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The Folded Earth

A Novel

About The Book

From the widely acclaimed author of An Atlas of Impossible Longing, a powerful and triumphantly beautiful novel set in contemporary India, about a young woman forging a new life in the foothills of the Himalayas.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2011 MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HINDU LITERARY PRIZE FOR BEST FICTION 2011

With her debut novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, Anuradha Roy’s exquisite storytelling instantly won readers’ hearts around the world, and the novel was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. Now, Roy has returned with another masterpiece that is already earning international prize attention, an evocative and deeply moving tale of a young woman making a new life for herself amid the foothills of the Himalaya.

Desperate to leave a private tragedy behind, Maya abandons herself to the rhythms of the little village, where people coexist peacefully with nature. But all is not as it seems, and she soon learns that no refuge is remote enough to keep out the modern world. When power-hungry politicians threaten her beloved mountain community, Maya finds herself caught between the life she left behind and the new home she is determined to protect.

Elegiac, witty, and profound by turns, and with a tender love story at its core, The Folded Earth brims with the same genius and love of language that made An Atlas of Impossible Longing an international success and confirms Anuradha Roy as a major literary talent.

Excerpt

one

The girl came at the same hour, summer or winter. Every morning, I heard her approach. Plastic slippers, the clink of steel on stone. And then her footsteps, receding. That morning she was earlier. The whistling thrushes had barely cleared their throats, and the rifle range across the valley had not yet sounded its bugles. And, unlike every other day, I did not hear her leave after she had set down my daily canister of milk.

She did not knock or call out. She was waiting. All went quiet in the blueness before sunlight. Then the soothing early morning mutterings of the neighborhood began: axes struck wood, dogs tried out their voices, a rooster crowed, wood-smoke crept in through my open window. My eyelids dipped again and I burrowed deeper into my blanket. I woke only when I heard the General walking his dog, reproaching it for its habitual disobedience, as if after all these years it still baffled him. “What is the reason, Bozo?” he said, in his loud voice. “Bozo, what is the reason?” He went past every morning at about six thirty, which meant that I was going to be late unless I ran all the way.

I scrabbled around, trying to organize myself—make coffee, ?nd the clothes I would wear to work, gather the account books I needed to take with me—and the milk for my coffee billowed and foamed out of the pan and over the stove before I could reach it. The mess would have to wait. I picked up things, gulping my coffee in between. It was only when I was lacing my shoes, crouched one-legged by the front door, that I saw her out of the corner of an eye: Charu, waiting for me still, drawing circles at the foot of the steps with a bare toe.

Charu, a village girl just over seventeen, lived next door. She had every hill person’s high cheekbones and skin, glazed pink with sunburn. She would forget to comb her hair till late in the day, letting it hang down her shoulders in two disheveled braids. Like most hill people, she was not tall, and from the back she could be mistaken for a child, thin and small-boned. She wore hand-me-down salwar kameezes too big for her, and in place of a diamond she had a tiny silver stud in her nose. All the same, she exuded the reserve and beauty of a princess of Nepal—even if it took her only a second to slide back into the awkward teenager I knew. Now, when she saw I was about to come out, she stood up in a hurry, stubbing her toe against a brick. She tried to smile through the pain as she mouthed an inaudible “namaste” to me.

I realized then why she had waited so long for me. I ran back upstairs and picked up a letter that had come yesterday. It was addressed to me, but when I opened it, I had found it was for Charu. I stuffed it into my pocket and stepped out of the front door.

My garden was just an unkempt patch of hillside, but it rippled with wild?owers on this blue and gold morning. Teacup-sized lilies charged out of rocks and drifting scraps of paper turned into white butter?ies when they came closer. Everything smelled damp, cool, and fresh from the light rain that had fallen at dawn, the ?rst after many hot days. I felt myself slowing down, the hurry draining away. I was late anyway. What difference did a few more minutes make? I picked a plum and ate it, I admired the butter?ies, I chatted of this and that with Charu.

I said nothing of the letter. I felt a perverse curiosity about how she would tell me what she wanted. More than once, I heard her draw breath to speak, but she either thought better of it or came up with, “It has rained after three weeks dry.” And then, “The monkeys ate all the peaches on our tree.”

