Thrity Umrigar

"The story of two Indian women, one a victim of a brutal crime and the other an Americanized journalist returning to India to cover the story, and the courage they inspire in each other"--

Honor

A Novel (P.S.)

The Space Between Us

The bestselling, critically acclaimed author of The Space Between Us and The World We Found deftly explores issues of race, class, privilege, and power and asks us to consider uncomfortable moral questions in this probing, ambitious, emotionally wrenching novel of two families—one black, one white. During a terrible heat wave in 1991—the worst in a decade—ten-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects, alone, for seven days, without air conditioning or a fan. With no electricity, the refrigerator and lights do not work. Hot, hungry, and desperate, Anton shatters a window and climbs out. Cutting his leg on the broken glass, he is covered in blood when the police find him. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked. When she comes to, she repeatedly asks for her baby boy. She never meant to leave Anton—she went out for a quick hit and was headed right back, until her drug dealer raped her and kept her high. Though the bond between mother and son is extremely strong, Anton is placed with child services while Juanita goes to jail. The Harvard-educated son of a US senator, Judge David Coleman is a scion of northeastern white privilege. Desperate to have a child in the house again after the tragic death of his teenage son, David uses his power and connections to keep his new foster son, Anton, with him and his wife, Delores—actions that will have devastating consequences in the years to come. Following in his adopted family’s footsteps, Anton, too, rises within the establishment. But when he discovers the truth about his life, his birth mother, and his adopted parents, this man of the law must come to terms with the moral complexities of crimes committed by the people he loves most.

A Novel

Everybody's Son

From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of The World We Found and The Space Between Us comes a profound, heartbreakingly honest novel about friendship, love, and second chances. An experienced psychologist, Maggie carefully maintains emotional distance from her patients. But when she agrees to treat a young Indian woman who tried to kill herself, her professional detachment disintegrates. Cut off from her family in India, and trapped in a loveless marriage to a domineering man who limits her world to their small restaurant and grocery store, Lakshmi is desperately lonely. Moved by Lakshmi's plight, Maggie offers to see her as an outpatient for free. In the course of their first sessions in Maggie's home office, she quickly realizes that what Lakshmi really needs is not a shrink but a friend. Determined to empower Lakshmi as a woman who feels valued in her own right, Maggie abandons protocol, and soon doctor and patient become close. Even though they seemingly have nothing in common, both women are haunted by loss and truths that they are afraid to reveal. However, crossing professional boundaries has its price. As Maggie and Lakshmi's relationship deepens, long-buried secrets come to light that shake their faith in each other and force them to confront painful choices in their own lives. With Thrity Umrigar's remarkable sensitivity and singular gift for an absorbing narrative, The Story Hour explores the bonds of friendship and the margins of forgiveness.

The Story Hour

Author of Reese's Book Club pick Honor and the bestselling The Space Between Us, Thrity Umrigar returns with a powerful new story about family secrets, a mother's power, and the importance of forgiveness. Remy left India for the United States long ago, taking his resentment for his mother with him. He has now returned with his wife to adopt a baby from a young pregnant girl -- and to see his elderly mother for the first time in many years. Discovering that she is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt for not realizing just how sick she has been and for not seeing to her care. His return and assiduous attention brings her back to life, and Remy is able to settle her back at home. In the process, he finds a note from his late, adored father, opening the door to shocking long-held family secrets which he is only now able to unravel, thus finding a path of empathy towards his mother and a new vision of the father he had idolized. As his mother begins to communicate again, Remy must reevaluate his entire childhood, his relationship to his parents, and his harsh judgment on the decisions and events long hidden from him, just as he is on the cusp of becoming a parent himself. But even more, he must learn to forgive others for their failures. In a heartwrenching story of family secrets and how we move beyond them in order to heal, Umrigar reminds us that no matter how things appear, forgiveness comes from realizing that the people we love are fallible and are usually trying to do their best, in the most difficult situations.

The Museum of Failures

The author of The Space Between Us describes four friends who met as university students in Bombay in the late 1970s as they struggle to reconnect and reunite at the deathbed of one of their group. 50,000 first printing.

