Nectar in a Sieve
by Kamala Markandaya
Category: Fiction

“This Is a Novel to Retain in Your Heart and Library” —Milwaukee Journal This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved. Married as a child-bride to a tenant farmer she had never seen, she worked side by side in the field with her husband to wrest a living from land that was ravaged by droughts, monsoons, and insects. With remarkable fortitude and courage, she sought to meet changing times and fight poverty and disaster. She saw one of her infants die from starvation, her daughter become a prostitute, and her sons leave the land for jobs which she distrusted. One of the outstanding novels of recent years, this book received unstinting praise from the critics: “An elemental book. It has something better than power, the truth of distilled experience.” —New York Herald Tribune “Unique in poetic beauty, in classically restrained and controlled tragedy.”—Dorothy Canfield Fisher, noted author and critic “Will wring your hearts.”—Associated Press “A superb job in telling her story.”—Christian Science Monitor