I took pity on her and produced the letter from my pocket. It had my address and name, written in Hindi in a large, childish hand.

“Do you want me to read it for you?” I said.

“Yes, alright,” she said. She began to fiddle with a rose, as if the letter were not important, yet darted glances in its direction when she thought I was not looking. Her face was transformed by relief and happiness. “My friend Charu,” the letter said:

How are you? How is your family? I hope all are well. I am well. Today is my tenth day in Delhi. From the first day I looked for a post office to buy an inland letter. It is hard to find places here. It is a very big city. It has many cars, autorickshaws, buses. Sometimes there are elephants on the street. This city is so crowded that my eyes cannot go beyond the next house. I feel as if I cannot breathe. It smells bad. I remember the smells of the hills. Like when the grass is cut. You cannot hear any birds here, or cows or goats. But the room Sahib has given me is good. It is above the garage for the car. It faces the street. When I am alone at the end of the day’s cooking, I can look out at everything. I get more money now. I am saving for my sister’s dowry and to pay off my father’s loan. Then I can do my heart’s desire. Send me a print of your palm in reply. That will be enough for me. I will write again.

Your friend.

“Who is it from?” I asked Charu. “Do you know someone in Delhi, or is this a mistake?”

“It’s from a friend,” she said. She would not meet my eyes. “A girl. Her name is Sunita.” She hesitated before adding: “I told her to send my letters to you because—the postman knows your house better.” She turned away. She must have known how transparent was her lie.

I handed her the letter. She snatched it and was halfway up the slope leading from my house to hers before I had closed my fist. “I thought I taught you to say thank you,” I called after her. She paused. The breeze ?uttered through her dupatta as she stood there, irresolute, then ran down the slope back to me. She spoke so quickly her words ran into each other: “If I bring you extra milk every day . . . will you teach me how to read and write?”

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for The Folded Earth includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Anuradha Roy. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
  
 

Introduction

In a remote town in the Himalaya, a young widow named Maya tries to put her past behind her. By day she teaches in a school and at night she types drafts of a magnum opus by her landlord, an eccentric scholar and a relic of princely India. Her bond with him and her friendship with a village girl, Charu, seem to offer her the chance for a new life in the village of Ranikhet, where lush foothills meet clear skies. As Maya finds out, however, no refuge is remote enough to separate her from her past. The world she has come to love, where people are connected with nature, is endangered by the town’s new administration. By turns poetic, elegiac, and comic, The Folded Earth is a multilayered narrative about characters struggling with their pasts even as they fight for freedom and clarity in the present.


Topics & Questions for Discussion


1.  The setting of The Folded Earth, particularly the author’s descriptions of nature in the Himalayan foothills, plays a huge role in the book’s narrative. In what ways does nature—from the weather in Ranikhet to the landscape—impact the story of The Folded Earth?

2.  Why does Maya come to the small, isolated village of Ranikhet? Is it to escape her troubled past? Does she succeed? Do you think there’s any physical place a person can go to get over the past and begin a new life? If you had to start over, where in the world would you choose to go? 

3.  Maya’s parents formally disowned her when she married outside her faith and caste. How do the residents of the Light House come to be a surrogate family for Maya? What are the problems and rewards of being part of this makeshift family?

4.  Roy describes two of her characters, Kundan and Charu, as both being “a child of the hills.” What do you think it means to be “a child of the hills”? Does it come with a particular personality or outlook on life? How might a person’s hometown come to define him or her?

5.  Puran is called half-witted and an imbecile, he’s a kind of “holy fool” who creates mayhem, but he has a special gift for communicating with and gaining the trust of animals. What do you think the character of Puran represents in the novel? What important roles does he play?

6. Ama and Diwan Sahib, two central, elderly characters in the book, are from vastly different backgrounds. One is an unread, poor village woman, the other a learned aristocrat. What is the source of their mutual trust and unstated affection?

7.  Why do you think Maya first falls in love with Veer? How is he similar to Michael? Is there any indication that he might have ill intentions?

