The Far Field

Pushcart Prize winner Madhuri Vijay's The Far Field, beautifully tactile and broad in its historical and socio-political breadth, follows a complex flaneuse across the Indian subcontinent as she grapples with her history, her ambitions, and the turbulent present.

Shalini, a wealthy and erratic young lady from Bangalore, leaves for a remote Himalayan village in the unrest-plagued northern area of Kashmir following the death of her mother. She's certain that her mother's death has something to do with the disappearance of Bashir Ahmed, the charming Kashmiri salesman who used to visit her childhood home, ten years ago, and she's going to confront him. However, Shalini is confronted with Kashmir's politics as soon as she arrives, along with the complicated past of the local family that hosts her. Furthermore, Shalini finds herself compelled to make a number of decisions that might have disastrous consequences for the very people she has grown to love when the village's way of life becomes unstable and long-standing animosities threaten to explode into violence.

Madhuri Vijay offers a profound meditation on loss, remorse, and the limitations of compassion in The Far Field, where she expertly tackles Indian politics, class prejudice, and sexuality through the perspective of an outsider. Her writing is lyrical and full of unusual acumen.