Product Description

Spanning three generations, this story centres around a woman born at the turn of the 20th century into an austere Punjabi family. It tells of an illicit affair and its wider political and social implications - not least the vexed issue, for Indian women, of marriage versus education.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42937 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Extraordinary and universal
This is a rare thing: a novel that sticks in the mind long after you finish the last page. It is beautifully written, with a story that is fascinating in so many ways. Yet it is set in the real world; not just a real place and time, but one that feels real, seeping out of the pages to envelope the reader.

I picked up this novel as part of a triple pack (a Faber 'threebie') of Indian writers. I don't have an Indian background, and I've never visited India - I just read alot, and I like reading different kinds of books. The package looked like a literary bargain, and it was - it was well worth the price just for this one novel, which I doubt I would have discovered in any other way.

"Difficult Daughters" is a fascinating insight into many things: into history; into a distant culture; but, most importantly, into human hearts and minds. To an Anglo-Saxon reader, the distance in time and place may, on one level, make this escapist novel; but on another level it does what all the best escapist (or fantasy) novels do: it makes you look inside yourself.

Despite being set during the Indian Partition, this is not an overtly political novel. However, a surprising amount of information about Partition - the political crisis that literally tore apart a nation - is imparted. Enough information to make this reader curious enough to investigate further...

Kapur's beautifully complex and romantic world in words
Kapur's Difficult Daughters has introduced me to an emotive history so complex and moving that I too now have a clearer understanding of and relationships with elements of my own Mothers and Grandmothers past.
I could sense Virmati's intensity of passion and plight as Kapur made the words I read from each page come to life, my stomach wretched with hers and my heart tightened too with each of Virmat's sobs.
This is a tale of stuggle, traditional repression and independence.
A must read for anyone who can survive an intensly imagined romantic story being told during the Bloody partition era in India .

For sensitive and romantic souls
I hope it won't remain Manju Kapur's only book. Difficult Daugthers is for sensitive and romantic souls particularly for those who love and understand India. While you struggle against superstition and social emargination with young Virmati, her inner sorrow merges into the bigger pain of a whole nation during the horrors of Partition. Beautifully written and deeply moving.