8.  Two of the book’s prominent characters, Michael and Maya’s father, play no direct role in the events, and we meet them only through Maya’s thoughts: the past seems as vivid as the present in her life. What does this tell us about the role of memory in the book?

9.  Why was Jim Corbett’s life so appealing both to Diwan Sahib and to Maya? How do both characters try to live by Corbett’s philosophy? What does the act of writing about him say about the personalities of both Diwan Sahib and Maya?

10.  Diwan Sahib and the General are relics of an old way of life in India. Do you think the new generation will learn from their mistakes? Can the younger people fully appreciate the old men’s glories and struggles?

11.  Charu is illiterate when readers are first introduced to her, but she eventually learns to read and write, and she eventually escapes her small village. Did her evolution surprise you? What would have happened to her if she hadn’t been able to find Kundan in Delhi? Would she have been able to resume her old way of life?

12.  Why do you think Diwan Sahib never shared the letters between Nehru and Edwina?

13.  Given the heavy foreshadowing of political and religious unrest in the region, it’s a great relief when Ranikhet native Ankit Rawat wins the election. Do you think this victory shows that the village will remain intact? Or will these pockets of unrest cause further problems in the future?

14.  For most of the novel, the situation for Miss Wilson and the other teachers and students at Maya’s school seems ominous. Do you think they’ll continue to be safe?

15.  Where do you think Maya will go at the end of the novel? What will happen to Ama and Puran? Did Maya do the right thing in destroying Diwan Sahib’s will?


Enhance Your Book  Club


1.  The author’s love of nature is evident on almost every page of The Folded Earth. Go for a walk outdoors with the members of your book group—even if it’s not quite as majestic as the views that Maya sees every day, find elements of nature that speak most to you in the place where you live.

2.  From roti and biryani to mango pickles, The Folded Earth features a wide variety of Indian foods. Have each member of your book club bring an Indian dish to your discussion of The Folded Earth, and sample some of the delicacies described in the book.

3.  Maya has many dreams that mirror her mood or predict future events. Have the members of your book club describe dreams they’ve recently had, and use a dream book or website to try to interpret the meanings of these dreams.


A Conversation with Anuradha Roy


You currently live in Ranikhet with your husband. What is your experience of the region? What would you like readers of The Folded Earth to take away about what life is like in contemporary India?

Young locals in Ranikhet often have the sense that life is elsewhere, and leave the town for cities like Delhi looking for the buzz, energy, and opportunities in them. In Ranikhet, by contrast, life is spartan, the weather is often harsh, the solitude can seem extreme to those unused to it. The pace is very different—everything takes more time—and it has none of a big city’s anonymity nor its aggression. If readers went to Ranikhet after being in Delhi or Mumbai they would get to know two very different sides of India.


It’s clear from the lush descriptions in the novel that you are deeply enamored of the natural phenomena of the book’s setting. How do you think the setting informed the events of the novel? What are some of the defining characteristics of “hill people”?


A big theme of the book is the place of wilderness in our lives—so “nature” in the book is not meant to be decorative, it is central to it. At the level of what happens in the book, many of those things could have happened only in these mountains: Corbett, the wildlife, the climbing.

I can’t generalize about hill people, of course, and nobody is isolated from urban influences any more because of TV and the media. But it’s striking how generally good-tempered and lighthearted the villagers are there despite leading such hard lives. It’s not just a matter of good manners—it’s their way of being. Most people there will sacrifice making more money for lying about in the sun in the afternoon for a snooze or chatting with friends. It’s as if they’ve discovered the secret of contentment without a single self-help book.


Maya thinks of Ranikhet as a refuge from her troubled past. Do you think she can ever fully escape? Are you drawn to Ranikhet for any of the same reasons that Maya is? How much of what you’ve written in the novel is informed by actual circumstances?


Maya and I don’t actually share anything but a propensity for long walks. Some things I experience obviously go into my fiction, in the sense that they can trigger a thought process or idea, but they are transformed as I develop the idea. The Ranikhet in the book is not the Ranikhet of real life. Not even the map. Politically, the things that happen in the book reflect disturbing trends in India as a whole, but are not specific to Ranikhet.


