China Room

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021, a thrilling and heartbreaking story of love, family, survival and betrayal from the prize-winning author of The Year of the Runaways

Mehar, a young bride in rural Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. It is 1929, and she and her sisters-in-law - married to three brothers in a single ceremony - spend their days hard at work on the family farm, sequestered from contact with the men. When Mehar develops a theory as to which of them is hers, a passion is ignited that will put more than one life at risk.

Spiralling around Mehar's story is that of a young man who in 1999 travels from England to the deserted sun-scorched farm. In flight from the traumas of his adolescence, he spends the summer in painful recovery, gathering strength for the journey home.