Join our book club, where we each time discuss an Asian book or one with an Asian angle in an informal setting.

This time we will read Madhuri Vijay’s debut novel The Far Field.

Madhuri Vijay’s novel is a “fictional” attempt to know Kashmir through the lense of a woman visiting there for the first time. It tells the story of Shalini living in Bangalore who sets out for a remote village in Kashmir after the death of her mother in search of Bashir Ahmed, a Kashmiri salesman.

The Wahington Post writes:

Vijay ... captures Shalini’s wary curiosity about the mountainous realm far to the north of her hometown ... What seems at first like a quiet, ruminative story of one woman’s grief slowly begins to spark with the energy of religious conflicts and political battles. Vijay draws us into the bloody history of this contested region and the cruel conundrum of ordinary lives trapped between outside agitators and foreign conquerors ... The Far Field is most poignant when it exposes the unintentional havoc of good intentions ... The Far Field offers something essential: a chance to glimpse the lives of distant people captured in prose gorgeous enough to make them indelible—and honest enough to make them real.

This Event is for Asia Society Members only. How to become a member?

No registration is necessary. If you have not received information about the location, please contact us at [email protected] for more information.

Suggest a Book
If you have any interesting reading recommendations, please let us know so we can consider them for our next meeting.