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Megha Majumdar

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A Burning: The most electrifying debut of 2021 Kindle Edition

by Megha Majumdar (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.1 5,119 ratings

Editors' pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

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'Immaculately constructed, acidly observed and gripping from start to finish, A Burning is a brilliant debut.' The Guardian
'A big hit in America last year, this buzzy debut about the impact of a terrorist attack in a Kolkata slum on three connected characters is full of hot-button global topics, including violent nationalism' Metro

‘Powerful. […] Majumdar’s page-turning thriller seeks to open our eyes to the role of persecution in populist politics’ – Mail on Sunday

‘An evocative insight into class, corruption, injustice and power dynamics, this poignant tale makes for memorable reading’ Cosmopolitan

‘Majumdar conjures up three notably effervescent, intense voices’? Daily Telegraph

'A brilliant character study about politics and power, this assured debut moves at a thriller's pace but with a meticulous eye for detail.' Nikesh Shukla

'A Burning is a political thriller so charged and tense, it will keep you reading after lights out.' Red Magazine

A girl walks through the slums of Kolkata holding an armful of books. She returns home smelling of smoke, and checks her most prized possession: a brand-new smartphone, purchased in instalments. On Facebook, there is only one conversation.

#KolabaganTrainAttack

On the small, glowing screen, she types a dangerous thing…

‘If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean that the government is also a terrorist?’

Set in contemporary India, A Burning is the story of three unforgettable characters, all dreaming of a better future, whose lives are changed for ever when they become caught up in the devastating aftermath of a terrorist attack.

Jivan – a poor, young, Muslim girl, who dreams of going to college – faces a possible death sentence after being accused of collaborating with the terrorists.
Lovely – an exuberant hijra who longs to be a Bollywood star – holds the alibi that can set Jivan free, but telling the truth will cost her everything she holds dear.
PT Sir – an opportunistic gym teacher who once taught Jivan – becomes involved with Hindu nationalist politics and his own ascent is soon inextricably linked to Jivan’s fall.

Taut, propulsive and electrifying, from its opening lines to its astonishing finale, A Burning confronts issues of class, fate, prejudice and corruption with a Dickensian sense of injustice, and asks us to consider what it means to nurture big ambitions in a country hurtling towards political extremism.

A Burning is a novel for our times and for all time.

Print length

302 pages
Language

English
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On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Scribner UK
Publication date

January 21, 2021
File size

928 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of June 2020: A Burning by Megha Majumdar is a thoughtful and thought provoking debut set in present day India. The novel starts off with a young Muslim woman named Jivan leaving a message on Facebook that criticizes the government. The problem is she does so in reference to a train station bombing; as a result, her almost castaway comment will come back to find her. The story is told from three different points of view, which the author masterfully choreographs. There is Jivan. There is Lovely, a Hijra who wants to be a movie star. And there is PT Sir, a gym teacher who finds himself drawn to a local populist movement. Their stories snake around each other to establish a captivating storyline, and while there is ripe space for political and social exploration in this book, Megha Majumbar never sacrifices the inner lives of her characters to explore those broader themes. She delivers on both levels, and that is a truly exceptional achievement. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review

Review

‘A Burning by Megha Majumdar is quietly beautiful and devastating. Its tone and pacing are measured perfectly. It is as funny as it is sad. This book won’t let you go, and you won’t want it to end’ (Tommy Orange )

‘A Burning is an excellently crafted, utterly thrilling novel full of characters that I won’t soon forget. Megha Majumdar writes about the ripple effects of our choices, the interconnectedness of our humanity, with striking beauty and clarity. A stunning debut’ (Yaa Gyasi )

‘Megha Majumdar’s soon-to-be published A Burning is the best debut novel I have come across in a long time. Somehow Majumdar succeeds in capturing the boundless energy and starry-eyed hopefulness of the country’s youth. A Burning signals the arrival of a new voice of immense talent and promise’ (Amitav Ghosh )

‘Polyphonic…Lovely is a particular gem…brilliant’

(Kirkus Reviews)

‘This is a novel of now: a beautifully constructed literary thriller from a rare and powerful new voice’ (Colum McCann )

"Riveting. . . . This is a novel of our pandemic times, an exploration of precarity in all its forms. . . . Majumdar excels at depicting the workings of power on the powerless. . . . Fate has rarely been so many-faced, so muscular, so mercurial, so mesmerizing as it is in A Burning."

