Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War
Author(s): Raghu Karnad
The debut of a brilliant young writer, Farthest Field tells the lost history of India's Second World War narrated through the joys and tragedies of a single family, the author's own. Bobby, a young man from the sleepy south Indian coast, sensing adventure and opportunity, follows his brothers-in-law into the Army - and onto the front lines of India's Second World War. Manek, his dashing friend is a pilot and Ganny, married to Nugs, is a doctor battling both his asthma and his medical duties high in the mountains of the North West frontier. Bobby's Parsi family is torn apart by two marriages outside the caste, only to be soldered afterwards by tragedy. The narrative travels from Madras to Eritrea, Iraq and Burma, unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and devastated by its violence. 'Farthest Field' reveals how the war transformed India, its army, and the British Empire that had ruled the country for so long and would, barely two years after the end of the war, abandon it to the horrors of Partition. It is a book about loss, the unreliable wisps of memory and of three young lives tragically cut short. In penetrating prose, Raghu Karnad retrieves from obscurity the story of India's Second World War - a war the world reveres and commemorates but India would choose to forget.
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Praise for Raghu Karnad: 'Nothing short of brilliant ... [he] engages with matters of real seriousness - the selective nature of military memory and the arbitrary obsessions of the contemporary literary canon ... with delicately thoughtful elegance ... Completely compelling non-fiction narrative ... a poignant pilgrimage' Simon Schama 'This book tells us that we all have two deaths: when we die and when we are forgotten. But there is a possibility of three births, the third being recreated in an extraordinary book. One of those rare and extraordinary books which bring people alive again. It has been written with imagination and is engrossing to read' Michael Holroyd
Raghu Karnad was born in Mumbai in 1983 and studied political science at Swarthmore College, PA and at Oxford, where he took a first. In New Delhi, he worked for two national news weeklies, Outlook and Tehelka, writing articles that won prizes including the European Commission's Lorenzo Natali Award, and the Press Institute of India Prize for reporting on conflict. He was editor of Time Out Delhi until 2011. He has written for the Financial Times and Granta in London, the journal n+1 in New York, the Caravan in New Delhi and other publications. His essay describing the origins of this book was runner up in the Financial Times-Bodley Head essay prize and was described by judge Simon Schama as 'nothing short of brilliant'. Farthest Field is his first book. He lives in Bangalore, India.
General Fields
- :
- : HarperCollins Publishers
- : William Collins
- : 0.27
- : 31 May 2015
- : 234mm X 153mm
- : 01 August 2015
- : books
Special Fields
- : 320
- : 940.540954
- : Paperback
- : Raghu Karnad