In penetrating nonfiction prose, Raghu Karnad retrieves from obscurity the epic of India's Second World War-a war the world reveres, but India would choose to forget'-Provided by publisher.įull Bibliographic Record Publication information: The 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. 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. His army fights for the British empire, even as his countrymen fight for freedom from it, and Indian soldiers end up on both sides of the vast conflict. 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.

The first rule of write club is, you don’t talk about write club.'A brilliantly conceived nonfiction epic, a war narrated through the lives and deaths of a single family. You only have to walk down the road to find a story. What about India fascinates you the most? Something that never goes out of fashion. Write for yourself, publish for other people.

I laze around with family and close friends. Good ideas have a way of arriving just before you fall asleep. You would most like to be stranded on a deserted island with?Ĭoffee, a kettle, and a little milk. I do have favourite books.Īs a child, which book was your favourite? It’s where the puzzles of the world meet the puzzles of language, and you try to figure them out together. He lives between Bengaluru and New Delhi. Karnad is a contributing editor at the Wire.in and his writing has appeared in various newspapers and magazines. It has been shortlisted for the 2016 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize, which celebrates the best non-fiction on a historical subject. Described as a masterpiece by critics, the book recounts the history of India’s World War II through the lives of a single family. Raghu Karnad is a writer and journalist, and the author of Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War (2015).

Raghu karnad book