(New York Times Book Review)

"Powerful . . . propulsive. . . . This is a book to relish for its details, for the caress of the writer's gaze against the world. . . . The interplay of choice and circumstance has always been the playing field of great fiction, and on this terrain, a powerful new writer stakes her claim." (Parul Sehgal New York Times)

"The must-read novel of the summer. . . . Megha Majumdar's debute novel, A Burning, is aptly named. This all-consuming story rages along, bright and scalding, illuminating three intertwined lives in contemporary India. 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 . . . Majumdar's outrage is matched only by her sympathy for these ordinary people . . . . A damning critique of a culture that generates constant upheaval but no systemic change." (Ron Charles Washington Post)

"Immersive . . . masterly . . . the elements of a thriller are transmuted into prismatic portraiture. . . . A Burning has a similar urgency of appeal [to Faulkner's As I Lay Dying]. Its characters are the very front of the stage, and we can feel their breath. . . . Her spare plot moves with arrowlike determination." (James Wood The New Yorker)

"Powerful . . . a gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary. . . . It's hard not to feel intense heartache while reading A Burning. 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. This novel rightfully commands attention." (USA Today)

"In her captivating debut novel A Burning, Megha Majumdar presents a powerful corrective to the politcal correvtive to the political narratives that have dominated in contemporary India." (Time)

"Propulsive . . . ambitious . . . beautiful and supple . . . heartbreaking." (Boston Globe)

About the Author

MEGHA MAJUMDAR was born and raised in Kolkata, India. She moved to the United States to attend college at Harvard University, where she was a Traub scholar, followed by graduate school at the Johns Hopkins University, where she studied social anthropology. She works as an associate editor at Catapult and lives in New York City. A Burning is her first book. You can follow her on Twitter: @MeghaMaj and Instagram: @megha.maj.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

JIVAN

“You smell like smoke,” my mother said to me.

So I rubbed an oval of soap in my hair and poured a whole bucket of water on myself before a neighbor complained that I was wasting the morning supply.

There was a curfew that day. On the main street, a police jeep would creep by every half hour. Daily-wage laborers, compelled to work, would come home with arms raised to show they had no weapons.

In bed, my wet hair spread on the pillow, I picked up my new phone—purchased with my own salary, screen guard still attached.

On Facebook, there was only one conversation.

These terrorists attacked the wrong neighborhood #KolabaganTrainAttack #Undefeated

Friends, if you have fifty rupees, skip your samosas today and donate to—

The more I scrolled, the more Facebook unrolled.

This news clip exclusively from 24 Hours shows how—

Candlelight vigil at—

The night before, I had been at the railway station, no more than a fifteen-minute walk from my house. I ought to have seen the men who stole up to the open windows and threw flaming torches into the halted train. But all I saw were carriages, burning, their doors locked from the outside and dangerously hot. The fire spread to huts bordering the station, smoke filling the chests of those who lived there. More than a hundred people died. The government promised compensation to the families of the dead—eighty thousand rupees!—which, well, the government promises many things.

In a video, to the dozen microphones thrust at his chin, the chief minister was saying, “Let the authorities investigate.” Somebody had spliced this comment with a video of policemen scratching their heads. It made me laugh.

I admired these strangers on Facebook who said anything they wanted to. They were not afraid of making jokes. Whether it was about the police or the ministers, they had their fun, and wasn’t that freedom? I hoped that after a few more salary slips, after I rose to be a senior sales clerk of Pantaloons, I would be free in that way too.

Then, in a video clip further down the page, a woman came forward, her hair flying, her nose running a wet trail down to her lips, her eyes red. She was standing on the sloping platform of our small railway station. Into the microphone she screamed: “There was a jeep full of policemen right there. Ask them why they stood around and watched while my husband burned. He tried to open the door and save my daughter. He tried and tried.”

I shared that video. I added a caption.

Policemen paid by the government watched and did nothing while this innocent woman lost everything, I wrote.

I laid the phone next to my head, and dozed. The heat brought sleep to my eyes. When I checked my phone next, there were only two likes. A half hour later, still two likes.

Then a woman, I don’t know who, commented on my post, How do you know this person is not faking it? Maybe she wants attention!

I sat up. Was I friends with this person? In her profile picture she was posing in a bathroom.

Did you even watch the video? I replied.

The words of the heartless woman drifted in my mind. I was irritated by her, but there was excitement too. This was not the frustration of no water in the municipal pump or power cut on the hottest night. Wasn’t this a kind of leisure dressed up as agitation?

For me, the day was a holiday, after all. My mother was cooking fish so small we would eat them bones and tail. My father was taking in the sun, his back pain eased.

Under my thumb, I watched post after post about the train attack earn fifty likes, a hundred likes, three hundred likes. Nobody liked my reply.