You describe Veer’s phone and Internet connection, even while characters like Ama and Charu live rather provincial lives. How much has modern technology impacted impoverished villages like Ranikhet?  Do you think the divide between the haves and have-nots is increasing?


The divide between haves and have-nots is increasing all over the country. At the same time, modern technology has begun to reach remote places and is accessible to many more people than before. Village women used to be tongue tied when asked to speak on a telephone; now I see them using their own cell phones. Yet they might still be extremely deprived in their daily lives, doing hard physical labor, eating poor food, walking long distances to fetch drinking water. It’s difficult to make any sense of it.


Although many of the themes and subjects you write about in The Folded Earth are deeply serious, there’s a great deal of humor throughout. How do you balance the two?


I guess what is serious need not be grim, and this is true of fiction as much as it is of life.


You’re an editor at Permanent Black, an independent press that specializes in South Asian history, politics, and culture. How does being an editor differ from being a writer? Please tell us more about the press.


We started our press, my husband, Rukun Advani, and I, eleven years ago. It began with one book on our list, our own savings, and no work space but our dining table. We went through huge uncertainty at that time, not knowing if we would survive; gradually the imprint established itself and the list grew into 300 books by the best scholars on South Asia. But we still work at our dining table and are still independent.

Editing needs you to enter another writer’s head, see a text as the writer; writing fiction needs you to shut yourself into a world that exists only for you, one that you are creating. Editing needs empathy and outwardness; writing needs a cocoon. I couldn’t balance the two. I stopped editing and switched to designing our covers.


You left the ending of The Folded Earth ambiguous. Do you have an idea in your head of what might become of Maya after the close of the novel? Or what might happen to the village itself?


I know only as much as the reader does.


The Folded Earth
is your second novel. What did you learn in the process of publishing your first novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, and how does this experience compare?


The publishing process for Atlas was long and disheartening because of the number of times it was rejected, and that left me in despair. The excitement, newness, and thrill of it when it did come out were stratospheric, partly because it was so unexpected that from being universally rejected it would end up being translated into so many languages. The writing of The Folded Earth was as intense, but fortunately the publication process had more of the highs and fewer lows.


What’s next for you? Are you working on a new book?


I’m always writing. But for a long stretch I don’t know if what I am writing will shape into a book. That’s where it is right now.

About The Author

MacLehose Press

Anuradha Roy is the author of An Atlas of Impossible LongingThe Folded EarthAll The Lives We Never Lived, and Sleeping on Jupiter—which won the DSC Prize for Fiction 2016 and was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2015. She lives in Ranikhet, India.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Free Press (April 24, 2012)
  • Length: 288 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781451633337

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Raves and Reviews

Winner of The Economist Crossword Fiction Award 2011

"How does a writer compete against the media's invasion of public discourse in all its chattering, hectoring, commercially packaged format. One way could be by creating a small, inviolable space in which to observe and record all the subterranean upheavals to create those moments of clarity that we value as literature. The small diamond that we have unearthed and enjoyed is called The Folded Earth."

– The Economist Crossword Fiction Award Committee

International Praise for The Folded Earth:

“[Roy’s] narrative is poised and her language precise and poetic, without being flamboyant . . . a story about love and hate, continuity and change, loss and grief in a convincing and memorable setting.”
The Independent

“Anuradha’s ability to seamlessly place the private lives of her characters within a larger socio-political setting is what she carries into her second book [as well] . . . at the end of The Folded Earth you feel a firm belief in the redemptive qualities of life and love.”

– Elle

“A gently perceptive story, half comic and half poignant, of a woman’s struggle to forget her sorrows in new surroundings.”
The Sunday Times

“Tight with life. . . .Roy’s attention to individual words pays off as she conveys the full texture of experiences. . . . Even minor characters are evoked with inventive idiosyncrasy.”

– Daily Mail

"The Folded Earth is pure pleasure, that old fashioned sort of novel in which one can immerse oneself; an absolute treat."
Business World

“Eminently readable, a literary novel that feels timeless and authentic.”

– DNA

“Roy has an admirably restrained style and her novel offers a vivid evocation of North India. She conjures up striking images with the lightest of touches.”
The Tatler

"A jewel of a story."

