Love's Garden (a novel) launch
Dear Friends and Readers, Near and Far, As I wrote in a story once, there IS a Bollywood Film Song for everything… Take this one, yeah!
It’s a pleasure to announce the ‘happy birthday’ of
Love's Garden
An epic family saga of war, love, friendship, and sacrifice
in twentieth-century India during its fight against British rule…
TANTARAAAHH!! On October 27, 2020
Available to pre-order at:
https://www.amazon.com/Loves-Garden-Nandini-Bhattacharya/dp/195154708X
https://www.aubadepublishing/books/loves-garden/
Reviewers hail it as "wonderfully dense and wise," "gripping," and "a journey into India's complex past" and "what women will do to protect those they love" - an epic saga of Indian women living through a century of war and decolonization
https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/loves-garden/
https://www.netgalley.com/book/199071/reviews
It is 1898. India is ruled by the British, and India's women are ruled by British masters as well as Indian men. A desperate young widow makes a tragic sacrifice to save herself from ultimate dishonor. She marries a stranger for security and shelter, but her damaged second family pays dearly for this Faustian bargain. Then, an extraordinary atonement and strange liaisons in politics and love — spanning the two world wars and the Indian independence movement — help her descendants heal from this traumatic private history. Love's Garden demonstrates the strength, resilience, and unbreakable spirit of mothers and daughters navigating layers of oppression, all while the sun is not-so-peacefully setting on British India.
Upcoming events, virtual, various, and, I’d claim, virtuous:
Readings:
Reading at the KGB Bar, New York City, Nov 15, 2020, 7-9 PM
Book Launch at Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX, Oct 27, 2020, 7–8 PM
Cambridge Writers Workshop and IEE Benefit Reading, July 24, 8-9 PM
The Great Indoors Reading Series, New York, June 19, 2020, 8-9 PM
Podcasts: The Great Indoors Reading Series podcast
Interviews: The Little Creative Interview with Scott Coon, author of Lost Helix
About me:
I was born and raised in India and have called the United States my second continent for the last thirty years. My short stories have appeared in Meat for Tea: the Valley Review, Storyscape Journal, Raising Mothers, The Bacon Review, The Bangalore Review, OyeDrum, and Ozone Park Journal. I have attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Workshop and held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, VONA, Centrum Writer’s Residency, Ragdale Artist’s Residency, and Craigardan Writers Residency (forthcoming). I was first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018), a finalist for the Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize (2018), long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020), and a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women's Literary Award (2019).
I’m currently working on a second novel about love, minorities, racism, and Hindutva politics in India and xenophobic mentalities and other mysteries in Donald Trump's America, titled Homeland Blues.
I’m a fan of Jhumpa Lahiri, Megha Majumdar, Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie,Ayad Akhtar, Ya Gyaasi, and last but not least, Chimamanda Adichie.
I live outside Houston and serve an imperious marmalade cat with the rest of my family. On my days off I recharge at:
https://www.amazon.com/author/nandinibhattacharyawrites
https://www.nandinibhattacharyawrites.com
https://twitter.com/NandiniNbhattac
https://www.instagram.com/nandininbhattac/
https://oneplanetonlyone.com/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20003001.Nandini_Bhattacharya