And then, in the small, glowing screen, I wrote a foolish thing. I wrote a dangerous thing, a thing nobody like me should ever think, let alone write.

Forgive me, Ma.

If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean, I wrote on Facebook, that the government is also a terrorist?

Outside the door, a man slowly pedaled his rickshaw, the only passenger his child, the horn going paw paw for her glee.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0872GQ785
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner UK (January 21, 2021)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 21, 2021
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 928 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 302 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,419,141 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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Cassie Troja

Heartbreaking

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020

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Let me start by saying that this book is beautifully written. The author portrays her culture with courage, depth, humility, candor, and profound respect. It is one of the world’s worst kept secrets that the government, especially at the lower levels, is often gallingly corrupt. The storyline, although predictable, is still moving and heartbreaking. I appreciated how this book highlighted various fringe/minority groups as well. The main character is Muslim, which is a dangerous way of life in many parts of India. This is even portrayed in a scene of horrendous and fatal violence against a Muslim family whose only crime was eating beef. However, without expounding and in an effort to avoid politicizing this review, I will simply say that while I felt compassion for the character “Lovely,” I did not appreciate the subtle attempt at normalizing gender dysphoria. This is my primary reason for downgrading this novel.

This is a “chew and spit” book for me, meaning I did not necessarily feel the need to abandon it, but I did not enjoy it nearly as much as I otherwise would have if it weren’t for certain themes. While it is poignant and well-written, and provides wonderful insight into Indian culture, I do <b>not</b> recommend this book, especially for younger audiences. The mature content and inappropriate portrayal of mental illness are not appropriate for teens and below. For older audiences, I would recommend group reading so that discussion can help with processing and digesting with compassion but Godly discernment.

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Abeer Y. Hoque

thrilling provocative and political

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020

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A Burning by Megha Majumdar

“One morning, daylight fails.”

A Burning is Megha Majumdar’s first novel, combining a character study, a political tempest, a communal heartbreak. The chapters are brief and punchy, told from three rotating points of view: Jivan, a teenage girl who lives in a Kolkata slum; Lovely, a hijra with acting ambitions who Jivan is tutoring in English; and PT Sir, Jivan’s gym teacher who joins a rising Hindu party movement. Their personal connections are thrown into relief when Jivan gets caught up in a criminal case involving a terrorist attack (which takes place within the first few pages - no spoilers!).

“The rules are different on a rainy day.”

While the plot of a terrorist attack and its aftermath is the main driver of the novel, I especially loved the urban details of the city of Kolkata. Because Jivan and Lovely are both surviving on the lower rungs of society, the street with its vigor and filth is never very far from view. The hawkers, the dirt, the heat, the crowds - all of it feels tangibly present: “A pillow filler is walking by, twanging his cotton-sorting instrument like a harp.” A great deal of the novel takes place in a prison and that whole dire ecosystem feels painfully real: “It is as peaceful as it gets in a cage.”

I found the main characters compelling, if a little simply drawn (a bit like icons of themselves). For instance, it came as a surprise to me that Jivan was Muslim because nothing in her family’s cultural or religious traditions (or her name or her speech patterns) hints at this. Her religion is a critical pivot in the plot but we’re simply told what she believes. However, there’s enough else going on to keep a reader thrillingly occupied. Majumdar’s gift is in showing how poverty and communal strife can grow slowly yet inexorably into something quite frightening. As different as America might be from India, when it comes to how both countries treat those accused of terrorism, there’s not much moral or ethical ground between them.

“There is a lot about life that the law misses.”

At the individual level, the characters in A Burning are faced with choices that bear upon their personal lives, liberties, and ambitions. Majumdar refers to “the riot economy” and how the persecution of certain groups leads to profit for others. I am reminded of the choices American citizens have made to look away from systemic racism, gun violence, immigrant children locked in cages, the poisoning of water and land and air. There are many roads to fascism and no country is immune, even with constant vigilance. For me, literature plays a huge role in that apprehension. A Burning is a quick read, and I found myself in tears at the end. I’ll happily read more by the author.

6 people found this helpful

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Leslie Kelsay

Three stories, many themes, five stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2020

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"A Burning" is beautiful with spare prose and intertwined stories illuminating aspiration, class structure and nationalism. The Indian setting moves us away from familiar depictions and customs of the themes, making the focus sharper.

Jivan is a slum-living shop girl who witnesses a terrorist attack on a commuter train in which 100 people die and hundreds are burned. A seemingly innocuous comment in a Facebook conversation makes her a target of investigation and prosecution.