– The Deccan Herald

“[A] deeply unsettling but beautiful novel . . . utterly enrapturing. . . . As always, Roy’s writing remains gently poignant and metaphoric throughout, every vignette and scenario she constructs feels multilayered and deeply meaningful.”
For Books' Sake

“A perfect treat . . . Roy brings her characters vividly and amusingly to life.”

– Country and Town House Magazine

“There is a gentle perfection to the way Roy writes. . . . A beautiful love story. . . . about people who love and long—impossibly?—and love again.”
The Hindu

“Anuradha Roy’s second novel demands that the reader pause, slow down, savour this work. . . . I hear echoes of Anita Brookner and Edna O’Brien and other writers like them as Roy brings Maya and her travails to life.”

– Biblio

“A book you will hold close to your heart long after the last page is turned.” —First City Magazine

Praise for An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy:

“Every once in a great while, a novel comes along to remind you why you rummage through shelves in the first place. . . . [A]s you slip into the book’s pages, you sense you are entering a singular creation. . . . And then, suddenly, you are swept away. . . . This, you think, is the feeling you had as you read Great Expectations or Sophie's Choice or The Kite Runner. This is why you read fiction at all.”

– The Washington Post

“Roy’s prose does not hit a single wrong note: its restrained beauty sings off the page.” —Neel Mukherjee, Time Magazine

“Refreshing. . . . [Roy] defines her characters quickly and skillfully, she has a keen eye for landscape, and she knows how private lives can suggest the larger shape of the public world.” —The New York Times

“Set in mid-twentieth-century India, this debut novel spans generations and political upheavals, [chronicling] both the strength of domestic bonds and the wounds that parents and children, and husbands and wives, inflict on each other.” —The New Yorker

“Epic. . . . [a] gorgeous, sweeping novel.” —Ms Magazine

“Impressive. . . . With her rich imagination, vivid descriptions, and skillful handling of events. . . . Roy weaves a tapestry of family life in India. . . . the story and characters stay with the reader for a long time. Roy is a writer to watch.” —The SeattleTimes

“Roy’s prose soars with a lyricism that can take your breath away. . . . From her whirlwind opening sentences, readers know they’re in for a ride.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

“A novel to convince us that boldly drawn sagas with larger-than-life characters are still possible in a relentlessly postmodern world. . . . A sprawling epic of love, class and ambition.” —Denver Post

“An incandescently evocative debut novel filled with wrenching tragedy as well as abiding passion.” —Booklist

“[Roy] is a fabulous storyteller with a true gift for transporting the reader right into the heat, smells, and sights of India. . . . a poetic novel easily read again and again. A complete success and an excellent choice for a discussion group.” —Library Journal

“Roy’s impressive American debut. . . the sounds, smells, and feel of Bengal come vividly to life. Cultures may differ, but longing and love are universal.” —Publishers Weekly

"In An Atlas of Impossible Longing, Anuradha Roy bravely explores love, the caste system, and familial lines in a vivid portrait of war-stricken twentieth-century India. This absorbing story defies prediction. Roy’s grace and mesmerizing language stayed with me long after I closed the book.” —Katie Crouch, author of Girls in Trucks

“A novel of beauty, poignancy, and gut-churning suspense. . . . A lyrical love letter to India’s past—an India of innocent child brides and jasmine-scented summer evenings. . . . Poetic and evocative, Roy’s writing is a joy.” —Financial Times

“Deftly and sensitively narrated.”—The Independent

"A story to lose yourself in.. . . Anuradha Roy is a wonderful writer. . . . this tale of three generations of an Indian family, set over the span of the 20th century, is brilliantly told [and] intensely moving." —Sunday Express

“Roy’s novel is engaging from start to finish and difficult to put down.”—The Sunday Sun

"Recalls classics from Great Expectations to The Cherry Orchard. . . . Roy's prose is luscious yet economical. Capturing the rhythms of life in rural backwater and big city alike, she strings together jewel-like episodes. . . . giving her story the quality of something remembered." —The National Newspaper

“Now here is a perfect monsoon read: an exquisitely-written first novel that flows limpid and elegiac. . . . you might find yourself unbearably moved by her delicate probing of the fragility of love and longing.”—India Today

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