This is a book of short stories chronicling the unremitting horror of being a woman in India. It is poetic, descriptive, and unrelenting in its portrayal of what life is like for the unlucky woman who is poor, unable to produce sons or widowed. Each separate story outlines one possible scenario where a happy person is brought to despair, poverty or death through the cruelty of people who use the system to prey on the weak.
But these are not really stories with plotlines. The only important event that happens in any of them is when the victim dies. Otherwise, each is a rich portrayal of misery, described in elegant poetic detail.
A strident torrent of damnation of the Indian social system that condemns the innocent to suffer. A difficult read for anyone with any sensibilities, but an eye-opening experience. Beautiful writing, best read in small doses.
(4 / 5)
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