PT Sir is a physical education teacher at the less than average girls school Jivan attended. Essentially seduced by a free snack offered because of a political party emblem he picked up at a rally, he stumbles on a career ladder with access to power and wealth, steps on and keeps climbing.

Lovely is a hijra, a transgender woman who is at once an outcast who begs for her living and, with her sisters, sought after for blessings of babies and bridal couples. Jivan was teaching her English to improve her chances for the film career she was so confident could be hers.

This is a compelling debut novel. It's compact and makes the most of braiding the stories and revealing more and more of the corruption, constriction and success.

5 people found this helpful

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Asad Ansari

You can judge it by its color too

Reviewed in Canada on February 13, 2021

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Even the two tone color of the hardcover book is exquisite.

An excellent book, however, I will not remember it for "boundless energy and starry eyed hopefulness of India's youth" as noted on the back cover.

There was no hopefulness of India's youth, that I could see.

But I strongly recommend this novel. Beautifully written. Character leap out at you from the pages. (Many of us would remember a PT instructor from their school days).

Megha - keep on writing

Roger James Elsgood

An important contribution to the constant fight against patriarchy in contemporary India.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2021

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This book illustrates how evil can be delivered passively and negatively by perpetrators who, in a large, overcrowded country where self-interest and self-promotion is an abiding social mechanism, can convince themselves that dog-eat-dog is endemic and the belief in self-survival is paramount. That the winners are not women and the loser is a woman shows the vast distance that India has to go to become an equal society.

6 people found this helpful

Random Robin

A searing read

Reviewed in India on January 12, 2021

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A Burning by Megha Mujumdar left me chilled. And it wasn’t just because the book reflects the realities of present-day India, but because this story could be anyone’s story. This could be your story. This could be my story.

Sedition is a serious crime, one worthy of rigorous investigation by law enforcement authorities, but in the world of the novel, all that gets thrown out of the window. All it takes is a single tweet, post, share, comment to be labelled as public enemy number one—due process be damned. If you are unfortunate enough to have the ‘wrong name’ or practice the ‘wrong religion’, that just makes their job easier. Whatever little hope you might harbour of a free and fair trial, you should leave it at your doorstep the second police drag you hand-cuffed across your threshold in the middle of the night. The system, your friends, the press, your fellow citizens (especially your fellow citizens) will fail you; it would be foolish to think otherwise.

Jivan is living the dream, well not really, but her family is better off now than when they once were. When they leave their impoverished life behind in the village to live an impoverished life in the big city, a chance encounter with an NGO worker brings forth a small reversal in fortune. And so, on a ‘poor-people scholarship’, Jivan begins her formal education at an English school. Jivan is not blind to this privilege and is determined to make the most of it. She studies hard, learns English (the language of prosperity), plays sports with enthusiasm and after passing her tenth standard exam, quits school and gets a job as a salesgirl at Pantaloons, a large retail chain. With her salary, she supplements her household’s income, buys her mother a new saree, a shiny blue one with a border, and for herself a smart-phone — the size of a brick. Her dream of being ‘middle class’ someday is off to a promising start.

Then a terrorist faction set a train on fire one night, and all goes to hell. Jivan makes the mistake of calling out the government and the police on social media for the ineffectualness. It doesn’t help that she was present at the railway station (to smoke a cigarette, oh the irony) at the time of the burning. Or that she is Muslim. Or poor. As the book progresses, we learn that’s all the government needs to declare her as the culprit and for people to bay for her blood.

The story is told from three distinctive points of view: Jivan (the protagonist, the victim), Lovely (the hijra, Jivan’s only friend and ally) and PT Sir (an opportunistic teacher at her old school, who feels slighted by her insufficient gratitude for the kindness he has shown to her, he had after all given her food from his tiffin. A banana here, a sandwich there).

Amongst the three voices, I found Lovely’s to be the most compelling and entertaining (if such a thing can be said about this book). She also shares the most in common with Jivan; they both live on the fringes of society and have the audacity to want a better life for themselves. Perhaps this is why they are drawn to each other. Lovely dreams of becoming a movie star and Jivan teaches her English so that she can read scripts and talk to big-big movie producers. By sheer luck and a strange turn of events, Lovely gets her big break, but it comes at a price. Did you really think it would be free?

Of all the characters, it was PT Sir, who was the most hair-raising. The man, dare I say, embodies the worst in all of us, an ordinary person, all too willing to turn the other way in the face of depravity if it is self-serving. The author portrays this so splendidly in the final conversation between Bimal, the newly appointed chief minister and PT Sir. The scene left me with a deep sense of discomfort because it was all too easy to slip into his shoes and roost there.
I loved the sparse, unsentimental prose. It felt as though the author had chosen each word, each sentence, each analogy to inflict the most hurt upon the reader. Ironically, it is the lack of melodrama that darkens the mood of the book.