The World We Found

A timely and timeless picture book about immigration, refugees, acceptance, and tolerance from a NYT bestselling author. A young girl in modern times comes from India to live in America with her extended family. She feels so alone-like she's not wanted-and then remembers a story her mother once told her about a group of Persians who were ousted from their country and who sailed to the Western shores of India in search for a new home. The king of the region in India did not want to let them in and explained (using a glass of full milk) that the community was simply too full to let them in. The king of the Persian refugees then dumped some sugar into the milk, stirred until it dissolved, and explained to the king that not only would his people integrate well into their society but they would also help sweeten their culture. The Indian king lets them in and they prosper. And, in the end, the young girl realizes that she, too, is being accepted by those in her neighborhood and that she can finally start feeling a part of this new American society.

Sugar in Milk

When Frank and Ellie Benton lose their only child, seven-year-old Benny, to a sudden illness, the perfect life they had built is shattered. Filled with wrenching memories, their Ann Arbor home becomes unbearable, and their marriage founders. But an unexpected job half a world away offers them an opportunity to start again. Life in Girbaug, India, holds promise—and peril—when Frank befriends Ramesh, a bright, curious boy who quickly becomes the focus of the grieving man's attentions. Haunted by memories of his dead son, Frank is consumed with making his family right—a quest that will lead him down an ever-darkening path with stark repercussions. Filled with satisfyingly real characters and glowing with local color, The Weight of Heaven is a rare glimpse of a family and a country struggling under pressures beyond their control. In a devastating look at cultural clashes and divides, Umrigar illuminates how slowly we recover from unforgettable loss, how easily good intentions can turn evil, and how far a person will go to build a new world for those he loves.

The Weight of Heaven

During the wedding of one of their neighbors, the longtime residents of a middle-class apartment building in Bombay look back on their lives, in a study that follows Adi Patel's descent into alcoholism, the romantic betrayal of Soli Contractor, the reclusive world of widow Tehmi Engineer, gossipy Dosamai, and the struggle of disillusioned businessman Rusi Bilimoria to make sense of his life. A first novel. Reprint.

Bombay Time

Binny's class is learning about different holiday traditions, and today it is time for Binny to share the story of her favorite holiday, Diwali, the Festival of Lights--and she even has some special treats to give her classmates. Includes information on the five days of Diwali, what it commemorates, and its special traditions.

Binny's Diwali

Tehmina Sethna's beloved husband has died this past year and she is visiting her son, Sorab, in his suburban Ohio home. Now Tehmina is being asked to choose between her old, familiar life in India and a new one in Ohio with her son, his American wife, and their child. She must decide whether to leave the comforting landscape of her native India for the strange rituals of life in a new country. This is a journey Tehmina, a middle-aged Parsi woman, must travel alone. The Parsis were let into India almost a millennium ago because of their promise to "sweeten" and enrich the lives of the people in their adopted country. This is an ancient promise that Tehmina takes seriously. And so, while faced with the larger choice of whether to stay in America or not, Tehmina is also confronted with another, more urgent choice: whether to live in America as a stranger or as a citizen. Citizenship implies connection, participation, and involvement. Soon destiny beckons in the form of two young, troubled children next door. It is the plight of these two boys that forces Tehmina to choose. She will either straddle two worlds forever and live in a no-man's land or jump into the fullness of her new life in America. If Today Be Sweet is a novel that celebrates family and community. It is an honest but affectionate look at contemporary America—the sterility of its suburban life, the tinsel of its celebrity culture, but also the generosity of its people and their thirst for connection and communication. Eloquently written, evocative, and unforgettable, If Today Be Sweet is a poignant look at issues of immigration, identity, family life, and hope. It is a novel that shows how cultures can collide and become better for it.

If Today Be Sweet

O novo livro da autora de A distância entre nós Uma jornalista indiana-americana volta à Índia para cobrir uma história. Há muito tempo ela e sua família deixaram o país sem intenção de retornarem. Ao acompanhar o caso de uma mulher hindu atacada pela própria família e por membros de sua aldeia devido ao casamento com um muçulmano, a jornalista se depara com uma sociedade onde a tradição tem mais peso do que o próprio coração, e uma história que ameaça desenterrar os segredos dolorosos de seu passado. Em Honra, Thrity Umrigar nos mostra um romance terno e eloquente sobre amor, esperança, devoção familiar, traição e sacrifício.

