A Guardian and a Thief

Majumdar (A Burning) spins a luminous story of a family facing climate catastrophe and food scarcity in near-future Kolkata. It revolves around a mother known only as Ma, who manages a shelter between caring for her aging father and two-year-old daughter, Mishti. The three of them have obtained highly coveted “climate visas” and are preparing to join Mishti’s father in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he’s spent the past six months working as a medical researcher. All is hopeful until the household is visited by a young thief named Boomba, who followed Ma home from the shelter suspecting (correctly) that she is siphoning food from her workplace. The plot thickens when Boomba makes off with the family’s passports, causing further complications for all involved. Majumdar conjures a city at once deteriorating and resilient, where markets sell seaweed and synthetic fish, and the city’s “remaining benevolent billionaire” lives on a heavily guarded man-made island in a widening river. As Ma and her family struggle to reclaim the passports, Majumdar unspools Boomba’s backstory, crafting a complex antagonist who gradually gains the reader’s sympathy. There’s no clear-cut villain here, just people attempting to survive and protect their own. This proves once again that Majumdar is a master of the moral dilemma. Eric Simonoff, WME. (Oct.)