A Burning is a novel by Indian-born author Megha Majumdar released in June 2020. By December 2020, the novel was on 13 lists of the best books of 2020, according to Literary Hub.
Plot
Set in Kolkata, India, the novel tells the story of its central character Jivan, a woman who witnesses a terrorist attack on an Indian train while it is stopped in a station. Jivan posts to Facebook the next day, drawing the attention of police who arrest her on suspicion of committing the terrorist attack. Following the accusation, her fate hinges upon her former gym teacher, PT Sir, who has become a politician in an Indian right-wing party, and on a hijra actress named Lovely.
Background
In a 2020 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Majumdar explained the origin of the novel:
I think it came from reading the news and watching what was happening in India. I grew up in India, and my family’s still there. The right wing was ascendant, and communal tensions were being whipped up. [The country] was going in a direction that was really frightening. It’s truly contrary to this ideal of India that we were taught about since we were kids, the country whose plurality and diversity we were taught to celebrate. So I wanted to write about how individuals survive such a societal turn.
Critical reception
The novel has received a wide range of critical reception. Ron Charles of The Washington Post wrote Majumdar "demonstrates an uncanny ability to capture the vast scope of a tumultuous society by attending to the hopes and fears of people living on the margins. The effect is transporting, often thrilling, finally harrowing. It’s no wonder this propulsive novel was chosen for the Today Show book club and leaped immediately onto the bestseller list." Grace Z. Li wrote for USA Today, "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." In the Star Tribune, Anjali Enjeti wrote it "is a penetrating exposé about how the possibilities of fame and fortune gradually erode one’s integrity." James Woods wrote in The New Yorker, "Majumdar’s novel is compelling, yet its compulsions have to do with an immersive present rather than with a skidding sequence. Her characters start telling us about their lives, and those lives are suddenly palpable, vital, voiced." Tabish Khair wrote in The Hindu, "It is an excellent novel and an impressive debut", and "I grew up a Muslim who knew much about Hindu details of life but met excellent, well-meaning Hindus, including some of my school friends, who seemed to know nothing about Muslim details of life. And hence, I cannot help but notice this aridity in A Burning. And because the author of A Burning is a person of unusual talent and empathy, I want to bring it to her notice."
Susan Choi wrote in The New York Times, "Majumdar is so far from exoticizing her setting as to be almost too economical, leaving the reader to snatch at clues where she can as to political, social and cultural context," and "Majumdar excels at depicting the workings of power on the powerless; for her characters, power is no abstract concept but a visceral assault on the body and its senses." In The Indian Express, Paromita Chakrabarti wrote the novel "is a quiet, searing study of the underclass and the aspiring middle class in India, whose tentative stake in the capitalist economy is complicated by the many tyrannies of gender, religion and class endemic to society." Harsimran Gill wrote for Scroll.in, "when Majumdar inhabits the perspective of Lovely, she falters. In stark contrast to the other characters, Lovely is given a peculiar voice and broken English for the entirety of the novel. [...] It’s a perplexing choice for a character whose story seems to have otherwise been crafted with care and thoughtfulness." Chakrabarti described restrictions on the teaching of English in government-funded primary schools in West Bengal that began in 1981 and extended for nearly two decades, and how therefore, "entire generations grew up with a shaky hold over the language," and wrote, "Majumdar packs in layers of history in her idiosyncratic use of the English language."