Honra

Bhima, the unforgettable main character of Thrity Umrigar’s beloved national bestseller The Space Between Us, returns in this triumphant sequel—a poignant and compelling novel in which the former servant struggles against the circumstances of class and misfortune to forge a new path for herself and her granddaughter in modern India. "It isn’t the words we speak that make us who we are. Or even the deeds we do. It is the secrets buried in our hearts." Poor and illiterate, Bhima had faithfully worked for the Dubash family, an upper-middle-class Parsi household, for more than twenty years. Yet after courageously speaking the truth about a heinous crime perpetrated against her own family, the devoted servant was cruelly fired. The sting of that dismissal was made more painful coming from Sera Dubash, the temperamental employer who had long been Bhima’s only confidante. A woman who has endured despair and loss with stoicism, Bhima must now find some other way to support herself and her granddaughter, Maya. Bhima’s fortunes take an unexpected turn when her path intersects with Parvati, a bitter, taciturn older woman. The two acquaintances soon form a tentative business partnership, selling fruits and vegetables at the local market. As they work together, these two women seemingly bound by fate grow closer, each confessing the truth about their lives and the wounds that haunt them. Discovering her first true friend, Bhima pieces together a new life, and together, the two women learn to stand on their own. A dazzling story of gender, strength, friendship, and second chances, The Secrets Between Us is a powerful and perceptive novel that brilliantly evokes the complexities of life in modern India and the harsh realities faced by women born without privilege as they struggle to survive.

The Secrets Between Us

Kesfettigimiz Dünya

“[Umrigar] communicates her childhood longing for a cohesive family in deeply felt portraits of those she loves. . . . It is this combination of personal revelation and empathetic observation that makes Umrigar’s memoir so appealing.”— Washington Post Book World From the bestselling author of The Space Between Us and If Today Be Sweet comes a sensitive, beautifully written memoir of Thrity Umrigar’s youth in India, told with the honesty and guilelessness that only a child’s point of view could provide. In a series of incredibly poignant stories, Thrity Umrigar traces the arc of her Bombay childhood and adolescence—from her earliest memories growing up in a middle-class Parsi household to her eventual departure for the U.S. at age 21. Her emotionally charged scenes take an unflinching look at family issues once considered unspeakable—including intimate secrets, controversial political beliefs, and the consequences of child abuse. Punishments and tempered hopes, struggles and small successes all weave together in this evocative, unforgettable coming-of-age tale. First Darling of the Morning also offers readers a fascinating glimpse at the 1960s and 70s Bombay of Umrigar’s memories. Two coming-of-age stories collide in this memoir—one of a small child, and one of a nation.

Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood

First Darling of the Morning

The author describes her Bombay childhood and adolescence, in a poignant memoir that ranges from her earliest memories of her youth to her departure for the United States at the age of twenty-one, reflecting on such topics as her family life, intimate sec

A autora indiana Thrity Umrigar pinta um retrato incrivelmente detalhado da multifacetada Bombaim. Nascida na minoria parse em um país de maioria hindu, ela frequentou a escola católica, onde o híndi era ensinado como língua estrangeira. Thrity relembra sua educação de classe média e recria sua tristeza diante da excruciante pobreza em sua Índia natal. O lar de Thrity foi fonte de muitas turbulências e recriminações emocionais. Em uma prosa ao mesmo tempo otimista e marcada pela angústia, a autora relata as conturbadas relações familiares e se recorda de como os livros expandiram seus horizontes e lhes deram a força e a coragem necessárias para imigrar para os Estados Unidos em busca de uma vida de aventura, plenitude e liberdade. A Índia, entretanto, jamais saiu das lembranças de Thrity, sendo uma referência constante em grande parte de sua obra e sua casa sentimental, onde estão suas memórias mais queridas e assustadoras.

A primeira luz da manhã

Ziyue Chen

The special bond between a mother and her child begins well before the baby is born. But once the baby is born and starts to grow into her own person, traits from both parents begin to show themselves in delightful and humorous ways. When I Carried You in My Belly is a mother's song to her growing daughter, capturing the warmth and magic of the time when her daughter was housed inside her belly. The girl's laugh, her love of music, her sweet disposition, and her carefree attitude can all be traced back to her time in her mother's tummy, when her mother would laugh, sing songs, eat yummy treats, and dance the day away. Thrity Umrigar's lyrical and playful text are well complemented by Ziyue Chen's soft and delightful illustrations, and together they create a sentimental and insightful book about the special bond between parents and children. With a similar tone to On the Night You Were Born and the spirit of I Loved You Before You Were Born, When I Carried You in My Belly is primed to become a new timeless classic.

Thrity Umrigar

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