Author: Nayantara Sahgal
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1991-04-01
Language: English
Pages: 236
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780140154689
Description
A brilliant, unsparing novel about divorce and its implications in Indian society
This is the story of Simrit, lost and bewildered as she struggles to cope with the emotional shock of a divorce plus a brutal divorce settlement inflicted on her. Ostracized, victimized and shackled by memories of the past, her only bridge to a new life is Raj, a brilliant, rising Member of Parliament.
The Day in Shadow can be read at several levels. It is about Simrit, who emerges from the shadows to find happiness with Raj. It is the story of Raj, who passionately believes in freedom and refuses to accept fate as the answer to human problems. And, finally, it is the story of Delhi on the threshold of momentous changes, and a new breed of politicians far removed from everything Gandhi stood for.
COMMENTS
‘She is brilliant complex and questioning’ – Pearl S. Buck
‘Nayantara Sahgal’s book is a understated revelation of what it is like to be a divorced woman. It is a love story but it is also a social history by a talented writer who knows whereof she writers (and) makes the inheritors of Gandhi and Nehru come alive subtly, without sentimentalizing. No magical victory is promised, for them or for their country. But they no longer walk alone’.
- Chicago Sun Times
‘She is a moral writer – though not a moralist. She seed art as all great artists of the past have seen it, as (among other things) an instrument for discerning and affirming the difference between right and wrong. Very refreshing’.
- The Sunday Times