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10 seminal novels questioning what freedom looked like after 1947

10 seminal novels questioning what freedom looked like after 1947
10 seminal novels to read this Independence Day · firstpost.com

Every year, India celebrates Independence Day on August 15.

This article recommends ten storybooks that help people think about what happened when India became free in 1947.

The books are novels, which are long made-up stories.

Some stories are about the day India split into two countries, India and Pakistan.

One book, Midnight's Children, is about a boy born at the exact moment of independence.

Another, Train to Pakistan, tells about a village that receives a train full of people who did not survive.

Some books are about poor families, like Pather Panchali, and some are about people treated unfairly because of their place in society, like Untouchable.

The article says these stories show what freedom really meant to ordinary people.

Reading them is a good way to understand history through the lives of characters.

Key facts

Reading List
10 novels
Theme
Indian independence (1947) and its aftermath
Earliest Published Works
Untouchable (1935) and Kanthapura (1938)
Longest Novel
A Suitable Boy — more than 1,300 pages
Featured Translator
Daisy Rockwell — Girti Deewarein as Falling Walls
Alternate Title
Ice-Candy-Man published as Cracking India
Unfinished Cycle
Upendranath Ashk's seven-volume work Girti Deewarein
Notable Settings
Punjab, Bengal, Kerala, Lahore, Calcutta, Dhaka, London

Quotes

Salman Rushdie

Author of Midnight's Children

“Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, and his life gets tied to the new nation's in ways that are part magic, part curse.”
firstpost.com

Sources

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