SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
Maya Saroya narrates this novel, beginning with Sara’s tale, which is presented in the first person. A scholarship student from India, Sara is studying literature at university in England in the 1980s. Saroya portrays Sara as a gentle soul with a quiet English accent. She begins making pottery in a studio in a church basement. As fate would have it, the studio is owned by Elango, the young man who taught her the craft of pottery as a child. Saroya tells his story in the third person, with an Indian accent for him and the people of his village. When Saroya tells the story of the dog that adopted Elango, she captures the special tone of voice one uses when talking to a dog. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 05/30/2022
The art of pottery looms large in Roy’s latest, a novel of small tragedies (after All the Lives We Never Lived). Narrator Sara, a lonely Indian student on scholarship at a damp English university, seeks solace in a pottery studio in the basement of a local church. It is clear early on, however, that the story belongs to Sara’s teacher, Elango, a gifted Hindu potter. Years earlier in India, when Sara was a child there, Elango begins work on a beautiful terra-cotta horse after a vivid dream, and in the meantime has fallen in love with Zohra, the Muslim granddaughter of a blind calligrapher. But Elango’s finished work of art, which has been decorated with Urdu poetry written by Zohra’s grandfather, causes an explosion of violent religious animosity, and Elango and Zohra are forced to flee to Delhi together, leaving behind a beloved dog named Chinna with Sara’s family, thus binding the characters to one another. Roy delivers profound insights on the power of art (“Work with whatever earth you get,” Elango tells Sara. “A potter knows how to do that”), the hideous nature of religious intolerance, and perhaps most sadly, the consequences of pursuing a dream. This is Roy’s best to date. (July)
From the Publisher
The Earthspinner captures the mood of sectarian strife and futile fanaticism in contemporary India. And yet it is a quiet, gentle work, never gratuitous…Intricate yet intimate, the novel allows imagination to fill the rest – as all good fiction should.” — Sana Goyal, The Guardian
"A story of love, loss and longing; tradition, creation and destruction; and the invisible lines that divide humans, animals and the divine...a quiet, gentle work, never gratuitous...Intricate yet intimate, the novel allows imagination to fill the rest – as all good fiction should." — The Guardian
"Roy delivers profound insights on the power of art ... the hideous nature of religious intolerance, and perhaps most sadly, the consequences of pursuing a dream. This is Roy’s best to date." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Roy's multilayered novel evokes the craft of pottery with a gentle touch while rendering a moving depiction of the power of guilt." — Booklist (starred review)
"Like Roy's other novels, The Earthspinner uses dreamlike lyricism alongside even-handed description, giving its gradual accumulation of tension a mesmerizing cadence. ... With these various perspectives framing Elango's dreamlike tale, The Earthspinner is a kaleidoscopic glimpse into the fragile web of connections and ruptures, divine convergences and missed opportunities that make up life's unpredictable and breathtaking pattern." — Shelf Awareness
“The literary and mythological references, coupled with Roy’s vivid descriptive prose, provide a rich texture to the narrative. The subtle moments of foreshadowing add to the narrative sophistication.” — Chandrima Das, The Telegraph
“A quiet and moving work that gathers together an intricate web of modern lives and experiences, but breathes into them the elemental power of mythology, of the natural world, and of human love and hate... Here, both beauty and truth are terrible, incendiary, consuming. But Roy shapes it all with the touch of a seasoned potter, deft and light.” — Mandakini Dubey, Biblio
“Deeply resonant with the world of today. The novel is a haunting investigation into grief and loss and the need for creative impulse to rise above it all…about the fragility of the freedoms to live and love the way we want.” — Reader's Digest
The Guardian
"A story of love, loss and longing; tradition, creation and destruction; and the invisible lines that divide humans, animals and the divine...a quiet, gentle work, never gratuitous...Intricate yet intimate, the novel allows imagination to fill the rest – as all good fiction should."
Sana Goyal
The Earthspinner captures the mood of sectarian strife and futile fanaticism in contemporary India. And yet it is a quiet, gentle work, never gratuitous…Intricate yet intimate, the novel allows imagination to fill the rest – as all good fiction should.
Chandrima Das
The literary and mythological references, coupled with Roy’s vivid descriptive prose, provide a rich texture to the narrative. The subtle moments of foreshadowing add to the narrative sophistication.
Mandakini Dubey
A quiet and moving work that gathers together an intricate web of modern lives and experiences, but breathes into them the elemental power of mythology, of the natural world, and of human love and hate... Here, both beauty and truth are terrible, incendiary, consuming. But Roy shapes it all with the touch of a seasoned potter, deft and light.
Booklist (starred review)
"Roy's multilayered novel evokes the craft of pottery with a gentle touch while rendering a moving depiction of the power of guilt."
SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile
Maya Saroya narrates this novel, beginning with Sara’s tale, which is presented in the first person. A scholarship student from India, Sara is studying literature at university in England in the 1980s. Saroya portrays Sara as a gentle soul with a quiet English accent. She begins making pottery in a studio in a church basement. As fate would have it, the studio is owned by Elango, the young man who taught her the craft of pottery as a child. Saroya tells his story in the third person, with an Indian accent for him and the people of his village. When Saroya tells the story of the dog that adopted Elango, she captures the special tone of voice one uses when talking to a dog. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
