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- Today, "Madison Square Park" by Abha Dawesar, published on March 5, 2020 at Éditions 10/18.
Vanessa Paunovic, contributor to the reading group "20 Minutes Books", recommends Madison Square Park by Abha Dawesar, republished in pocket on March 5, 2020 at Éditions 10/18.
His favorite quote:
“India is now for me the bitterness of this green soap that I sometimes ingested when I washed my face. And my parents are like the seeds of a bitter orange. "
Why this book?
- Because this book, published for the canceled India Book Fair , should have been part of our selection of books by Indian authors.
- Because it is a tragicomedy which combines all the ingredients of the tragedy: Uma, of Indian origin, is torn by the independent modern New York life that she leads with Thomas, a White American whom she hides from her parents who have a perverse grip on it. And comedy, through the paradoxical attitudes of Uma's parents, doctors both, kind and open-minded towards their patients and determined to marry their daughter to an Indian doctor to respect traditions. To achieve this, they are ready to exercise any manipulation on Uma that they deem useful.
- Because this novel is like crossing the present to go to the future. Uma will gradually find the way to fight, become free and assume their choices by breaking the chains of the family prison with the help of Thomas who will prove pugnacious, courageous and ready to defend Uma and their future child, in this Madison Square Park is also a love story.
- Because Uma leads a double life like its two phones, one dedicated to Thomas and his friends, the other to his parents. Uma thirty, works in a financial firm, she is independent but daughter of emigrants, she is torn apart by the judgment that her parents carry on her, "she internalized their voices in the same way as the victims internalize their executioners".
- Because if Abha Dawesar's first novel, L'Agenda des Plaisirs where she staged a New York homosexual multiplying love conquests, gave her freedom of writing, Madison Square Park is a more intimate novel because it speaks of a couple in an apartment which is the one where the author lives. She wrote her own novels there, and by the time Madison Square Park appears , she must leave it making this novel a farewell to this place of life, perhaps as Uma and Thomas will do to save their couple.
- Because Madison Sqare Park is the story of a quest for identity and the opposition between the past, the East, India linked to childhood, to the weight of traditions, to his parents, a couple who maintains a toxic relationship between love and hate and the enslavement of women and the West, present and future, New York associated with freedom and professional and personal fulfillment. Uma was successful in her career, she is independent and chose Thomas but she remains frightened by her parents as a child. Will she overcome this fear?
- Because Abha Dawesar has a raw, unadorned writing that expresses the questionings of Uma, her main character, weakened by the duty of loyalty to her family that conditions her and the desire to assume her own life choices. The only way she can find is to outrun her parents, to split her life in two, but she is pregnant with Thomas and this whole structure put in place risks shattering.
The essential in 2 minutes
The intrigue. Uma and Thomas live together in a New York apartment in a neighborhood near Madison Square Park. Uma is Indian, her parents are unaware that she lives with an American, white. She discovers that she is pregnant. How to tell your parents? What future can she hold for her child?
Characters. Uma born in India, studied in the United States of America, lives as an American; Thomas her lover, actor who will become a real estate negotiator to earn a living; Mrs Sahni, the mother of Uma Chand Ram Sahni; Uma's father married to Mrs Sahni and doctor; Sudha, Uma's cousin and confidante.
Places. The apartment where Uma and Thomas live in New York near Madison Square Park.
The time. Contemporary
The author. Born in 1974, graduated in philosophy at Harward, Abha Dawesar now lives between Delhi, New York and Paris. Babyji , an erotic learning novel, has won two literary prizes in the United States. Heritage India has been selected for the Medici and Fémina Foreign Awards.
This book has been read caught up in the intrigue, its twists and turns, Uma will she keep the child? Will she manage to free herself from the family grip? Are Uma and Thomas a sufficiently strong couple? What will Uma discover about her father?
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