Author(s): Padma Viswanathan

General

Inspired by her family history, Padma Viswanathan takes us deep inside the private lives of a Brahmin family as the subcontinent moves through sixty years of intense social and political change. At the novel's heart is Sivakami, a captivating girl-child married at ten to an astrologer and village healer who is drawn to her despite his horoscope, which foretells an early death - depending on how the stars align when their children are born. The Toss of a Lemon is heartbreaking and exhilarating, profoundly exotic and yet utterly recognisable in evoking the tensions that change brings to every family's doorstep.