concern themselves with the agency of their servants, thus the two girls, though emotionally close, lived fundamentally different lives. Mohini went to school, made friends, and planned her future, leaving Parul isolated and desperate, without hope of deliverence from servitude.

Forbidden by her Hindu holders all her life to practice her Muslim religion, Parul enters into a relationship with a radical Muslim who convinces her to take retribution upon those who house her. He tells her, "Your mistress is perfectly happy to put up with all this prejudice around her as long as it does not affect her life. It is the people who appear to be unaffected and uncaring of our suffering—they are the ones committing a crime. By keeping silent and not raising her voice against a tradition of injustice carried out over centuries in this country, your Ma is as guilty as her relatives.”

Saborna Roychowdhury has spun a sensational saga that explores issues of classism, racism, sexism, mob mentality, and radical motives. Deftly switching point of view from one manifold character to another, Saborna wove empathetic tentacles into my heart for even those that on the surface present as evil. This talented author brilliantly rips the veneer off of the normalization of cruel inequalities in life.

Twenty pages into this extraordinary work, I raved to my author friends that I had come upon a masterpiece. This book, now a favorite, embodies everything I love about reading. I highly recommend it.… (plus d'informations)