I did not care much for the interludes that expand upon the lives of the minor characters. At one point, especially with these sections, it felt like the book was trying to do too much. Also, the quick changes in perspective and the switch from first person to third person takes some getting use to, but these are small gripes.
No matter what side of the political divide you come from, A Burning gives you a lot to think about. For that alone, I would recommend it.

3 people found this helpful

Carolyn

Intriguing characters yearning for a better life in modern India.

Reviewed in Canada on July 15, 2020

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This is a powerful book that is short and concise but reads like an epic. I would have been happy if this novel were expanded to reveal more about the struggles facing the intriguing characters and the city in which they lived. This is a remarkably accomplished debut and I hope the author has plans for more books in the future. Told through the viewpoints of three fascinating and different people, what they have in common is a burning ambition to improve their lot in life in modern-day India.

Jivan is a Moslem girl living in extreme poverty in the slums. She desires to rise to a middle-class lifestyle. She is on her way having obtained a salaried position at a clothing store in the Mall. She is hardworking and helpful in her community. Fate intervenes when she is on her way to deliver a parcel of textbooks to a person she is helping learn English. She is observed near the train station during the time when there was a massive explosion on the train and numerous people died. Jivan had been entertaining herself posting on FaceBook and she wrote a comment disparaging the police. She was promptly arrested as the authorities needed someone to blame, and they decided her package of books contained incendiary devices. She had been messaging a young foreign man on FaceBook. The police regarded him as a terrorist recruiter. Jivan knew nothing of his beliefs and they only talked about mundane, everyday things. She is taken to prison and is awaiting trial for the deaths of about 100 people.

Lovely is a hijra, belonging to a group born male but living as females, and now recognized as a third sex. The group makes a meagre living by providing blessings, songs and dance to new parents and at wedding parties. They occasionally have to resort to begging on the street and on trains. Lovely has dreams of becoming an actress. To reach these goals she has been learning English from Jivan and taking drama lessons. She could be a positive witness for Jivan and provide an alibi.

PT Sir works as a physical education teacher at a girls' school He is befriended by chance by members of the right-wing opposition group. He is ambitious and rises quickly in politics. He is paid to attend court pretending to be a witness against those unlucky people charged with crimes. He once taught Jivan and thought she had a future as a talented athlete. At school, she was ragged and hungry, and he shared lunches with her. He resented that she left school without saying goodbye or thanking him.

The story encompasses themes of class, political corruption, injustice, religious intolerance, and betrayal. It touches on how internet media and false news can contribute to one's fame or doom.
Will Lively or PT Sir provide testimony to save Jivan while putting aside their own ambitions and dreams?

5 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Sure-footed, lithe and immersive!

Reviewed in India on July 27, 2020

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Megha Majumdar's debut novel is a grim but accurate portrayal of contemporary India, written with great empathy and flair. The narrative swivels between three central characters:

Jivan - A young, ambitious woman whose life is upended due to a tiny social - media misadventure. By questioning the administration about their handling of a terrorist attack, she finds herself accused of conspiring against the state.

Lovely - A starry-eyed 'hijra' living in the same slum as Jivan and whose been at the receiving end of Jivan's kindness and is a key witness in her trial.

PT Sir - Jivan's PE teacher in school, whose political aspirations constantly erode his moral fortitude. He is not inherently evil, but gradually adorns the depravity required to further his cause, unmindful of the consequences.

Through these three primary narratives and a series of interludes attributed to other smaller characters, the author tackles a variety of issues afflicting our society - communalism, judicial apathy, media trials, mob lynching, corruption and the politics of hatred.

Each character has a unique voice. Lovely especially stands out as she exclusively speaks in the present continuous tense - "I am reading the words so many times I am knowing them like a song.". We understand their fears, their motivations and their actions through their eyes.

The story moves on with a sense of inevitability. In one of the more poignant lines Jivan says, "The goat must have had a life, much like me. At the end of its life, maybe it had been led by a rope to the slaughterhouse, and maybe, from the smell of blood which emerged from that room, the goat knew where it was being taken.". The conclusion, although predictable, leaves you with a sense of despair.

The writing is sure-footed, lithe and immersive. The first-person narration keeps the reader hooked right till the end. The novel is written with earnestness and it shows. Give it a read - you won't regret it.

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